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Turn your Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope into a 100MHz DS1102E

D

David L. Jones

Jan 1, 1970
0
For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:


Dave.
 
T

Trevor Wilson

Jan 1, 1970
0
David said:
For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into
a 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:


Dave.

**You're a bad man, Dave. A very bad man.

Nice one. Thanks.
 
F

F Murtz

Jan 1, 1970
0
David said:
For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:


Dave.
This url does not open on my seamonkey but does on IE6 (with a warning
to update browser)(which I did not do)
 
G

George Jefferson

Jan 1, 1970
0
What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.

I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.

Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
is expensive.

Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
versions.

I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
few more.

John

The design cost is amortized over all the units. [Hey, don't worry
what the consults charges, it will go to zero as we sell a million
units.]

Rigol does themselves a disservice by having to maintain two
products. They should just sell the higher speed scope, bomb the
market, and then own it.

It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never make it
very far. People like Larkin are too arrogant to understand this. Do you
think people would buy their products if they knew that the only difference
between the low end and high end versions is the price? At the very least
they could have added some true functional improvement that made it
justifiable but simply changing the model number doesn't justify a 40% price
increase.
 
O

oopere

Jan 1, 1970
0
David said:
For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:


Dave.

You can also upgrade high end Agilent scopes buying the "feature" you
want, which turns out to be just a string of characters to be typed
somewhere. It is funny to know that you already own the required
hardware to go several GHz further! Now _that_ would be interesting to post!

Pere
 
M

Martin Brown

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.

"Land of the Free" criminalises lots of things. The punters must be
ripped off by corporate excess at every turn - just look at the DMCA as
an example of how your congress critters are in hock to big business.

The Sony BMG CD rootkit fiasco in 2005 was a particularly nasty example
of this with the boot on the other foot.
I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.

Even as an originator of IP I find it difficult to have much sympathy
for Rigol here when they clearly made no effort to cover their tracks in
the firmware. It would only have taken an MD5 or CRC of the serial
number XORred with a bit pattern known only to them to prevent hackers.

If you can upgrade it by sending it a new model number then why not?

They won't easily stop hardware mods though. Engineers tweaking
commercially available products by swapping out weak components to
improve or make them more reliable has been going on since the year dot.
Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
is expensive.

Indeed. And that is why you should not make it trivial to hack.
Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
versions.

However, it does make the Rigol DS1052E a very attractive proposition
for the moment. UK/Oz attitudes to hacking kit are somewhat more relaxed
than in the US. Almost all DVD players here are available in MultiRegion
hacked form and even NASA brings its DVD kit to London to be doctored.
Region locked players do not sell particularly well to UK film buffs.
I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
few more.

You may as well patch them for 100MHz bandwidth then. Send Rigol the
price difference or whatever you think it is worth if your conscience
bothers you.

Regards,
Martin Brown
 
T

terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's also very dishonest

Fill me in one that please. (I do not waste bandwidth on youtube).

In this country, if I outrightly own item A and item B, what I do with
them is my business (legal restictions aside).

Where was the dishonest part?
Was their an agreement signed prohibiting use of some part on one of the
items
Do
you think people would buy their products if they knew that the only
difference between the low end and high end versions is the price?

Well, the only difference with Casio calculators over the entire range
was the number of wires brought out from under the blob, but they still
sell like hot cakes.
 
N

Nial Stewart

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never make it very far. People like
Larkin are too arrogant to understand this. Do you think people would buy their products if they
knew that the only difference between the low end and high end versions is the price....

....and access to extended functionality that someone's had to be paid to
develop?

Yes.
At the very least they could have added some true functional improvement that made it justifiable
but simply changing the model number....

....and access to further functionality that someone's had to be paid to
develop....
doesn't justify a 40% price increase.


By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs of the
DVD when they sell Windows7.


Nial
 
D

David L. Jones

Jan 1, 1970
0
Nial said:
...and access to extended functionality that someone's had to be paid
to develop?

In this case Rigol actually went to the trouble to design-in circuitry to
enable this 50MHz "cripple" feature. The front end was clearly designed from
day one to be at least 100MHz bandwidth, and they then decided to dumb it
down to meet a lower end market and price point by adding the cripple
feature.
So George is essentially right, the only effective difference is the price.
...and access to further functionality that someone's had to be paid
to develop....

The only extra functionality is being able to go to 2ns timebase instead of
5ns, everything else is identical. A couple of lines of code?

