On Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 1:37 PM, Brent Hilpert <hilp...@cs.ubc.ca> wrote: > I suffered with a low-end Tek analog scope until a few years ago; have been > using a Tek DSO for the last few years. > > While there are occasions I'd like to have an LA, I can't say there are any > instances where I've had to have an LA (I still don't have one). > From a usefulness perspective I'd get a DSO long before an LA.
I'd generally agree. In my experience, during development of new digital hardware of any complexity, both a DSO and a LA are extremely helpful, but for diagnosing failures of previously working hardware, the DSO is usually more important. If a person has any reasonable business justification, a Rigol MSO1104Z mixed-signal oscilliscope (100 MHz four-channel DSO with integral 16-channel logic analyzer) is under $1000, and for another $230 you can get the model with the -S suffix, which also includes a two-channel waveform generator. I generally don't recommend cheap Chinese test equipment, but the Rigol stuff is actually pretty good.
