DSOs and PCs

[Eric]

I recently had occasion to go shopping for a DSO and
was surprised to find that many of them resemble
purpose built PCs running Windows. This leaves me with
an uneasy feeling, though I can't quite say why.

Can anyone here point me to information (white papers,
tech notes, articles, etc.) that addresses the motivation,
and the pros and cons of this move to PC based scopes.
Opinions in this forum are also welcome (I think).

thank you all,
eric

 

[Rene Tschaggelar]

I recently had occasion to go shopping for a DSO and
was surprised to find that many of them resemble
purpose built PCs running Windows. This leaves me with
an uneasy feeling, though I can't quite say why.

Can anyone here point me to information (white papers,
tech notes, articles, etc.) that addresses the motivation,
and the pros and cons of this move to PC based scopes.
Opinions in this forum are also welcome (I think).

Yes, the newer DSO models have aactually a PC built in.
Some of them resemble Windows, some have an embedded
Windows inside.
A few days ago, I happened to have a look at the latest
mixed signal scopes from Agilent, 600MHz and up.
There is an embedded Windows XP inside.
It appears to be fantastic.
The pro : a user surface that is known to the user.
Networking support,USB, drag and drop into word, excel,
whatever. You can make a screenshot and work with
paint shop pro on the same machine. You can assign a
front panel button with the application of your choice.
You can take the traces and do calculations of your own,
and, and, and.
I also had a quicker look at the latest Tektronix mixed
signal scopes. They are very similar to the Agilent ones.
In specs, possibilities and pricing.

Rene

 

[Eric Inazaki]

Yes, the newer DSO models have aactually a PC built in.
Some of them resemble Windows, some have an embedded
Windows inside.
A few days ago, I happened to have a look at the latest
mixed signal scopes from Agilent, 600MHz and up.
There is an embedded Windows XP inside.
It appears to be fantastic.
The pro : a user surface that is known to the user.
Networking support,USB, drag and drop into word, excel,
whatever. You can make a screenshot and work with
paint shop pro on the same machine. You can assign a
front panel button with the application of your choice.
You can take the traces and do calculations of your own,
and, and, and.
I also had a quicker look at the latest Tektronix mixed
signal scopes. They are very similar to the Agilent ones.
In specs, possibilities and pricing.

Rene

And the high end Lecroys are Win2k based.

I gather then, that you don't see any down side to
this practice?

eric

 

[Dr. Anton T. Squeegee]

I recently had occasion to go shopping for a DSO and
was surprised to find that many of them resemble
purpose built PCs running Windows. This leaves me with
an uneasy feeling, though I can't quite say why.

Join the club. It's always seemed to me that there's too much
fluff and not enough function designed into many of the DSO's (Tektronix
included, regrettably -- didn't use to be that way).

Can anyone here point me to information (white papers,
tech notes, articles, etc.) that addresses the motivation,
and the pros and cons of this move to PC based scopes.
Opinions in this forum are also welcome (I think).

Straight anecdotal opinion here. Pastel-colored keys and cheezy
plastic housings don't make it for me. When I went shopping for a
digital O-scope, I tracked down an old Tektronix DSA602A. Now THAT thing
is an impressive (if huge) hunk of hardware! Uses the 11000 series plug-
ins, and can get up to a gigahertz with the right plug-ins and probes.

The cons of this choice is that Tektronix does not support this
product for anything outside of providing calibratioh services and
"best-effort" repair. If you're looking for full support and warranties,
you may be stuck with the latest run of PC-based stuff.

Happy hunting.


--
Dr. Anton T. Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Institute.
(Known to some as Bruce Lane, ARS KC7GR,
kyrrin (a/t) bluefeathertech[d=o=t]calm -- www.bluefeathertech.com
"If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped
with surreal ports?"

 

[Tim Wescott]

The motivation is simply that it's much much easier to add the bells and
whistles to a windows-based machine. All of the networking, remote
controlling, automating, disk saving, keyboarding, etc., is already half
designed for you -- and you can supply the machine with MatLab and (more
importantly) Free Cell with almost no additional effort.

