I have an Agilent LogicWave PC hosted logic analyzer. The device and its software are very nice and useful. However I have found that the Host software cannot properly connect and operate the logic analyzer device when the host OS is Win2K or WinXP? (It always worked great under Win98).
Does anyone here have any knowlwdge or experience with this device as to whether there is ever a chance to see it operate with the newer operating systems? I would like to try to amortize my $3200 investment in this thing over a few more years.
I have an Agilent LogicWave PC hosted logic analyzer. The device and its software are very nice and useful. However I have found that the Host software cannot properly connect and operate the logic analyzer device when the host OS is Win2K or WinXP? (It always worked great under Win98).
Does anyone here have any knowlwdge or experience with this device as to whether there is ever a chance to see it operate with the newer operating systems? I would like to try to amortize my $3200 investment in this thing over a few more years.
The E9340A uses only the parallel port to communicate with the desktop.
From my experience not all desktop or laptop parallel ports work correctly with all combinations of operating systems and drivers.
One system I have, a Compaq Presario desktop, the port works great in Win98 but will not work with NT, 2K, or XP. To get it to work at all with XP I had to add another PCI parallel port card to the system. Now XP will not boot up if I have a parallel cable attached to the port. Note that I mean just the cable. No device is connected to the other end of the cable.
You may be having the same kind of issue with your parallel port.
The software available on the Agilent web site is version A.01.21.020305.
with all combinations of operating systems and drivers.
but will not work with NT, 2K, or XP. To get it to work
XP will not boot up if I have a parallel cable
to the other end of the cable.
My software installation on this WinXP machine is the same exact version that you have mentioned as available from the Agilent web site. (i.e. A.01.21.020305).
You have not directly stated whether you are actually using the LogicWave unit with WinXP. Instead you talk about the parallel port itself being functional or not. Could you please clarify this point?
I have tried this LogicWave thing on three desktop computers and a notebook under Win98 and had all of them work correctly. When I updated computers and resident OS's in recent years to years to Win2K & XP the LogicWave compatibility was lost. One Gateway desktop actually worked with LogicWave with Win98 installed and then quit working when Win2K was installed. For a while, when that computer was still in service, I had it setup in a dual-boot configuration just so it could be used for LogicWave. As it stands today my three lab computers are running Win2K and WinXP and LogicWave has been unavailable for use for a long while now.
I posted this note to hopefully find somwone else who has a LogicWave and has maybe seen it work successfully with these newer OS platforms. If there is some chance then I could take steps to figure out how to make it work. Otherwise I might as well list the unit for sale on eBay.
Thanks for referring to the PDF support and Diagnostic checklist for LogicWave. I will try out some of the things there and see if I can get the thing to wake up on my newest computers.
I'll report back with progress later.
- mkaras
BTW...did you have the LogicWave through work at a former job or something? If it was yours may I ask why you unloaded it?
I have always and forever been disappointed with Agilent because of their back tracking on promises to provide USB support for this product. I was promised that it would be available a few months after I purchased the unit and guess what...It never happened.
We got the LogicWave as a rental and it was good enough for the first project we used it on. The next project required significantly more than 34 channels so we sent it back to the rental company.
I suspect that the LogicWave got caught in a turf battle at Agilent. The portable guys (1670 and 1680) saw it encroaching on the low end and the marketing guys saw that other products were taking shots at the 34 channel USB interfaced niche at a much lower price point. There's one now at $389 from Intronix.
See:
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So maybe Agilent decided to abandoned the low end because the "perceived value" had been moved too low.
Sorry....but that product looks like a hobby toy piece of junk as compared to the very professional job done by the team at HP/Agilent that made the LogicWave. Too bad they couldn't keep their creation from being killed by the market.
Although that "sample compression" feature is a good idea the 2K sample depth is pathetic. RAM is so cheap and fast these days I wonder why they dont put at least a mega samples in these things. Many many many times that I've used the LogicWave even its 128K sample buffer was a limiting factor.
BTW....following the clues in the Agilent installation notes guide led to NO success with trying to make my unit work with WinXP. Next I'll apply the same ideas to a company notebook I have and see if there is more success with that.
You are quite wrong about the product from Intronix
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We went looking for a replacement after realizing, like everyone in this post, that Agilent had discontinued support for our LogicWave. We came across the Intronix LA1034 and like you we were a bit skeptical. We decided to give it a try because at $389 it's almost free compared to a new Agilent product. Much to our delight it turned out to be quite a fine product - very high quality, with very professional software (which IS supported in XP SP2 and even in Vista). The Intronix unit has more sophisticated triggering and higher sample rates than the LogicWave. Its small buffer is not the issue you seem to think. The compression feature is pretty impressive. We have often captured millions of samples in a single acquisition. That's something our old (now defunct) Agilent LogicWave couldn't dream of. The point of compression is that much of the time a traditional analyzer is just stuffing its buffer with copies of identical data. You can quickly use up the 128K of memory in the LogicWave with hardly any useful data captured. The Intronix product doesn't do that. It only consumes buffer space when signals change. I think Tektronix calls that "Transitional Sampling". We liked the LA1034 so much that we ended up buying 5 more for our department. We are still not up to the price of just one new Agilent product! Agilent's slogan these days seems to be "Sorry, that's obsolete". Viva la bean counters! We are really starting to get annoyed with them. I don't know how you can call them "very professional". It seems to me they are leaving the door open to competition from small companies who will support their products, and who actually care about their customers! James Carr _________________________________________________________^M Posted via the -Web to Usenet - Mining and Industry Forums at
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