Seriously, Tektronix?

Don't ever put an oscilloscope online!

And don't buy Tek any more.

The 100 MHz Rigols are nice. Boot fast, work great, cheap and light.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation

if you're interested in workarounds, did you try their forum? TekScopes .at. yahoogroups .dot. com

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I agree about using bloated code OS just to get a 'familiar' GUI

It's only a security threat if you connect it to Ethernet.

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

Thanks. I don't own any Windows scopes, so it's not an issue with me.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

My DPO2024 runs Linux inside. There's no obvious gui. The only sign that it runs a bloated OS is the absurdly slow performance and the annoying bugs.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Inc 
www.highlandtechnology.com   jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com    

Precision electronic instrumentation

Are you SURE that's not Windows in there? ;)

Many of them are like that. Always looking for a way to force customers to abandon the older product. "Oh sorry, out of support, we can't service this gear anymore".

20-30 push-ups 3-4 times a day and 100 miles of serious mountain biking per week will help with that.

I went in another direction, looking for super-light USB-driven instruments. For fast samling scopes there isn't much out there, unfortunately. Don't know why because designing fast sampling gear isn't really rocket science. Maybe not enough market.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Oh, but Rigol is not very friendly with modern windows. They must live off of XP in China.

First you spread lies:

"I would hate the operating system to be a mushroom cloud." "We know there are bugs in XP. They are north, west, south and east of the start button." "We demand regime change. XP must go."

Customer buys a new scope. "Mission accomplished."

Yes, George W. Bush is now working for Tek.

I think that works with corporate buyers -- throw it out to the advantage of your tax bottom line, then buy new, again to the advantage of your tax bottom line.

Then collect your bonus while the stockholders wonder why all your business is going to China.

--

Tim Wescott 
Wescott Design Services 
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Sure, but the little guy is smarter and knows that such a procedure saves nothing at all. Getting a $3,500 tax savings but having to first shell out $10,000 costs a net $6,500 no matter how the bigshot accountants turn it. That is more than the $0 it would have cost to keep operating the baot anchor. Which is what I do :-)

I remember a few business friends who bought new cars every few years. "But I can write it off!". They were always tight with money because there just wasn't enough of it. My car is 17 years old and it's fine.

... where things are farmed out to a contract mfg who uses a hand-me-down machine from the US and happily runs it flat-out for another decade or so.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

The German CNC drill sales guy I met in China was selling most of his new production there for all the PCB makers (hundreds of mega-expensive sets per month). When you're in serious volume production, the newest machine is often the most productive.

Cars are different.

--sp

Yeah, I've been looking for a while myself. It seems like there has been plenty of time for the market to create the product, but I haven't found one yet.

I think there should be demand, but there does seem to be some barrier. In general, I think there are cost issues with fast scopes. Maybe there is a perception that a small, USB connected scope has to be inexpensive? I'm not sure if this would be on the part of the users or the makers.

I wonder why even companies like Rigol haven't put some effort into an attached scope. They could just rip out the display circuits and make the device fully controllable over USB. Maybe you end up with a *more* expensive unit?

--

Rick

I once had trouble selling systems with Windows OS INTO China. It seems they first wanted only 'dumb' terminals attached to a maindframe, AND they did not want to be liable for fees. All seeems reasonable to me.

Cars, scopes and many other things share a similar market trend, with a strong aftermarket, available replacement parts, tiered maintenance / calibration / repair services, and vintage restorations.

The market for test equipment of course is much smaller, and generally slower. A new model of some test equipment might be rolled out every five years, or more. Which really isn't that different from the automotive case, but the automotive case also has what we would call major revisions every year or so. I don't know that vintage / antique / historic test equipment commands quite as proportional a price as the same automotive case, but that's also to do with sheer market size (demand artificially inflating the price of an otherwise objectively low-value item).

A new car might run you $20k, and depreciate at ~$3k/yr. An old car might cost $2k but require $1-2k/yr in service. A new scope might run you $10k and depreciate $1.5k/yr, or an old scope might run you $1k and cost you $100/yr in replacement parts (e.g., a CRT one year, some switches another year, etc.). In both cases, the new product is likely to remain reliable (but is equally prone to careless software issues and bloat! Ha!), while the older product may cost you downtime due to the stochastic repair schedule (i.e., it breaks, then you order parts and fix it).

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs 
Electrical Engineering Consultation 
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com

Or you buy five or ten of them and when one breaks, your spare parts problem is solved.

tm

Pico does USB samplers

but the prices are serious. It's actually not hard to do, and the parts are cheap.

A 60 ps TDR wouldn't be terribly hard, either. The worst part would be the Windows software.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

On the contrary. If you buy smart and with the least amount of electronics in there you will only have the regular PM stuff. The only big ticket item I had was changing the two timing belts after about 16 years. Had them swap the water pump as a precaution (was still ok but I wasn't sure if it would hold another 15-20 years). Routine stuff, cost $1k. Other than that and except for the occasional new battery and stuff, nada. Not even one lone light bulb has dared to fail in the whole

17 years.

In contrast to that neighbors with newer and much fancier cars had to shell out lots of money. Some sort of controller module quit, a yellow or red light illuminated on the dashboard, things like that.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

And much easier to store than the automotive case :)

Tim

--
Seven Transistor Labs 
Electrical Engineering Consultation 
Website: http://seventransistorlabs.com