Re: USB oscilloscope access from Octave in Linux?

[David Bateman]

Fabiano wrote:
> Hello fellow Octavers!
> 
> I've spent some time searching for how to hook Octave
> up to a USB device (a Tektronix oscilloscope, to be
> exact) to get direct electrical i/o under Linux. No
> luck. Has this topic been addressed here?
> 
> Many thanks,
> 


I don't think there is anyway to do it out of the box. One approach
depends on how the scope registers with linux. If an existing driver in
linux can talk to perhaps because the scope presents itself to linux as
if it were a modem, and if you know the protocol with which to talk to
it, you could probably use fopen/fread/fwrite/fclose functions of linux
to talk to the scope directly. If there is no linux driver for the
scope, do you want to write one?

Why use the tektronix scope in any case, wonderful piece of equipment
that they are, if your goal is to integrate to linux, A good acquistion
card + comedi + xscope seems a very cheap replacement in this case
(cheap as in relative to the price of the Tektronix scope).. You'd need
to write octave bindings to the comedi library in that case, but if you
go that route I'm sure there'd be lots of help you might expect from the
people on this list, since at least some of them will see there own
benefit in such a proposal. You might even be able to talk to the
tektronix scope through the acquisition card with comedi in the end
(though why bother)..

Cheers
David