Finally I've decided what to make my next new project. A DSO... This oscilloscope will be housed in the case of an old laptop that was given to me a while ago by my grandfather after they got a much better one. From memory it's current specs are in the vicinity of: 400-500 MHz processor(Pentium?), 64MB RAM, 4GB 2.5" IDE HDD, broken mousepad, decent screen (will run up to 1024x786?), came with win98, struggles to run cron, X11 and a window manager(twm?) on top of a CLI Ubuntu install.

All this will be replaced allowing me to start from scratch... I will probably keep the keyboard and screen, even if I have to set up an AtTiny or similar to get the interfaces in a format I want. At this stage looking at using an ARM processor or SoC. The CDROM bay will be replaced with pluggable modules with a digital interface to the main board allowing me to change and upgrade input channels or make a computer controlled function generator/DSO that can be controlled from any computer (Running Linux of course :) ). At this stage to allow remote control ethernet/WIFI is planned with an interface probably built from Qt. As well as being remote controllable the oscilloscope will be locally controllable, with the bootloading being handled by coreboot with a linux kernel payload.

I want to be able to use this to help me debug amateur radio rigs up to the 40m band to start with. The pluggable ADC modules allow me to improve if I need better frequency/accuracy. Basic features will include :
-Local control to allow full functionality as a normal DSO.
-Updatable firmware so new features can be implemented.
-Miniumum 50MHz bandwidth for initial product(excluding prototypes).
-Network connectivity to allow remote monitoring.
-Possibly battery, to allow monitoring in locations with limited power outlets
-Using only free and open source tools to design and sharing the designs as open source(github?)

Hopefully soon I'll get a picture of the laptop in it's current condition so you can get an idea of how much space internally I have to work with :)