Test and measurement instrument and method for providing post-acquisition trigger control and presentation

A test and measurement instrument and method for providing post-acquisition trigger control and presentation of associated waveforms on a display (135). An electrical signal under test is sampled and digitized, and stored in an acquisition memory (115) as a data record. A display device draws a waveform associated with the signal under test. After the acquisition of the digital samples is stopped, a user selects trigger criteria using trigger controls such as a trigger level control. A trigger circuit (125) detects a post-acquisition trigger event in the data record based on the trigger criteria causing an automatic adjustment of the waveform to conform to a time of the post-acquisition trigger event. One or more configurable trigger controls can be used to adjust a display of post-acquisition trigger events and waveforms. Upon resumption of the live-acquisition of data, the live waveform conforms to the newly selected trigger criteria as previewed during the post-acquisition mode.