Big scope

The photo is off. Look how purple that white (?) wall is. I have two TDS scopes and they output in b&w or color. Recently I had to do some measurements in my garden (some test setups won't fit in my office). I put a large monitor on top of the scope so I could read it from several yards/meters.

What if you tie all three, RGB, together?

The VGA appear to be training related.

Cheers

That is so yesterday :-)

My (now several years old) Instek GDS-2204 can pipe out to a PC, live, and then I can render the scope output in almost any size I want. Since I need 1.5x glasses to read instruments but need 5x or so to solder this 0402 and 0201 SMT stuff this is very useful. I display the scope live on a computer which shows it at least 4x larger. That I can see without any glasses and I can simply peak past my 3x glasses or the 5x Donegan visor.

A client's engineer mounted a 55" big screen TV. I haven't gone that far yet.

Yes, I did some white correction for the tungsten lighting in here, the green doesn't look right either.

Since tomatoes don't produce much of a signal, might I guess this was an EMC related lash-up? (Who needs an anechoic chamber, eliminate the 'chamber' and there's nothing to echo!)

Tim

You might consider looking at DLP, LED, and LCD projectors. When I visited a local lab, I saw one in use showing spectrum analyzer output on a wall mounted reflective screen, for everyone in the room to see. The display wasn't huge or super bright, but quite adequate. I'm tempted to so the same mostly because my eyesight is slowly deteriorating. I already use a USB microscope camera for the SMT stuff (but still can't do 0201 SMT resistors without a real binocular microscope).

I would love to see touch screen input, for working on-screen scope buttons on a projected image, but that will probably have to wait. Maybe a (Microsoft) Surface controlled scope display built into a glass table top. Or perhaps 3D imaging, so that I can see time, frequency, and amplitude all at the same time.

Anything worth doing is also worth over-doing, especially with an unlimited budget.

Incidentally, the new 55" and larger screens might come with a curved screen. Only $13,000 in OLED. The problem with all the big screens currently available is lack of dot resolution. The 55" big screen TV probably had only 1920 x 1080 dot resolution. That's fine for TV, but not really very good enough for computing. I don't know where displaying instrument output on a large screen fits, but since I would want to display more than one instrument at a time, plus the computer display, 1920 x 1080 is probably not enough dots. I'll need to try it to be sure. There is some hope for getting more dots in the new 4K UHD 3840 x 2160 screens[1], or even 8K UHDTV at 7680 x 4320 resolution: However, if you want 4K resolution today in a large monitor, have about $33,000 handy for one of these: While waiting for technology and prices to catch up to my expectations, I guess I'll survive with stackable smaller monitors, multiple video sources, HDMI digital mixers, and Dual Link DVI-I.

What model scope is it connected to? Are you sure the 9 pin wasn't CGA or EGA? A lot of S/VGA monitors will default to the low res mode for PCs on startup.

Depending on the age, it may have been for compatibility with mono monitors that used 'Sync on Green'.

Sure, we have one at church but they make too much of a racket and are bulky.

An MS OS in a scope? No way. I had the "pleasure" to use numerous Windows-based scopes over the years and now I am 100% positive that I don't want one.

It is, I do all my design work on this PC via a 27" monitor with

Well, I'd rather buy a 55" TV for $1k or so and donate the other $32,000 to a good cause.

I prefer PCs and LAN/USB. Keeps it simple, and small.

Personally I think that's overkill. I am completely happy with 1920*1080.

A lot of scopes are Windows or Linux based, and often have video out, just a copy of the local display.

I'm getting my lenses replaced (one down, one to go) and I've chosen to stay nearsighted. I can wear glasses to drive and ski, but it's handy to compute and read and work on the bench without needing glasses. Of course, anybody needs optics to solder tiny surfmount parts.

Too bad you don't like the Mantis. 6X is great for small stuff.

If they must have an OS I prefer a real RTOS.

Even if I liked them, they are too big for my work space. The Veho USB microscope is great. 20x might seem much but once you are down to 0201 or 01005 it's needed. For brick-sized stuff such as 0402 I use a Donegan 5x.

Take a look at the LED projectors. They're not very bright, but they also don't burn much power or produce much heat. I spent some time with a Dell M110 LED projector:

Power consumption is 30 or 44 watts depending on display mode. In the higher power mode, the fan noise might be a somewhat objectionable. In the 30 watt mode, it's fairly quiet. However, there are other LED projectors that make less fan noise.

There is some question as to whether such scopes are an oscilloscope mainframe with a computer inside, or a PC, with a scope card installed. I've seen both styles. Either way, I believe the consensus is that to produce a computing or calculating display (FFT, auto-fit, measurement, etc), you need a computer. At this time, I guess Windoze and Linux are the most popular operating systems. Since the OS is needed and unlikely to disappear, the scope OS will likely be one of these.

What a wonderful world it would be if you had interchangeable devices and peripherals with a common and standardized interconnect bus scheme. Well, maybe two buses, one for the high speed devices, and one for the low speed devices. Plug anything into anything and it will "just work". Want to display the output of your oscilloscope on the LCD panel in your refrigerator, just plug it in and watch your test results on the fridge while preparing dinner. Unfortunately, my interface utopia is a long way off.

