I figured I'd address this in a separate thread.  
    Does anyone (Mica?) have good advice for software that is easy to use that is realtime with high resolution/sampling rate...I'm new to this world and  
hoped a little guidance would save some time and fustration.
 
tanks

Waves makes a high quality plug-in.

Mine's got the software built-in:

So, I guess that's the instruction manual on top?
:-)

But Mica, that has an unterminated BNC connector on the thinnet.  I'm assuming that's not 10 base 2, though.
 
What was the story with the software your dad was running on the OLPC?
 
Drat! I wish I'd gone to the get together, that way I could have cornered him and pestered him about it.

I'll checkout the waves plugin...thanks-
 
-for fun I'd thought I'd repost this pic (takes 4 AA's):

 
Was your dad using some commercially available software?
thanks for the inputs all!!

The waves products looks great...I'll start convincing myself it's worth selling an instrument to have one of those $1300 bundles...watch the for sale section soon for more postings  

If you need some BNC terminators, I probably have some hanging around.
 
Bradley

Elwood
The Waves plugins are probably the best, but they are expensive.  Send me am Email and I will give you some more information.  How did Mica get that thing into her computer?

Ken, I doubt that's the manual.  It looks more like the quick start guide...

It was one of the built-in science tools on the XO (One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)) called measure. There's an oscilloscope hooked up to microphone by default so the kids can look at the waveforms. It also measures AC or DC when you plug in a probe into the jack on the side of the laptop. The oscilloscope can adjust the timebase from 1.25msec to .104167msec.
 
It also has an FFT scheme built in. You can change the horizontal axis to 1125Hz down to 41.67Hz
 
If you'd like to learn more about OLPC, you might want to read about how some students in Peru are using them.  
 
We heard they might repeat the same program that we got ours on at the end of the year. You buy two XO and they send one to you and one a student in their programs. Erik uses it already.  
 
If you want to give a laptop to a child, visit the website here.
 
The FFT in our showroom doesn't have ethernet, it's just the signal input. The book on top has some observation notes. It does have a serial output, and you can control everything by a remote computer. That's phase II.

That's a cool spectrum analyzer. If you've never seen the insides, scroll down here...
 
http://www.amplifier.cd/Test_Equipment/other/660b.htm
 
That's a lot of wire-wrap! And it was probably done by hand (by someone with a lot of patience). I work with analog to digital converters, so I see FFT's all the time, but mine are RF, not audio. What used to be on that big circuit board now can all go on one little chip. Since you're still using this, they must have done a great job of putting it together.

thanks Mica!
That is some easy to digest info..
 
3rd ray...that's alot of signal paths!!!
 Those insides are amazing...it makes a Lowry organ or the like seem like kids play.  
 
   We people have woven quite a web,
...shows what the persistence of a vision can do.

Mike,
Actually those large planar boards were mostly wired by machine. The same technology was used in mainframe computers and peripherals at that time.  
 
Keith

Yeah, I thought it looked too neat to have been done by hand, but the last sentence on that webpage threw me.