Turn your Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope into a 100MHz DS1102E
in [Design]
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From: John Larkin on 1 Apr 2010 11:31 On Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:43:23 -0400, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless(a)electrooptical.net> wrote: >On 3/31/2010 10:53 PM, terryc wrote: >> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:49:53 -0700, John Larkin wrote: >> >>> It may be illegal to use a computer to hack firmware if it >>> deprives the IP owner of revenue. >> >> There in lies your problem; prior publication. The IP owner has nil >> chance of proving that his IP doesn't rely on someone else's IP. That is >> how the whole process of technical development has taken place. The >> concept that some brilliant individual created something new is 99% >> bullshit. I've never met any programmer who is totally self taught >> without recourse to any example(someone else's IP). >> >> > >In US patent law, there's a strong presumption that any granted patent >is valid. That's supposed to be what the USPTO does for a living. (I >know, I know.) > >Thus it's up to the alleged infringer to prove the patent invalid, and >that's one of the forms the defense always takes. In a patent suit, >each side has to provide a couple of reports to the other, containing >the arguments they intend to present at trial and the evidence they >intend to use. (It's actually a pretty good system in its >way--otherwise more cases would be wrongly decided due to the good guys >[whichever side that is] getting blindsided at the trial.) > >I've done two expert witness gigs in the last year, one defending an >alleged patent infringement and one defending an alleged trade secret >misappropriation. It's pretty interesting, and it makes much more sense >when you get into it. > >Cheers > >Phil Hobbs Hypothetically, what would happen if there were no patent or copyright laws? John
From: John Larkin on 1 Apr 2010 11:43 On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 21:44:17 +1100, "Phil Allison" <phil_a(a)tpg.com.au> wrote: > >** What is REALLY demonstrates is that FJ has done something with one of his >designs that is close enough to the Rigol case for ** HIM ** to feel >very confronted by Dave's video presentation. If you mean that I sell products that have different firmware, or different features enabled, at different prices, yes I do. So does practically everybody who sells IP-intensive products. Firmware is expensive to develop and maintain, has value, so commands a price. More and more products are becoming cookbook uP or FPGA designs whose real value is the code. Consider a PCB layout program that's limited as to layer or part count or functions. Send them lots of money and they email you a key to remove some of those limits. Their low-cost product is the same as their high-end, except that they have *added* code to disable features. Same thing. John
From: markp on 1 Apr 2010 11:53 "John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message news:27f9r5lsbsla2erbfd5jdrvld6rvccicme(a)4ax.com... > On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 21:44:17 +1100, "Phil Allison" <phil_a(a)tpg.com.au> > wrote: > > >> >>** What is REALLY demonstrates is that FJ has done something with one of >>his >>designs that is close enough to the Rigol case for ** HIM ** to feel >>very confronted by Dave's video presentation. > > If you mean that I sell products that have different firmware, or > different features enabled, at different prices, yes I do. So does > practically everybody who sells IP-intensive products. Firmware is > expensive to develop and maintain, has value, so commands a price. > More and more products are becoming cookbook uP or FPGA designs whose > real value is the code. > > Consider a PCB layout program that's limited as to layer or part count > or functions. Send them lots of money and they email you a key to > remove some of those limits. Their low-cost product is the same as > their high-end, except that they have *added* code to disable > features. Same thing. > > John > Except with software you agree to a EULA prohibiting you from doing that yourself. No such agreement exists when purchasing a scope from eBay, hence it is "not illegal" to do so unless you were intending to defraud (you were the one who suggested not being illegal trumps the moral argument over over-clocking ADCs). Mark.
From: John Larkin on 1 Apr 2010 11:52 On Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:14:44 +0100, Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: >> I don't intend to hack any of them and I never steal IP. I hope that >> people won't hack my products and steal my engineering investment. > >You never knowingly steal IP. You have no way of telling when the slimy >fat lawyers from Patent Carpet Baggers Inc will come knocking and demand >that you pay a huge ransom for infringing their US patent on "whatever". Autodesk's lawyers did attack us for having illicit copies of Autocad, and we were obliged to prove that we didn't. It was a nuisance, but I bet it cost them much, much more than it cost us. We did have one copy of the student version on premises (left behind by an intern) and they demanded we do something or other about that. I offered to sell it back to them. Of course we never bought another Autodesk product, and never will. >> >> And 50 MHz is a good place for a bench scope, clear of a lot of FM and >> TV crud. The Rigol looks great at 50 MHz, but noisy and ringy at 100. > >But if you happened to want to use it at 100MHz then enabling that >feature would be useful. In the UK 85MHz bandwidth would be OK. > >Waveforms with sharp rise times always look worse at higher bandwidth. Not on my 11801, at 20 GHz! John
From: John Larkin on 1 Apr 2010 12:05
On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 16:53:53 +0100, "markp" <map.nospam(a)f2s.com> wrote: > >"John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message >news:27f9r5lsbsla2erbfd5jdrvld6rvccicme(a)4ax.com... >> On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 21:44:17 +1100, "Phil Allison" <phil_a(a)tpg.com.au> >> wrote: >> >> >>> >>>** What is REALLY demonstrates is that FJ has done something with one of >>>his >>>designs that is close enough to the Rigol case for ** HIM ** to feel >>>very confronted by Dave's video presentation. >> >> If you mean that I sell products that have different firmware, or >> different features enabled, at different prices, yes I do. So does >> practically everybody who sells IP-intensive products. Firmware is >> expensive to develop and maintain, has value, so commands a price. >> More and more products are becoming cookbook uP or FPGA designs whose >> real value is the code. >> >> Consider a PCB layout program that's limited as to layer or part count >> or functions. Send them lots of money and they email you a key to >> remove some of those limits. Their low-cost product is the same as >> their high-end, except that they have *added* code to disable >> features. Same thing. >> >> John >> > >Except with software you agree to a EULA prohibiting you from doing that >yourself. No such agreement exists when purchasing a scope from eBay, hence >it is "not illegal" to do so unless you were intending to defraud (you were >the one who suggested not being illegal trumps the moral argument over >over-clocking ADCs). > >Mark. > Lawyers certainly do attack software users for misuse of their products, wherever they purchased them. Autodesk did it to us; fortunately we had done nothing wrong and their lawyer was stupid to boot. When instruments become software-driven, they may well be subject to the legal provisions that protect software. As far as over-clocking or over-stressing parts goes, I do that all the time. I was just yesterday running some 1206 resistors at 60 watts, and some 150 mA SSRs at 2 amps. John |