Now, that's a problem. A happy customer is someone that is not spending money searching for solutions. This is very bad. If everyone were happy with their existing technology devices, the American economy would grind to a halt and collapse. Obviously, something must be done to prevent you from being happy. The traditional methods are to wave new toys at you in the hope that you might be interested, and to trash the existing technology by labeling it obsolete, passe, antiquated, inadequate, or non-standard. Neither is very effective, but if repeated often enough, for a sufficiently long duration, they eventually become effective. In this situation, I recommend that one's status as an engineer be tied to the size and resolution of their monitor. There may also be a tie in with productivity, as bigger displays can create more distractions... Ummm, never mind the productivity angle. Whatever the method, you will eventually be convinced that everything you own is obsolete, that there are problems with your the existing technology, that you are fashionably retarded, that you are no longer "cool", and that incremental upgrades to a larger higher resolution display, with a more current acronym content, will remedy these problems.

Somehow close. I had to do some testing with ultrasonic gear I designed. Its easier to test without echos from the walls and stuff in a room :-)

They can pry my Trinitron out of my cold, dead hands. :) I can't stand using under 1200 vertical height anymore. I can *just* maximize a document, full page, and eliminate vertical scrolling at 1200. At 1080, it's just barely too little resolution to comfortably read: not enough pixels per character. That, and the color -- you have to be perfectly centered in front of an LCD to get the right colors, and even then, the edges are at enough of an angle (especially on big panels) that you get a halo effect. Eugh, no good for drawing.

My laptop has a 15" or so 1920x1200, which is small, but just as legible at lap distance as my 19" 1600x1200 at desk distance.

What I hate the most about 1920 x 1080 is, it's too short to view a document full height -- so, you might say, turn it sideways, most panels support rotated format -- ah, well then it's too narrow, plus you're trying to scan up and down a huge height, which is an eye and neck strain, plus the halo effect is more pronounced: the top, middle and bottom of a page don't look the same.

I should snag a 2048x1536 Trinitron some day. LCDs go up to that nowadays, but they aren't nearly as cheap as the glut of consumer HDTV panels. Or if they are, they're full of dead pixels (something a CRT will never do :) ).

Tim

I had one, but the flyback 'pulled a Joerg'. :(

You and me, both. Its getting to the point where you can't take a dump without Microsoft products.

That's indeed a nice little machine. However, it would have to go on the opposite side of the lab bench where there are no communications connections, certainly not the bazillion USB and RS232 links to lab equipment.

My scope does all that with an RTOS. It does not need a computer, the PC is optional and only there to provide a larger display, direct Excel linking, et cetera.

There are many uC-based RTOS'es, and then there is also QNX which in my experience is the best OS ever written for a PC. I could not make it crash in almost a year, and I am pretty good at crashing software or an OS during the "Joerg test". At Endosonics there was once a big ultrasound machine with a blue screen. Someone asked what happened to it. "Oh, that one has been joerged". I was the ultimate endurance test for systems at times. The first thing I usually do when confronted with a new design is to rock the circuit breaker back and forth a few times. That alone sends a lot of stuff back to the drawing board.

Most things can be brought to the LAN. Heck, even my multimeter can hop onto the LAN and probably even be a "web site". So IMHO that should be the standard. USB for smaller more local stuff.

If everyone was like me almost the complete automotive industry on the planet would already have disappeared. But I am not the worst case. The worst case was an elderly lady who bought a British sports car in 1961, used. Still looked like 1961. A few years ago she said that the car will likely survive her. That ought to be Detroit's nightmare.

Nowadays the buzzwords would be cool or sizzling.

But then you get guys like me who do not pay attention to advertizing.

So how about my Boonton megacycle meter? :-)

If this were a CRT, the monochrome image would be high quality (no dots) compared to a color image. A hypothetical color CRT has convergence issues, white traces will be rendered as RED plus GREEN plus BLUE curves, not necessarily all on top of each other.

Since the scan rate is so low and chunky at that resolution, you can see the separate scan lines up close; I didn't notice any convergence, but with green dominant or alone, obviously I wouldn't expect to (even at

It's certainly not an LCD with big blocks for pixels (or better/worse yet, interpolated pixels), although that's probably not a bad idea -- a mono LCD would work as well as a CRT here; if I could even find a native

Tim

1. Point the projector at the ceiling. You can put it anywhere.
2. If you chair doesn't recline sufficiently, replace it with a recliner or a couch.
3. You only need one HDMI cable to the projector. The rest can go through a media converter or use a PC as a media converter. RS232 for a projector? Huh?
4. However, if you decide to install it on the opposite side of the bench, it might be far enough away that you won't be bothered by the fan noise.
5. Try to located the projector near a window. If you're bored, or find it necessary to irritate the neighbors, point the projector out the window and let it light up the fog, haze, smog, or neighbors house. 300 lumens is quite bright at night.

IntervalZero real time extensions:

NI Real Time hypervisor for multicore PXI boxes:

Hadcon real time module for Windoze:

Acontis real time extensions for Windoze.

etc... Probably a bunch more for Linux. Hmmm... you can even get real time Java: which should run on both.