Any extra design effort that has gone into this product all went in to
designing the cripple feature to dumb it down!
By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs
of the DVD when they sell Windows7.

A completely silly analogy.

Dave.
 
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Nial Stewart

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here.
They sell you a device that's made with 100Mhz circuitry and then hold it hostage until you pay
more.


It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
optimise their profits.

Dishonesty would be promising 100MHz performance then delivering 50MHz performance
with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.

?

Nial
 
J

John Devereux

Jan 1, 1970
0
terryc said:
Fill me in one that please. (I do not waste bandwidth on youtube).

In this country, if I outrightly own item A and item B, what I do with
them is my business (legal restictions aside).

Where was the dishonest part?
Was their an agreement signed prohibiting use of some part on one of the
items


Well, the only difference with Casio calculators over the entire range
was the number of wires brought out from under the blob, but they still
sell like hot cakes.

Not even that, sometimes. My first casio (age ~13) had lots of extra
"hidden" functions (statistical). They just did not appear on the screen
printing on the keyboard overlay! But you could access them by just
pressing the buttons as if they were.

I suppose in the USA now I would be guilty of computer hacking, breaking
the DMCA and breaching license conditions, moral and legal theft.
 
N

Nial Stewart

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never
In this case Rigol actually went to the trouble to design-in circuitry to enable this 50MHz
"cripple" feature. The front end was clearly designed from day one to be at least 100MHz
bandwidth, and they then decided to dumb it down to meet a lower end market and price point by
adding the cripple feature.
So George is essentially right, the only effective difference is the price.


OK but they had to design in the functionality to allow them to change the
front end bandwidth.

The only way this is dishonest is if they promised something and didn't
deliver it.

If you bought a 50MHz scope you got that, if you spent more you got one
with 100MHz bandwidth.

Someone posted earlier saying they should have just flooded the market with
the 100MHz scope but that's their business decision.

It's not dishonest.
The only extra functionality is being able to go to 2ns timebase instead of 5ns, everything else
is identical. A couple of lines of code?
Any extra design effort that has gone into this product all went in to designing the cripple
feature to dumb it down!

Or add the flexibility to set the bandwidth.

A completely silly analogy.

Not really, the argument was that the price should be set on the hardware
and that firmware that enables functionality is dishonest to charge for.


Nial
 
P

Phil Allison

Jan 1, 1970
0
"Naive Stewart"

" Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here. "

It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
optimise their profits.


** Shame that if they told buyers the truth they would not get away with
it.

Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal
fraud.

Dishonesty would be promising 100MHz performance then delivering 50MHz
performance
with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.


** Nope - that would be blatant example of extortion.

You ignorant dickhead.




..... Phil
 
H

hamilton

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here.

They sell you a device that's made with 100Mhz circuitry and then hold
it hostage until you pay more.

hamilton
 
N

Nial Stewart

Jan 1, 1970
0
"Phul (of it) Allinson"
Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal fraud.

Fair enough, I agree completely with this statement.

If you pay for a scope they say has 50MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
that has a 50MHz bandwidth?

If you pay for a scope they say has 100MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
that has a 100MHz bandwidth?

Where is the deception?

** Nope - that would be blatant example of extortion.

And dishonesty.

Perhaps a better example would be promising a scope with 100MHz bandwidth
then delivering 50MHz bandwidth.

People got exactly what they were prepared to pay for, and AFAIK were getting
good value for money.

You ignorant dickhead.

I don't know much about classical music, or opera (apart from Gilbert and Sullivan),
or classical languages, or modern languages, or have read much 'great' literature
so in many ways I am ignorant.

I'll leave the dickhead judgement to my friends.


Nial
 
P

Phil Allison

Jan 1, 1970
0
"Naive Fuckwit Stewart"

" Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here. "



** Shame that if they told buyers the truth they would not get away with
it.

Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal
fraud.
Where is the deception?


** In the FACT that the 100MHz version is NOT actually a different model
but sells with a very significant price hike - like 40%.

If they told buyers THAT simple truth they would not have any sales.

FUCKWIT !!!!!!!!!!!


Perhaps a better example would be promising a scope with 100MHz bandwidth
then delivering 50MHz bandwidth.


** Standard example of consumer fraud - ie obtaining a financial benefit
( ie product sales ) by a deception.

YOU FUCKWIT POMMY MORON !!!


I'll leave the dickhead judgement to my friends.


