Very fast oscilloscopes
in [Design]
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From: Spehro Pefhany on 30 Apr 2010 05:23 On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:22:35 -0700, the renowned Kevin McMurtrie <mcmurtrie(a)pixelmemory.us> wrote: >In article <NPiCn.291919$Vq1.192861(a)en-nntp-03.dc1.easynews.com>, > "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > >> I bet Agilent wants a pretty penny for their new 32GHz real-time scopes: >> http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5990-5271EN.pdf >> >> And to think that it was only ~20 years ago that a Tek 11802 with the SD-24 >> (24GHz) sampling head -- that samples at all of 100kHz -- was the hotest >> ticket... now available on eBay for some single-digit percentage of the >> original price... >> >> ---Joel > >It's a little scary that such an expensive piece of precision hardware >runs Windows. Whatever happened to using simple embedded operating >systems that don't have a zillion extra features to crash? How are you going to run MATLAB on your simple embedded O/S? Best regards, Spehro Pefhany -- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff(a)interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
From: Jeroen Belleman on 30 Apr 2010 10:46 Spehro Pefhany wrote: > On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:22:35 -0700, the renowned Kevin McMurtrie > <mcmurtrie(a)pixelmemory.us> wrote: > >> In article <NPiCn.291919$Vq1.192861(a)en-nntp-03.dc1.easynews.com>, >> "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> >>> I bet Agilent wants a pretty penny for their new 32GHz real-time scopes: >>> http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5990-5271EN.pdf >>> >>> And to think that it was only ~20 years ago that a Tek 11802 with the SD-24 >>> (24GHz) sampling head -- that samples at all of 100kHz -- was the hotest >>> ticket... now available on eBay for some single-digit percentage of the >>> original price... >>> >>> ---Joel >> It's a little scary that such an expensive piece of precision hardware >> runs Windows. Whatever happened to using simple embedded operating >> systems that don't have a zillion extra features to crash? > > How are you going to run MATLAB on your simple embedded O/S? You shouldn't need to. MATLAB, or whatever else you'd like to let loose on your acquisitions, can run on the desktop PC, which need not run Windows either, incidentally. Networking should make this entirely transparent. There's still some way to go, that much is true. Jeroen Belleman
From: Joerg on 30 Apr 2010 12:19 Spehro Pefhany wrote: > On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:22:35 -0700, the renowned Kevin McMurtrie > <mcmurtrie(a)pixelmemory.us> wrote: > >> In article <NPiCn.291919$Vq1.192861(a)en-nntp-03.dc1.easynews.com>, >> "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> >>> I bet Agilent wants a pretty penny for their new 32GHz real-time scopes: >>> http://cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5990-5271EN.pdf >>> >>> And to think that it was only ~20 years ago that a Tek 11802 with the SD-24 >>> (24GHz) sampling head -- that samples at all of 100kHz -- was the hotest >>> ticket... now available on eBay for some single-digit percentage of the >>> original price... >>> >>> ---Joel >> It's a little scary that such an expensive piece of precision hardware >> runs Windows. Whatever happened to using simple embedded operating >> systems that don't have a zillion extra features to crash? > > How are you going to run MATLAB on your simple embedded O/S? > MatLab, LabView, all those are apps where users do not expect hard realtime performance. Just like they don't in MS-Office. From a scope I do expect hard realtime and so far all the Windows-based scopes I got to "enjoy" at clients have failed to deliver in that domain. To the point where we ended up schlepping an old boat anchor out of the basement so we had a real scope. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
From: Joel Koltner on 30 Apr 2010 12:22 "Kevin McMurtrie" <mcmurtrie(a)pixelmemory.us> wrote in message news:4bda772b$0$22160$742ec2ed(a)news.sonic.net... > It's a little scary that such an expensive piece of precision hardware > runs Windows. Whatever happened to using simple embedded operating > systems that don't have a zillion extra features to crash? The idea is that Windows programmers are a dime a dozen, Windows itself is "cheap enough" (~$25-$100, depending on the version of Windows and the quantity, is nothing in an instrument with a five- or six-digit price tag!), and hence it's faster and cheaper to just use something "off the shelf" rather than rolling your own OS. Heck, some software guys I know are currently lobbying to buy not just an OS, but an RTOS to run something on the order of complexity of a cordless DECT phone (i.e., LCD display, handful of buttons, two-way low-speed digital wireless, etc.); they've budgeted $50k for it. I'm not personally very enthusiastic about this, but I'd have to admit that if it saves them from having to hire one person even for six months to a year to write additional software, it will have paid for itself. What I worry about is programmers who think that spending money can somehow magically fix all their bugs, when in actuality the bugs are largely due to the individual programmers and have very little to do with the tools they use... and getting more powerful tools can actually backfire, just giving them more ways to shoot themselves in the foot... or to blow off their entire leg rather that just a toe. :-) ---Joel
From: Joel Koltner on 30 Apr 2010 12:27
"Jeroen Belleman" <jeroen(a)nospam.please> wrote in message news:hreqff$t7e$1(a)speranza.aioe.org... > You shouldn't need to. MATLAB, or whatever else you'd like to > let loose on your acquisitions, can run on the desktop PC, which > need not run Windows either, incidentally. That Agilent scope appears to have the ability to let you write some Matlab scripts to perform, e.g., custom measurements and run them in "real time" as the scope is acquiring data, though -- that's pretty powerful, if you have an actual application for it. (Consider how annoying it would be if scopes didn't have built-in functions to measure rise times, frequencies, etc. and you had to transfer the data to your PC to do it... OK, I realize we all know how to count graticule lines and calculate this manually, but I think you get the point... even 25+ years ago when analog scopes were king many of the classics like the Tek 2465B were already digitally measuring these parameters for you...) ---Joel |