I'm not a programmist, so I have no experience with any of these. Unless you're concerned about catching a virus or hosting a botnet on your oscilloscope, I don't see a problem.

I forgot about QNX. I agree, that would be a good, but possibly expensive, choice for an instrument OS. I looked at the licensing terms about 10 years ago. It was too much for a marine radio. However, QNX has done well with automobile computers, infotainment, and Blackberry phones. The QNX concept car: I couldn't find any mention of using QNX in test equipment.

We had a power line impairment simulator (from Dranetz ???) that was quite good at destroying itself as well as the unit under test. I became tired of fixing the beast, so I built my own version. It was a rotating disk with random detents that activated two easily replaceable switch contacts. (I was merciful and left the protective ground intact). As the disk spun, the switches would open and close, simulating the typical PG&E power line glitch. It was crude, ugly, and quite effective.

A former boss had a different plan. He would turn everything on in the rack full of radios, set it to transmit at very low power into a dummy load, and close the rack doors tight. He would then go for lunch or a cocktail and return about an hour later. Most systems initially overheated and did not survive this test. Today, it's common to leave 1RU spaces between rack mounted devices that get hot.

I've also had coworkers and customers that have the ability to destroy everything they touch. For example, I had a customer that was experiencing bizarre computer symptoms which I couldn't seem to either duplicate or repair. So, I just gave her my known working office computer in exchange for her problem machine. My known working computer then preceded to exhibit the same symptoms. I can only conclude that certain people have the ability to break electronics.

I also had a coworker that would kill any component he touched, even if the humidity was high, he was wearing non-synthetic clothes, a grounded wrist and heel strap, and the bench was grounded. I watched it happen several times. An electrometer test showed that he consistently produced about 1Kv of static electricity, even with all the grounding devices in place. He later moved into sales, where he blew up every computer that he touched.

Yep. High resolution video does suck the bandwidth, but GigE cameras work well. USB should be for connecting peripherals, not for networking.

Exactly. I've often thought of creating yet another business to fill this need. How about eVil Systems as a name? The base product is a chip or small PCB, with onboard NVRAM and RTC with I'll simply call a "warranty timer". Lots of devices qualify. It sits innocently in the middle of a crowded board, logging seconds, coulombs, power cycles, and stock prices. If the accumulated data indicates that the warranty period has been exceeded, the device performs a destructive action, like applying high voltage to the low voltage power bus. This method of destruction is particularly nice because the electrolytic capacitor companies can be blamed. Some randomness will probably be necessary to prevent it looking like the failure was intentional. Subtlety can also be introduced by creating increasing unreliability and spontaneous reboots just prior to end of warranty. The timer can also be reset remotely after payment of a service contract. I'm fairly certain Federal funding can be obtained as this device would be considered an economic stimulus.

Ah, but you do pay attention. You just don't realize that. In a past life, I worked in marketing and advertising, mostly in subliminal advertising. After about a year, I was fairly knowledgeable in how it works and fairly well practiced in some of the techniques. Despite having this inside knowledge, I was tricked several times by my coworkers with subliminals. Please feel free to claim that you are not affected by advertising, as such people are some of the easiest to sway. The most difficult are the GUM (great unwashed masses) that are literally being bombarded by subliminals, and have been callous and indifferent. People with above average IQ's tend to think about things first, which is where subliminals have their best effect.

Repetition also works quite well at all levels. It can be a jingle or tune that is repeated by the media until we associate a product with that tune. Then, all you have to do is play the tune mixed in with the elevator music, and people will automatically "want" the product. I've watched this happen and was amazed at how well it works.

The way our system works is that marketing creates the need, and sales fills the need. Marketing look for a problem, which usually means dissatisfied customers and defines a product that will make them less dissatisfied. Sales tries to convince the customer that the product their pushing will fill the need or solve the problem. If the GUM ever asked themselves "do I really have a problem that needs solving?" most of the economy would collapse. I don't know how many times I've dragged home some piece of junk where I couldn't remember why I bought it, or what problem was it suppose to solve. That's subliminals at work.

Anyway, I could go on and on and on and on the subject, but that would be too much topic drift. There are some good books on the subject, especially those by Wilson Bryan Keys. His first book, Subliminal Seduction is probably the best, and offers a dated, but accurate description of the basic principles.

That was replaced by various transistor or FET grid dip meters. (Have three Heath grid dip meters). Further replaced by various antenna analyzers. Carrying such an antique on a field service visit is more than an embarrassment. What will the customer think? You can't afford anything better than that? Why are you working on my project with junk for test equipment? Is that thing NIST traceable calibrated? Is he running a museum on the side? Rather than be forced to answer such embarrassing questions, wouldn't it be better if you simply upgraded to the latest in high fashion test equipment? Something like an Anritsu Site Master or other portable RF service monitor? With a modern piece of test equipment, the customer is assured that they're getting the best measurements possible, from a device that can genuinely be trusted to produce accurate numbers.

A 'purple' tint is usually a sign of flouro tubes