The test equipment NovaOS is developed and measured with: what is on the bench, what it has cost, and what we plan to buy next. Suggest what to buy, or what to test.
NovaOS is built in the open, and so is its budget: everything bought to develop and test it, at what it cost with shipping and tax.
| Item | Qty | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Rigol MHO934 | 2 | $1,998.00 |
| Saleae Logic Pro 16 | 1 | $1,499.00 |
| Siglent SSA3021X Plus | 1 | $1,395.00 |
| Rigol DHO924S | 1 | $899.00 |
| LibreVNA | 1 | $650.00 |
| Magewell USB Capture HDMI (32060) | 2 | $638.00 |
| Rigol PLA2216 | 1 | $399.00 |
| Owon ADS802A | 1 | $319.00 |
| Leo Bodnar LBE-1421 GPSDO clock source | 1 | $299.13 |
| Leo Bodnar LBE-1322 fast-edge pulser | 1 | $271.93 |
| LibreCAL | 1 | $166.00 |
| Equipment | $8,534.06 | |
| Item | Qty | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Pomona BNC cable, 12 in (2249-C-12) | 11 | $402.26 |
| Pomona 50 Ω BNC feed-through terminator (4119-50) | 2 | $173.22 |
| Pomona BNC adapter (3284) | 2 | $89.33 |
| Pomona BNC cable, 24 in (2249-C-24) | 2 | $74.43 |
| Pomona BNC tee (3285) | 2 | $41.38 |
| Amphenol BNC to SMA cable, 25 cm | 1 | $28.05 |
| TP-Link Archer TX20U Nano Wi-Fi 6 USB adapter | 1 | $18.99 |
| Uni USB to Ethernet adapter (RTL8153) | 1 | $14.99 |
| UGREEN USB to Ethernet adapter (AX88179B) | 1 | $11.99 |
| Cables and accessories | $854.64 | |
The instruments NovaOS is developed, measured and filmed with, and what each one does.
The MHO900 units NovaOS is developed and measured on: the MHO figures and videos on this site come from them.
The DHO800/900 unit NovaOS is developed and measured on: the DHO figures and videos on this site come from it.
A reference to compare NovaOS against, and a look at which other scopes it could help.
A second opinion for NovaOS's protocol decoders: a bus decoded by the logic analyzer's own software is the reference the scope's decode is checked against.
A clean sine source for measuring each channel's frequency response and the bandwidth limits, and it measures the loss of the cables and splitter in that path.
Calibrates the network analyzer at the cable ends, so the cable and splitter losses it measures can be trusted.
Plugs into the scope's digital inputs: the 16 logic channels, digital triggers and bus decoding that NovaOS runs are tested with it.
Its tracking generator sweeps a sine across the scope's band for the bandwidth and band-limit measurements.
One capture of a very fast edge gives a channel's step response, and from it the whole frequency response: a cross-check of every band-limit filter and of the rise time.
A frequency known to GPS accuracy: it checks how true each scope's time base, frequency readings and generators are.
Records the scopes' HDMI output for the videos on this site, so they show the scope's own screen rather than a camera pointed at it.
What we plan to add next, and what each piece will let us test.
Splits one source into two scope inputs: one channel at full bandwidth as the reference, the other under test, so the source's and cables' own roll-off cancels out of the result.
about $70 to $100Connects the network analyzer, the spectrum analyzer and the splitter to the scopes' BNC inputs without a stack of barrel adapters.
about $40 to $80Eight small computers, set up identically from one configuration, that build, simulate and test everything: NovaOS images, FPGA designs, the test suites. Four run Windows 11 with Ubuntu inside it, so the FPGA tools have Windows; four run Ubuntu directly.
| Name | Machine | Processor | Memory | Storage | System |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seth | Minisforum MS-A2 | Ryzen 9 9955HX, 16 cores | 32 GB | Samsung 980 1 TB | Windows 11 + Ubuntu 26.04 (WSL 2) |
| Ryan | Minisforum MS-A2 | Ryzen 9 9955HX, 16 cores | 32 GB | Samsung 980 1 TB | Windows 11 + Ubuntu 26.04 (WSL 2) |
| Chris | Minisforum MS-A2 | Ryzen 9 9955HX, 16 cores | 32 GB | Samsung 980 1 TB | Windows 11 + Ubuntu 26.04 (WSL 2) |
| Ashley | Minisforum MS-A2 | Ryzen 9 9955HX, 16 cores | 32 GB | Samsung 980 1 TB | Windows 11 + Ubuntu 26.04 (WSL 2) |
| Miya | Minisforum MS-A2 | Ryzen 9 9955HX, 16 cores | 32 GB | Samsung 990 PRO 4 TB | Ubuntu 26.04 |
| Donn | Minisforum MS-A2 | Ryzen 9 9955HX, 16 cores | 32 GB | Samsung 990 PRO 2 TB | Ubuntu 26.04 |
| James | Minisforum MS-A2 | Ryzen 9 9955HX, 16 cores | 32 GB | Samsung 990 PRO 2 TB | Ubuntu 26.04 |
| Venus | Minisforum Venus Series | Core i9-12900H, 14 cores | 32 GB | Samsung 990 PRO 2 TB | Ubuntu 26.04 |
All eight carry the same tools at the same versions.
| Tool | Version | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu | 26.04 LTS | every build runs on it, natively or in WSL 2 |
| Yocto Project | 6.0 | the NovaOS images |
| Rust | 1.99 | NovaOS's programs, with Zig 0.16 and cargo-zigbuild for the scopes' ARM processors |
| GCC / Clang | 15.2 / 21 | the kernel and the C parts |
| Python | 3.14 | test benches and tools |
| AMD Vivado | 2026.1 | FPGA designs (on the Windows machines) |
| KiCad | 10.0 | circuit boards |
| Icarus Verilog | 12 | FPGA simulation |
| QEMU | 10.2 | booting images without the hardware |
| FFmpeg | 9.0.2 | built from source: the player and the videos on this site |
| Item | Qty | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Minisforum MS-A2 | 7 | $5,523.00 |
| 32 GB DDR5 memory | 8 | $3,992.00 |
| Samsung 990 PRO 2 TB | 3 | $1,169.67 |
| Samsung 990 PRO 4 TB | 1 | $849.00 |
| Build computers | $11,533.67 | |
Equipment and test setups NovaOS users suggested, and where each one stands.
None published yet. Yours could be the first.
Know a piece of equipment that would make NovaOS better tested, or a measurement worth making? Tell us: what to buy, or what to connect to what and what to measure. Post it on NovaOS's EEVblog thread.