** ROTFLMAO !!

This trolling pommy cunthead's only " friends" have four legs and go: "
hee haw - hee haw " !!




..... Phil
 
N

Nial Stewart

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm afraid I'm not lowering myself to your level Phil.


Where does all that frustration come from?

YOU FUCKWIT POMMY MORON !!!


I don't know where you get that from.


Nial.
 
J

John Tserkezis

Jan 1, 1970
0
In the FACT that the 100MHz version is NOT actually a different model
but sells with a very significant price hike - like 40%.
If they told buyers THAT simple truth they would not have any sales.

Oddly enough, this technique is quite frequent, though, the selling
technique is more transparent, unlike Rigol who intentionally obscures
the similarities.



One that comes to mind are multi-processor mainframe computers that are
sold fully kitted out, but only enable the number of processors the
customer pays for.

The idea is, you have the entire box delivered, you *know* it's the
fully populated box, you call them and say you want x processors
enabled, and you pay accordingly. They connect remotely, and using
complex encrypted communications, your box is reconfigured: Almost
instantly you have the performance you paid for.

There is a risk to the vendor, who forks out for the entire box and
have clients who never pay for all of it. But it's not all bad, this
results in possible lock-in (depending on product) guaranteeing further
income from clients that would have considered moving in the future, AND
it gets YOUR brand name out there in the market, which is always good news.



Likewise, where I used to work, when questioned about the quite
significant price difference between our lower-speced and higher-speced
acoustic products. We tell the client the control circuitry is
*exactly* the same, and the difference is in the cost of the microphone,
and show them the price list in case they were interested.
If they wanted to upgrade (or downgrade), just swap microphones, make
relevant adjustments, and re-calibrate the instrument, and that's it.
The entire process was transparent.



How is this different from the Rigol situation? Three points:

Firstly, they have ADDED circuitry to hinder native performance, verses
include, or enable circuitry (or firmware/software) to improve performance.

Secondly, they've intentionally obscured this fact (exact same hardware
and firmware), by making it look like two different products.

And lastly, possibly worst of all, they've made it this easy to hack.
 
B

baron

Jan 1, 1970
0
David L. Jones Inscribed thus:
For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into
a 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:


Dave.

Priceless. ;-)
 
G

George Jefferson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Nial Stewart said:
"Phul (of it) Allinson"


Fair enough, I agree completely with this statement.

If you pay for a scope they say has 50MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
that has a 50MHz bandwidth?

If you pay for a scope they say has 100MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
that has a 100MHz bandwidth?

Where is the deception?


Are you really that ignorant? So I create a 100Mhz scope and sale it for X
dollars as a 100Mhz scope. I then slap a new sticker on the 100Mhz scope and
call it a 50Mhz scope and sale it for Y dollars.

Now, if my profit margins for the 100Mhz scope was not that high then how
could I make profit on the "new" 50Mhz scope? Either they jacked up the
profit margin significantly to be able to do this trick or they are making
virtually no profit on the 50Mhz scope.

BUT! If they are making no profit on the 50Mhz scope then why not just
reduce the price of the 100Mhz scope in the first place?

They are exactly trying to simply get into a market that the 100Mhz scope
can't because of it's higher price. They can lower the price, pretend it's a
crappier version and then increase their market size for three reasons.
Those that can't and never will buy the 100Mhz version but will buy the
50Mhz and those that are lured in by the 50Mhz version and decide "I might
as well get the 100Mhz version since it's just a "little more"". Also those
that buy the 50Mhz version may decide to buy the more powerful one as an
"upgrade"... which in fact there is no real upgrade involved.

The dishonesty is in the tactics they use and tells you a lot about what
they think of their customers. This, of course, is not a new trick.

The dishonesty part is equivalent to lying. If you called them and asked
them about it do you really think they will tell you they are exactly the
same hardware with just a firmware change to cripple the cheaper version?

You can hide behind the cloak of capitalism all you want but this is not
capitalism but outright theft.

How do we know you are wrong and I'm right? Very easily... call up rigol and
ask them about the difference between the models. If they are honest they
will tell you there is only a firmware difference. If they are dishonest
they will make up something that we already know is false. The street name
for this kinda shit is lying. You may be confused by the big word dishonesty
but maybe one day you'll figure it out.

Of course this is not necessarily criminal but is walking the fine line. An
ethical company would not implement such practices. I don't know about
you(well, I guess I do) but I'd rather do business with a company that isn't
out to screw me.
 
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