Turn your Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope into a 100MHz DS1102E

I don't have one, but from what John is saying, it may not be a "all the same hardware, just different firmware" but may instead be "all the same firmware, but not all the same hardware!" The 100 MHz version may have different component choices, even if the PCB is the same. When you build out the unit, you enable the correct hardware toggles to match the unit you are installing on...

If you have one of both units, you could probably find out!

Charlie

On a sunny day (Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:14:55 -0700) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

Let us all be grateful, as this will a have cumulative effect. Tek will notice that he price for a 100 MHz BW 1Gs scope has come down to 500 $ or so. And that with a color display and nice labels on the buttons on top of that... So it will increase competition, and bring prices down. Those are clearly artificially high.

You can turn your argument around too, like: 'the criminals at Rigol ask 400 $ more for the same scope.'

I wonder if the board is the same as the one that has the logic analyser connector on front and if adding a connector and making a hole in the front would give it even more features.

IRC you ordered one, and now claim you will not upgrade, that sounds a bit idiotic to me. As to the the 'secrets of your designs', some are all over usenet, you posted them or got them from here, complete with pictures of details.

That brings me to the point that we could all just as well publish source of firmware and software, the people who have no time will buy your hardware, others will improve your work, everybody benefits, except the billy gates type, but he has enough for coffee anyways so who cares.

There is a lot more to be said on this subject, but anyways, I recommend people to record that video before it vanishes from youtube, I recorded the sound. Soundtrack has all the info you need.

Digital world. I wonder what will happen when somebody finally comes up with a 'replicator' as in startrek.

Look at Microsoft and Wordperfect. These companies became huge because of people copying their software. The same can happen to Rigol. Hobbyists buy their 50MHz scopes to hack them. Their bosses just buy the 100MHz version so the warranty is not voided. This way Rigol sells two scopes instead of zero.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

On a sunny day (Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:23:38 -0700) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

They are identical! Stop complaining.

If you spend years writing a technical book and you expect to get back even minimum wage for your effort, you're cracked. If you spend years writing a work of fiction and expect to sell it _at all_, then unless you're an established author, you're cracked.

If I don't think that there are more photocopied versions of _my_ book in China than there are paid-for copies, even at the ridiculously low rates they charge for them over there, then _I'm_ cracked.

Perhaps you've been asleep for a few decades. Read this, it'll help:

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com

As long as we have actors, writers, filmakers, musicians, etc that each make more money in a year than the people lurking this newsgroup make in a lifetime the current system seems to be working just fine for them.

If your 'product' is good people are willing to pay for it. If your product sucks and no-one is willing to pay for it then you better find another job. The way I look at it is that people who copy your software would not have bought it in the first place.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the various operating parameters stored in flash or NVRAM part of the "firmware" -- I consider "firmware" to be the output from an assembler or compiler.

To save some money?

While I support regulation of intelectual property, certainly don't support pirating of software, etc., *in this particular case* I tend to side more with Dave than Rigol:

-- They specifically *added circuitry!* to turn their 100MHz scope into a

50MHz scope; this suggests that they set out to build a 100MHz scope in the first place -- there was no additional engineering cost to recover as there might be, if, e.g., they started with a 50MHz scope and then made some design tweaks to turn it into a 100MHz scope. Instead, it's just "pricing to the market." (At least that what I'm guessing -- I fully realize there's no way to know this for certain if one isn't inside of Rigol and familiar with the development.)

-- The commands needed to remove the 50MHz limitation are just "regular old commands" -- while they're undocumented by Rigol, they don't contain any, e.g., encryption or checksums or anything at all to suggest that Rigol was trying to control or prevent access to them (...and hence would have a basis for charging Dave with, e.g., circumventing anti-piracy safeguards)

Clearly this is a somewhat gray area. But I don't see it as that different from, e.g., years ago with all-analog scopes where the only difference between the 20MHz and 30MHz models was the binning of transistors, with the better ones going into the 30MHz models: Would it have been wrong for someone to buy the 20MHz model and replace the relevant transistors with ones they'd binned themselves to get to 30MHz?

Heck, in the case of the Rigol, there are people who are working on replacing

100% of the firmware with one of their own making. Surely it's not wrong for those people to not artificially cripple the hardware capabilities of the device with that replacement firmware? (Look at all the replacement firmwares available for, e.g., wireless routers like the WRT54G family that provide all sorts of new features that were previously only avaialble on much higher-end, more expensive devices...) If someone replaces the firmware in one of your boxes and provides features that you normally charge for, are you going to try to get them to stop via legal means?

---Joel

But according to your own logic you keep Freescale from selling you a faster processor and therefore cutting their profits!

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. IBM tried marketing computers with a similar tactic, shipping two models that were internally identical, but one had twice the memory of the other. If you paid for the 'upgrade' a technician installed a jumper to enable the full memory.

Time passes, and instead of lease-only, they sold a few computers. The customers then installed the jumper, and sued (or threatened to sue) IBM when the field service tech wanted to uninstall it. IBM lost.

You sell it, the customer can modify at will. DMCA is perhaps gonna change this, but it's unclear how; it may take another decade before it gets a court test. (for the non-US crowd, DMCA "digital millennium copyright act" is a controversial statute that protects/creates/ modifies all intellectual property in unlovely ways)

I did that modification, myself, upon buying an IBM PC/AT for, if I recall correctly, $5499! It would work up to about

8.5MHz, by the way. I tried 9, but the I/O bus clocked up with the CPU (at that time) and some of the add-in boards couldn't keep up. However, 8.5MHz worked across the board, quite well. I clocked back to 8.0MHz and lived happily ever after.

