How to Use oscilloscope in a Sentence

oscilloscope

noun
  • Still, for those who work with oscilloscopes, this might be a nice way to slack off for five minutes or so.
    — John Wenz, Popular Mechanics, 9 Oct. 2015
  • Of course, the game has appeared on other oscilloscope models.
    — John Wenz, Popular Mechanics, 9 Oct. 2015
  • With an oscilloscope, the game lacks a certain visual élan, with the fuel and altitude readings displayed as two horizontal lines.
    — Stephen Cass, IEEE Spectrum, 28 Dec. 2023
  • The oversized reel-to-reel console, complete with wave-form monitors and oscilloscopes, looks like a relic of the Gemini program.
    — Kevin Cook, Smithsonian, 29 June 2017
  • Tektronix helped popularize the oscilloscope, which became a staple of engineers' lab benches around the world.
    — Mike Rogoway, OregonLive.com, 20 July 2017
  • The oscilloscope was fast enough to capture key features of the data – but recording the output for later analysis was a challenge before Land’s instant camera came along.
    — Ann Elsner, Smithsonian, 18 May 2018
  • This arrangement [schematic diagram below] creates a relaxation oscillator, the output of which looks quite funky on an oscilloscope.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 26 Apr. 2022
  • So Chung and Chu bought an old HP oscilloscope from Craigslist and mounted it on the main electrical panel feeding Chung’s house.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 3 May 2017
  • In a sense, that was not such a stretch of a prediction, because even in 1968, there had already been oscilloscope-style EKG displays for some time.
    — Stephen Wolfram, WIRED, 3 Apr. 2018
  • In 1943 Bell Labs discovered that a teletype machine would cause a nearby oscilloscope's readings to move every time someone typed on it.
    — Andy Greenberg, Wired, 21 June 2020
  • Using an oscilloscope, the attacker monitors the energy consumption of the device.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 10 Nov. 2020
  • Tektronix makes oscilloscopes and similar instruments that engineers use to test and evaluate electronic devices.
    — Mike Rogoway, oregonlive, 4 Sep. 2019
  • The kit works with many CRTs that were designed to be used in oscilloscope-type displays and operated with relatively low voltages—in the range of hundreds, rather than thousands, of volts.
    — Stephen Cass, IEEE Spectrum, 20 Dec. 2019
  • Ekanayake spent the remainder of the afternoon going back and forth from his lab to the parking garage—carrying his multimeter, his soldering station, his oscilloscope and numerous bags of cables, wires and circuit boards.
    — Dieynaba Young, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 July 2020
  • For decades, research labs and medical facilities have used setups consisting of a Polaroid camera and a mounting rig to collect electrical signals displayed on oscilloscope screens.
    — Ann Elsner, Smithsonian, 18 May 2018
  • This made oscilloscope CRTs appealing to early computer-graphics pioneers, who pressed them into service as displays for things like radar defense networks.
    — Stephen Cass, IEEE Spectrum, 20 Dec. 2019
  • But oscilloscope CRTs are relatively rare, while old analog television sets can literally be found littering sidewalks.
    — Stephen Cass, IEEE Spectrum, 23 Apr. 2021
  • Experiments or medical tests needed graphical or pictorial output for interpretation, often from an analog oscilloscope which plotted out a voltage or current change over time.
    — Ann Elsner, Smithsonian, 18 May 2018
  • Batting a ball back and forth is one of the oldest concepts in video games, dating back to the days of William Higinbotham’s Tennis for Two oscilloscope experiments in the ‘50s.
    — Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 22 June 2018
  • The oscilloscope shows an AC voltage of 80 V at mid-swing, but after rectification, it is reduced to 30 V DC.
    — Ameya Paleja, Interesting Engineering, 11 Feb. 2026
  • Learning to see what others miss When Mann was 12 years old, his father brought home a broken oscillograph (an early version of the oscilloscope, used to display variations in voltage or current as visual waveforms).
    — IEEE Spectrum, 19 Aug. 2025
  • Several summers began with Hoff entering the General Railway laboratory to find the researchers’ two best oscilloscopes broken.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 8 Oct. 2022
  • Godfather to Oregon’s technology industry, Tektronix makes oscilloscopes that engineers use to measure the performance of electronic devices.
    — Mike Rogoway, oregonlive, 7 Nov. 2019
  • The Tektronix campus produced a succession of innovations beginning in 1957, where the company developed oscilloscopes for measuring the performance electronic devices.
    — Mike Rogoway | [email protected], oregonlive, 4 May 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'oscilloscope.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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