By the way I've wanted an oscilloscope for many years but the need for one
has been occasional at best, and they are a bit pricey, not to mention
that I'm tighter than two coats of paint. Ramsey has a Velleman product
that purports to let one use a laptop display as an oscilloscope via the
computer's USB ports as facilitated by the special software the device
comes with. Does anyone who frequents this newsgroup use such a product?
If so would you recommend it?



Don't bother. Real oscilloscopes are a dime a dozen. If you just need one
for occasional hobby use, you can probably find a nice 20 MHz solid state
scope on ebay for under 50 bucks, maybe much less.

If you decide to upgrade down the road, the Tektronix 465B is the gold
standard of analog scopes, they're aging, but still excellent and can be had
for a under $200. 100MHz bandwidth, dual trace, delayed sweep, X-Y mode,
pretty much anything you could want.