The ones that I've seen from Agilent, Tek & LeCroy still have a "real" DSO
buried inside; when you ask for a scope output the windows machine just
makes a blank spot on the screen which the DSO hardware fills in. This
pretty much answers the mail on the issue of Windows being absolutely
positively not a real-time OS.

I'm sorry to see that they've settled on Windows because it's a poor excuse
for an OS, but I suppose if it were me I'd have to make the same decision,
because of market forces.

 

[Chris Carlen]

I recently had occasion to go shopping for a DSO and
was surprised to find that many of them resemble
purpose built PCs running Windows. This leaves me with
an uneasy feeling, though I can't quite say why.

Me as well. The uneasy feeling that comes before vomiting.

Can anyone here point me to information (white papers,
tech notes, articles, etc.) that addresses the motivation,
and the pros and cons of this move to PC based scopes.

They do all sorts of nifty things like networking, so they can send you
an email when your signal goes bonkers. Nothing that a free OS couldn't
do. It really puzzles me why anybody would want to use Windows for
these sorts of things, when you can't modify the source code, or strip
it down to the bare essentials that you need. It also places your
entire product line into a legal entanglement with MS, since they can do
whatever they want at any time to the EULA.

Opinions in this forum are also welcome (I think).

thank you all,
eric

Well, the ultimate destination is a world in which the only *legal*
operating system and software will be Windows and other MS products, if
Microsoft has their way. And the only legal computing hardware will
have to implement DRM functions, if MS, the RIAA, and the MPAA have
their way. You will have to apply for the rights to and pay royalties
to view *your own* media creations, if they can fully realize their true
intentions.

How would you like to be in the middle of debugging a piece of hardware,
when the files in your scope suddenly start getting deleted by
Microsoft, because they decided (perhaps even erroneously) that your
scope was found to contain "untrusted" software or other files.

Enjoy your freedom while there's still a modicum of it left. Or fight
back, by choosing non-MS software, even if it's a somewhat more
difficult path.


Good day!



--
____________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
[email protected]

 

[Rene Tschaggelar]

And the high end Lecroys are Win2k based.

I gather then, that you don't see any down side to
this practice?

Right. It is the cheapest way to achieve the functionality.
On the same exhibition, where I saw these scopes, I saw
embedded WinXP. After an initial toolset for 900 something
dollars, you get a Win XP for 70$ at small quantities.
Fully configurable to the hardware and required services.
I'm going to have a look at it.
Remove IE, Outlook, user management, digital rights and
a few more things and Win XP becomes slim and stable.
Perhaps...

Rene

 

[Eric]

Right. It is the cheapest way to achieve the functionality.
On the same exhibition, where I saw these scopes, I saw
embedded WinXP. After an initial toolset for 900 something
dollars, you get a Win XP for 70$ at small quantities.
Fully configurable to the hardware and required services.
I'm going to have a look at it.
Remove IE, Outlook, user management, digital rights and
a few more things and Win XP becomes slim and stable.
Perhaps...

Rene

I'm mildly curious, in your experience is Microsoft not pushing
Win CE (or "wince", as I like to put it) for these sorts
of applications?

I see your point, and this "new breed" of DSOs do an awful lot of
cool stuff. But I found it amusing that at least one scope manufacturer
is offering Norton Antivirus as an option.

 

[Rene Tschaggelar]

I'm mildly curious, in your experience is Microsoft not pushing
Win CE (or "wince", as I like to put it) for these sorts
of applications?

I see your point, and this "new breed" of DSOs do an awful lot of
cool stuff. But I found it amusing that at least one scope manufacturer
is offering Norton Antivirus as an option.

I also updated myself on this subject. WinCE is considered
realtime, whereas embedded XP is not.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/xp/default.aspx

As to the antivirus : It is you running a browser there.
And it is you connecting it to a LAN with whatever settings.
Don't open any shares to anyone. Don't give any rights to
anyone.

