I recently had occasion to go shopping for a DSO and was surprised to find that many of them resemble purpose built PCs running Windows. This leaves me with an uneasy feeling, though I can't quite say why.
Can anyone here point me to information (white papers, tech notes, articles, etc.) that addresses the motivation, and the pros and cons of this move to PC based scopes. Opinions in this forum are also welcome (I think).
thank you all, eric
Yes, the newer DSO models have aactually a PC built in. Some of them resemble Windows, some have an embedded Windows inside. A few days ago, I happened to have a look at the latest mixed signal scopes from Agilent, 600MHz and up. There is an embedded Windows XP inside. It appears to be fantastic. The pro : a user surface that is known to the user. Networking support,USB, drag and drop into word, excel, whatever. You can make a screenshot and work with paint shop pro on the same machine. You can assign a front panel button with the application of your choice. You can take the traces and do calculations of your own, and, and, and. I also had a quicker look at the latest Tektronix mixed signal scopes. They are very similar to the Agilent ones. In specs, possibilities and pricing.
Rene
-- Ing.Buero R.Tschaggelar - http://www.ibrtses.com & commercial newsgroups - http://www.talkto.net
And the high end Lecroys are Win2k based.
I gather then, that you don't see any down side to this practice?
eric
Join the club. It's always seemed to me that there's too much fluff and not enough function designed into many of the DSO's (Tektronix included, regrettably -- didn't use to be that way).
Straight anecdotal opinion here. Pastel-colored keys and cheezy plastic housings don't make it for me. When I went shopping for a digital O-scope, I tracked down an old Tektronix DSA602A. Now THAT thing is an impressive (if huge) hunk of hardware! Uses the 11000 series plug- ins, and can get up to a gigahertz with the right plug-ins and probes.
The cons of this choice is that Tektronix does not support this product for anything outside of providing calibratioh services and "best-effort" repair. If you're looking for full support and warranties, you may be stuck with the latest run of PC-based stuff.
Happy hunting.
-- Dr. Anton T. Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Institute. (Known to some as Bruce Lane, ARS KC7GR, kyrrin (a/t) bluefeathertech[d=o=t]calm -- www.bluefeathertech.com "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"
The motivation is simply that it's much much easier to add the bells and whistles to a windows-based machine. All of the networking, remote controlling, automating, disk saving, keyboarding, etc., is already half designed for you -- and you can supply the machine with MatLab and (more importantly) Free Cell with almost no additional effort.
The ones that I've seen from Agilent, Tek & LeCroy still have a "real" DSO buried inside; when you ask for a scope output the windows machine just makes a blank spot on the screen which the DSO hardware fills in. This pretty much answers the mail on the issue of Windows being absolutely positively not a real-time OS.
I'm sorry to see that they've settled on Windows because it's a poor excuse for an OS, but I suppose if it were me I'd have to make the same decision, because of market forces.
Me as well. The uneasy feeling that comes before vomiting.
They do all sorts of nifty things like networking, so they can send you an email when your signal goes bonkers. Nothing that a free OS couldn't do. It really puzzles me why anybody would want to use Windows for these sorts of things, when you can't modify the source code, or strip it down to the bare essentials that you need. It also places your entire product line into a legal entanglement with MS, since they can do whatever they want at any time to the EULA.
Well, the ultimate destination is a world in which the only *legal* operating system and software will be Windows and other MS products, if Microsoft has their way. And the only legal computing hardware will have to implement DRM functions, if MS, the RIAA, and the MPAA have their way. You will have to apply for the rights to and pay royalties to view *your own* media creations, if they can fully realize their true intentions.
How would you like to be in the middle of debugging a piece of hardware, when the files in your scope suddenly start getting deleted by Microsoft, because they decided (perhaps even erroneously) that your scope was found to contain "untrusted" software or other files.
Enjoy your freedom while there's still a modicum of it left. Or fight back, by choosing non-MS software, even if it's a somewhat more difficult path.
Good day!
-- ____________________________________ Christopher R. Carlen Principal Laser/Optical Technologist Sandia National Laboratories CA USA crcarle@sandia.gov
Right. It is the cheapest way to achieve the functionality. On the same exhibition, where I saw these scopes, I saw embedded WinXP. After an initial toolset for 900 something dollars, you get a Win XP for 70$ at small quantities. Fully configurable to the hardware and required services. I'm going to have a look at it. Remove IE, Outlook, user management, digital rights and a few more things and Win XP becomes slim and stable. Perhaps...
Rene
I'm mildly curious, in your experience is Microsoft not pushing Win CE (or "wince", as I like to put it) for these sorts of applications?
I see your point, and this "new breed" of DSOs do an awful lot of cool stuff. But I found it amusing that at least one scope manufacturer is offering Norton Antivirus as an option.
I also updated myself on this subject. WinCE is considered realtime, whereas embedded XP is not.
As to the antivirus : It is you running a browser there. And it is you connecting it to a LAN with whatever settings. Don't open any shares to anyone. Don't give any rights to anyone.
I didn't try anything yet, just found it intriguing that there is a customizable XP on the market.
Further a scope is not a safety item. If it happens to crash, just reboot and ask for a firmware upgrade.
Actually I already have a scope with firmware bugs. No windows yet, no firmware update either.
Rene
-- Ing.Buero R.Tschaggelar - http://www.ibrtses.com & commercial newsgroups - http://www.talkto.net
Your o'scope gets a virus ?
...especially when they used to use VxWorks: http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:p3Uqm54zV7cJ:
...and that eCos is now not only Microsoft-Tax-free but open source as well (free as in beer, free as in speech):
To the scope developers it makes complete sense to go this way. Newer scopes need floppy drives, networking, VGA screen drivers, hard drives to store the massive programs which are needed to run all the features etc. Windows makes the development easy and cheap, and reduces the time to market. Trying to "reinvent the wheel" and doing this all this in-house with your own embedded processor/asic etc is not an attractive option any more.
The guts of the scope (aquisition, triggering, control etc) is still done by embedded hardware/asics, with Windows providing a nice software and back end hardware development platform. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it's implemented. You can design a fantastic intuitive interface around a Windows based platform, or you can design a complete shocker. The same goes for old "traditional" digital scopes too. Just take a look at the Lecroys for instance, they are renowned for designing some shocking user interfaces over the years. Windows doesn't have to look like Windows either, all depends on how you design the interface.
So long as they don't take away the knobs, and put them in a sensible logical layout that have sensible and logical functionality, I'm happy :->
A scope is after all a real-time tool, you need knobs and instant feedback for most applications. Users won't tolerate anything less in a bench scope. So don't expect to see a standalone bench scope with only a mouse and keyboard any time soon...
Your true PC-Based scopes go to the other end of the spectrum. They more and more resemble black boxes with nothing but BNC's on the front panel. They are designed for a different market entirely.
Regards Dave :)
creations,
Microsoft,
I'm glad I finally saw it mentioned here. It's frightening how few people realize the slippery slope we're on
--especially how few **techies** have a technopolitical awareness.
To all: A **great** treatment of this is The Digital Imprimatur
Another PC/DSO new issue to consider is the open architecture.
In Software: By providing access to the Win memory/tools, rapid development of custom applications are creating new test instrument solutions.
In Hardware: USB, SCSI, FireWire, NIC, PCI, D/A, etc. bus cards can be added to the scope chassis.
Its not your Dad's Dumont anymore. PC/DSOs are to "scopes" what FPGAs are to early ASICs.
JS
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