Hewlett-packard Company

David W Long

Dennis J Weller

A gray scale binary field corresponding to each of the pixels on a raster scan oscilloscope display. Each gray scale binary field has a portion of its bits assigned to correspond to the graphical information and a portion of its bits assigned to correspond to the sampled current and prior waveforms. A decrementing state machine, in a predetermined cycle of operation, periodically reads all of the gray scale binary fields in the display memory of the oscilloscope, decrements each value by a predetermined amount such as the binary value of one, and re-writes the decremented binary values back into the display memory. As these decremented gray scale binary fields are displayed, the older waveforms become uniformly more faded with the oldest waveform having the dimmest illumination. In a typical mode of operation, the predetermined cycle of operation corresponds to the sampling of each new waveform from the system under test so that each subsequent prior waveform is decremented by the predetermined amount.

Digitally synthesized gray scale for raster scan oscilloscope color

A gray scale binary field corresponding to each of the pixels on a raster scan oscilloscope display. Each gray scale binary field has a portion of its bits assigned to correspond to the graphical information and a portion of its bits assigned to correspond to the sampled current and prior waveforms. A decrementing state machine, in a predetermined cycle of operation, periodically reads all of the gray scale binary fields in the display memory of the oscilloscope, decrements each value by a predetermined amount such as the binary value of one, and re-writes the decremented binary values back into the display memory. As these decremented gray scale binary fields are displayed, the older waveforms become uniformly more faded with the oldest waveform having the dimmest illumination. In a typical mode of operation, the predetermined cycle of operation corresponds to the sampling of each new waveform from the system under test so that each subsequent prior waveform is decremented by the predetermined amount. In order to minimize flicker, the first prior waveform is still illuminated at full brightness, along with the current waveform. However, the second prior waveform and all older prior waveforms linearly fade in illumination.

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Colorado Springs, CO, United States of America

David W Long