Brian Welsby wrote:
I have been tinkering with high speed ADCs and FPGAs running currently at 60Mhz and transferring data to my PC over USB. Then along came BBB and it's PRUs
so my thinking is more along the lines of a multi function device, basic scope, logic analyser, frequency counter.....
I have the Open Bench Logic Sniffer (OBLS), and always appreciate good instrumentation with open hardware just making it even better. It did occur to me that the BBB could be used as the basis of a really powerful engineering instrument, possibly by interfacing the PRUs directly with the OBLS's Spartan 3E. And the sky's the limit when one is willing to reprogram the instrument's FPGA!
Indeed, even the very low hanging fruit of attaching OBLS via USB as normal and running the OBLS client on the BBB provides a feature of a kind, since it turns the LA into a detached networked LA with all the benefits of galvanic isolation from your desktop computer that you get for free with Ethernet. Even that small thing can be a bonus.
And I occasionally use my Bus Pirate as a stupid little extra ultra-slow PirateScope when my real scope's two channels are tied up, so I can't resist the feeling that there is a supreme additional instrument just begging to be made here by combining some of these bits of hardware together with BBB. 
If this awesome possibility is going to be pursued further, either through an instrumentation cape or by riding on the shoulders of giants by harnessing existing open hardware instruments or their designs, please let's split it out into a separate thread before it gets submerged inside this kitchen sink topic!!!
Drew's done this splitting service for us before, we just have to ask nicely. 
Morgaine.