Not for one split second did I believe I was doing something wrong, here. Not for one moment. I still think it was fine to do.

The Kaypro 286i was the first "truly compatible" IBM PC machine built after that and it cost almost $2000 less to buy, new. (There were other attempts, but they failed on a variety of applications at the time and were crippled in one way or another until the Kaypro 286i made it out.)

There was a short period (year?) where the ISA (wasn't known as that, at the time, but I'm referring to the 8/16 bit bus that came out with the PC/AT) bus had to be separated better from the CPU clock and thus was born the ability to clock the CPU up higher (10,12,16MHz) without making bus boards fail. That led to Chips&Technology developing their IC to save all those discrete IC parts populating the boards. And that led to Intel deciding (eventually, years later on) to take over that market and develop their own chipset. Etc.

But it was morally RIGHT to clock up the system. I still think so and if John L. is on the other side of this question then we have a fundamental difference of opinion. However, he hasn't weighed in on it, so it is hard to know.

It is an interesting question and made all the more so because different people may fall on different sides here. That's what makes it interesting. If everyone took the same position, it would indeed be dullsville.

Jon

It also does the standard bandwidth limit function, so it would have been there anyhow.

Since the ADCs are overclocked, it may be that Rigol selects the best scopes to be the 100 MHz versions.

John

I agree with you regarding youtube. This would be one simple webpage. I'm really annoyed that google is including youtube video in google searches. It takes so much work to see if the youtube "document" is what you need.

Does that mean you are willing to copy software, purchased by yourself or others, in violation of a license agreement? And that your willingness depends on your opinion of the quality of the product?

John

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He bought the scope, he can do whatever he wants with it. If you want hardware with a Nazi attitude, buy gear from Apple.

or so.

connector on front

more features.

I paid them for a 50 MHz scope. I will not hack their firmware to make it into a 100 MHz scope (with rotten step response)

John

--
Jeez, John, I see you still haven't quit being a cheater...

1052E's go for $595 max _retail_, and 1102E's go for $795 max, also
retail, so that's a difference of $200, of which Rigol sees maybe $50.

Applied to 100 scopes, that's $5K which is probably chump change for the
likes of Rigol.

Now if I cheated a little and claimed that those 100 scopes would never
have been bought except to be "converted", then I could claim that the
extra sales more than offset any losses (especially since it costs them
the same to build either scope) and that the hack was actually a
blessing in disguise, if not leaked on purpose...

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The "two week disposable" lenses are the same as the "yearly" lenses (if they are even sold anymore).

I don't see it that way, at all, John. I think the manufacturer took a risk designing as they did and chose to do so, anyway. They knew it was possible that this may be uncovered and decided to go for it.

When I buy a tool, I am completely free to repurpose it in any way I want to. When I buy a hammer, it may not get used as the manufacturer intended. So what. When I buy a Tek scope, I may decide to gut it and redo some things in it to improve its use to me.

Your point hangs entirely on what was in the MIND of those who fielded this DS1052E. I would have to somehow _know_ in advance (and although we can assume and are probably right here, it is still an assumption) that Rigol didn't want me making these particular modifications but don't mind if I make other ones I might someday decide to make (such as hauling out sections and using them with more effort and work on my part for something entirely different.) In other words, you are arguing that because _these_ modifications are simple and other ones more complex, that repurposing in one direction is wrong and another direction is just fine (I'm assuming here that you wouldn't mind me dismantling it and using it for parts, for example.)

That's a crazy argument.

If they want to make it difficult, and you have suggested they may now have to do that, then that is fine, too. There is nothing wrong with that. But to argue that a buyer is limited in certain ways and NOT limited in certain other ways in using a tool they have purchased, merely based upon the manufacturer's mindset about some of these vs others, is going too far. They always have the option of making it more difficult, if they are that concerned. But when I buy a some hardware, it is MINE to use as I see fit. Including shooting it with a shotgun, hammering it to pieces, or slipping a wire from here to there. Period. End of story. I'm not going to get involved in worrying about whether or not MY behavior is congruent to THEIR business. I am focused on what is good for me, they are focused on what is good for them, and that is a good thing I think you'd agree with considing your other remarks on other topics. We each look out for ourselves, I think you'd say. Self-interest is a good thing, I think you'd say.

Dave is merely putting information out for end users, freely. I see no problem with that, either. It's his own decision.

Jon

Podcast:

It's not Dave's job to protect Rigol.

Whether he hurt them or not is a question that isn't clear, nor answered yet. If Rigol is forced to make further modifications because of Dave, and only because of Dave, then you may have a point on that narrow ledge. But it still doesn't mean Dave has any responsibility to protect them from such actions they may later choose to take.

Besides the issue that Dave is acting as an independent, free agent and may choose what is in his own better interests, he cannot possibly be expected to consult some personal Ouija board about the mind of Rigol about their own business interests. Rigol can fend for themselves. And they are perfectly able to do so.

In any case, I generally prefer a world where knowledge is freely shared, education valued, and the consequences lived with more than one where knowledge ie metered out. Dave gave information, which is fine. You did too when you commented about the "clean transient response" and the fact that you don't think it is wise to hack it for your own needs. Which is good information, as well. Then just let the end user decide for themselves what is better for them. As it should be.

Jon