Very fast oscilloscopes
in [Design]
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From: Jan Panteltje on 30 Apr 2010 15:55 On a sunny day (Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:29:54 -0700) it happened Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in <840eseFe7vU1(a)mid.individual.net>: >Key with any realtime OS is to select the right one. I had quite a >positive impression with QNX, also WRT its footprint. But with phone >type apps there may be better ones, where there's more pre-cooked >modules tailored to that market. Interesting article on Motorola making a profit again, because they moved from 6 OSses to one : Android. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/technology/30moto.html?ref=technology <quote> When we started this turnaround, we had six mobile operating systems and 23 platforms, said Mr. Jha. We were able to reduce that to one and it allowed all of our creative energies on one platform. <end quote>
From: Joel Koltner on 30 Apr 2010 16:08 "Jan Panteltje" <pNaonStpealmtje(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:hrfcj0$uqu$1(a)news.albasani.net... > Interesting article on Motorola making a profit again, > because they moved from 6 OSses to one : Android. > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/technology/30moto.html?ref=technology "But Mr. Jha said Motorola's comeback went beyond Android. "There's a point of view that all that matters is the operating system," said Mr. Jha. "But consumers care about what features a phone has, what it can do and where they can get it. At Motorola, we have some better capabilities than others in those areas." ^^^ This quote I don't really agree with -- I think that for most customers you can pick any major OS you want (iPhone, Windows Mobile, Droid, etc.) and "there's an app for that"; customers really do still consider the operating system and the phone's form factor as well. Look at Windows Mobile 6: Up until a year or so ago, it had far more apps than the iPhone, it's always supported true multi-tasking, copy/paste, etc... but it has this kinda "klunky" look and feel to it, and customers preferred iPhones by a large margin. What's going on with phones today reminds me a lot of the wild and crazy times with PCs back in the '80s -- lots and lots of choices and everyone competing fiercely on price and features to try to gain market share. If I were Research In Motion, I'd be pretty worried that I'd be the next Palm right now...
From: Nico Coesel on 30 Apr 2010 16:48 "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >"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 $50k for it. I'm not personally very >enthusiastic about this, but I'd have to admit that if it saves them from >having to hire one person even for six months to a year to write additional >software, it will have paid for itself. > >What I worry about is programmers who think that spending money can somehow >magically fix all their bugs, when in actuality the bugs are largely due to >the individual programmers and have very little to do with the tools they >use... and getting more powerful tools can actually backfire, just giving them >more ways to shoot themselves in the foot... or to blow off their entire leg >rather that just a toe. :-) In my experience you should choose a platform get really familiar with that and keep using it. Using third party libraries has its advantages but usually there are some weird quirks that need fixing or workarounds. Anyway, using a third party library is usually faster than implementing it yourself and fixing all the bugs instead of a few. With some luck a third party library has seen more testing in different environments. -- Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply indicates you are not using the right tools... nico(a)nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) --------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mike Harrison on 30 Apr 2010 17:56 On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:19:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: >Spehro Pefhany wrote: >> On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:22:35 -0700, the renowned Kevin McMurtrie >> <mcmurtrie(a)pixelmemory.us> wrote: >> >>> In article <NPiCn.291919$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. The Agilent 5000/6000/7000 series are very good in this respect. They run on VXWorks, start in about 10 secs and you _never_ have to wait for anything to happen!
From: Joerg on 30 Apr 2010 18:39
Mike Harrison wrote: > On Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:19:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: > >> 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. > > The Agilent 5000/6000/7000 series are very good in this respect. They run on VXWorks, start in > about 10 secs and you _never_ have to wait for anything to happen! My Instek starts in about a couple of seconds :-) -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM. |