Why no delayed trigger on newer DSOs?

.NET is IMHO a pain. Before the Instek SW would run at all I had to install that and it turned out that backward compatibility within .NET files from the MS-server (with the same file name!) is not always a given. Bottomline I had to keep installing until one of them stuck. I'd rather stay with what's there so my clients wouldn't have to install anything if they needed it.

Quite frankly I haven't met any office workers so far that have used VBA. Heck, they didn't even know it existed or what it is. For a long time I didn't either.

OK, I admit I actually only know one. :-) Everyone else I know who uses VBA either does have a software or electronics (but not necessarily with programming included) background.

That's why I often say that OpenOffice suffices for perhaps 90% of MS Office users -- until quite recently there was nothing like VBA available with OO... although probably more people simply don't find OO stable, don't like the "look and feel," etc. (I seem to recall you were in the camp of not finding it stable.)

There's a huge amount of "programmability" in Windows that few people ever take advantage of. Almost all contemporary "heavyweight" programs (such as CorelDraw, Microwave Office, Visio, MathCAD, even the desktop itself, etc.) can be remotely controlled via COM, using nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet if you feel like it.

---Joel

I've tried a few VBA apps I got from Europe on OO. None worked, but they all did on MS-Office. That alone would be the deciding factor for me.

It's very bloated IMHO. And slow.

The beauty of this is that while the recipient must click "allow macros to run" (but from a trusted source) they don't need to install anything. I wish Instek would have stuck to Excel-VBA and not require users to go through a tedious and shaky .NET installation.

However, for a non-programmer like myself, why should I? Excel is plenty fast and does the job nicely. You have a great display running in minutes and everyone else can run it as well, without installing a program.

Le Wed, 15 Aug 2007 08:54:43 -0700, Joerg a écrit:

Oh, it's not the transfer speed that lacks. For the few thousands points it's no pb. But then post processing is a pain: given I need about 1k averaging to reasonably get the signal out of noise, and the low rep rate and low signal level, the scope has enough time to drift between the superfast, fast, medium speed, slow and super slow acquisition so that I need to realign all the traces, resample to a log time scale. It'd be better if the fast and slow sample rates were done 'simultaneously'.

We seem to be working in very different fields then. Mine is mostly pulse-echo and other fast stuff. Often you have to catch some strange effect out of the corner of your eye. Like a transformer working up a DC runaway. Wait a few hundred milliseconds too long with some corrective action and the whole chebang can disintegrate with an impressive bang.

Looks like the carpet in the lab has had enough of that stuff. So I am mulling whether to put wood flooring in, and what kind of wood. Bamboo is all the rage right now in the US but it has a light color.

Why not skip Excel altogether? CSV is a primitive format (as the name impiles); just gobble it up directly into your C program. If you need Excel to process the result -- just let your C program spit out CSV data and use that in Excel.

robert

The 2465 was a 15k$ machine, the high end, only to be topped by the 20k$ 2467. On the other hand the manufacturers have to motivate the customers to get the better models.

Rene

Hmm, we never paid that much back then, even for a new one. Was that the typical inflated "non-US" pricing?

Yeah, but then two things can happen:

a. The competition deals them a low-blow. I am surprised that Instek did not go for the catch here. Our marketeers in med electronics would have never missed such an opportunity. Well, let's say most of them wouldn't. I married one of them ....

b. The customers do what my clients do: They go on EBay and snatch a spiffy Tek 2465 for around $500. Does the job, and then they don't need the high-end DSOs. That, in a nutshell, is the worst nightmare that can strike a manufacturer. Because now the need for a certain product has vanished.

Well, I'd like to keep it simple and without the need for others to load some kind of executable. So here I am, learning Basic now. Never thought I'd ever have to. It won't come easy because my typical tools are scopes, analyzers and soldering irons.