I didn't try anything yet, just found it intriguing that
there is a customizable XP on the market.

Further a scope is not a safety item. If it happens to crash,
just reboot and ask for a firmware upgrade.

Actually I already have a scope with firmware bugs. No windows yet,
no firmware update either.

Rene

 

[JeffM]

I gather then, that you don't see any down side to this practice?

Eric Inazaki

Your o'scope gets a virus ?

 

[JeffM]

I'm sorry to see that they've settled on Windows

because it's a poor excuse for an OS,
Tim Wescott

....especially when they used to use VxWorks:
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cach...ystem+TDS+tektronix&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8

....and that eCos is now not only Microsoft-Tax-free
but open source as well (free as in beer, free as in speech):
http://www.google.com/search?num=10...+Free+Software+Foundation"&btnG=Google+Search

 

[David L. Jones]

I recently had occasion to go shopping for a DSO and
was surprised to find that many of them resemble
purpose built PCs running Windows. This leaves me with
an uneasy feeling, though I can't quite say why.

Can anyone here point me to information (white papers,
tech notes, articles, etc.) that addresses the motivation,
and the pros and cons of this move to PC based scopes.
Opinions in this forum are also welcome (I think).

thank you all,
eric

To the scope developers it makes complete sense to go this way. Newer
scopes need floppy drives, networking, VGA screen drivers, hard drives
to store the massive programs which are needed to run all the features
etc.
Windows makes the development easy and cheap, and reduces the time to
market.
Trying to "reinvent the wheel" and doing this all this in-house with
your own embedded processor/asic etc is not an attractive option any
more.

The guts of the scope (aquisition, triggering, control etc) is still
done by embedded hardware/asics, with Windows providing a nice
software and back end hardware development platform.
Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it's
implemented. You can design a fantastic intuitive interface around a
Windows based platform, or you can design a complete shocker. The same
goes for old "traditional" digital scopes too. Just take a look at the
Lecroys for instance, they are renowned for designing some shocking
user interfaces over the years.
Windows doesn't have to look like Windows either, all depends on how
you design the interface.

So long as they don't take away the knobs, and put them in a sensible
logical layout that have sensible and logical functionality, I'm happy
:->
A scope is after all a real-time tool, you need knobs and instant
feedback for most applications. Users won't tolerate anything less in
a bench scope. So don't expect to see a standalone bench scope with
only a mouse and keyboard any time soon...

Your true PC-Based scopes go to the other end of the spectrum. They
more and more resemble black boxes with nothing but BNC's on the front
panel. They are designed for a different market entirely.

Regards
Dave

 

[JeffM]

computing hardware will have to implement DRM functions,

if MS, the RIAA, and the MPAA have their way.
You will have to apply for the rights to and
pay royalties [for the priveledge] to view *your own* media creations,
if they can fully realize their true intentions.

...the files in your scope suddenly start getting deleted by Microsoft,
because they decided (perhaps even erroneously) that
your scope was found to contain "untrusted" software or other files.

Enjoy your freedom while there's still a modicum of it left.
Or fight back, by choosing non-MS software
Chris Carlen

I'm glad I finally saw it mentioned here.
It's frightening how few people realize the slippery slope we're on
--especially how few **techies** have a technopolitical awareness.

To all:
A **great** treatment of this is The Digital Imprimatur
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/
by John Walker (a founder of Autodesk). It is LONG (~193kB),
so if you get tired, skip down to the *But, but* part.

 

[JS]

Another PC/DSO new issue to consider is the open architecture.

In Software:
By providing access to the Win memory/tools, rapid development of
custom applications are creating new test instrument solutions.

In Hardware:
USB, SCSI, FireWire, NIC, PCI, D/A, etc. bus cards can be added to the
scope chassis.

Its not your Dad's Dumont anymore. PC/DSOs are to "scopes" what FPGAs
are to early ASICs.

JS