Advice on determining a logic analyzer for use with 1980s synthesizers. TLA715?

[bobxyz]

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, if you were doing serious hardware development, you bought HP Logic Analyzers and Tek Oscilloscopes.  The HP analyzers were more polished and more reliable; likewise for the Tek scopes.

To debug electronics from that era, I'd suggest finding a HP165x, HP166x, or HP167x series analyzer with a big set of cables, flying lead adapters, and test clips.  The earlier HP163x series are OK, but limited in channels and the cables are clunky.  The woven ribbon cables from the later series are nicer to work with.  The HP16500 series are big loud boat anchors and always seemed to be breaking.

You really want to find an original set of flying lead adapters so that you won't have signal integrity problems.  I'm not sure if anyone offers cheap replacements, but the originals were special micro coax with integrated compensation.

Screen burn is common with old HP analyzers if they've been left powered on for months at a time.  I don't think I've seen any that are unusable, but it's something to check for and maybe negotiate a lower price.

[nctnico]

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, if you were doing serious hardware development, you bought HP Logic Analyzers and Tek Oscilloscopes.  The HP analyzers were more polished and more reliable; likewise for the Tek scopes.

Not sure if that is still the case with the more modern Tektronix TLA700/TLA7000 series. One feature the Tektronix acquisition modules have is a 56 bit timestamp for each samplepoint. And this timestamp does not eat into the acquisition depth like the HP / Agilent logic analysers do. The timestamped recording is a very nice feature to reach long records (in time) without needing hundreds of megapoints of memory.

[artag]

The early HP analysers had some special mode : 'glitch mode' used 2 bits per sample but recorded if the signal changed more than once in that period (whch allowed you to undersample without missing transitions) and 'transitional timing mode' which timestamped the changes rather than recording at sample rate.

This don't seem to exist on more modern large-memory analysers. Perhaps the logic to implement them couldn't keep up with acquisition clock rates, or perhaps memory became cheap enough to throw it at the problem.

[nctnico]

The early HP analysers had some special mode : 'glitch mode' used 2 bits per sample but recorded if the signal changed more than once in that period (whch allowed you to undersample without missing transitions) and 'transitional timing mode' which timestamped the changes rather than recording at sample rate.

This don't seem to exist on more modern large-memory analysers. Perhaps the logic to implement them couldn't keep up with acquisition clock rates, or perhaps memory became cheap enough to throw it at the problem.

Tektronix TLA700 series acquisition modules do support this glitch mode capture.

[aeg]

Thank you for mentioning the HP 1630. I really enjoy learning about the kinds of tools and developmental processes the engineers of these synthesizers would have used back in the day. They appear to be fairly inexpensive so I will definitely pick one up in the future!

I wouldn't recommend a 1630. These days you can get a more capable 16500/1650/166x/167x for the same price.

[artag]

I wouldn't recommend a 1630. These days you can get a more capable 16500/1650/166x/167x for the same price.

That depends somewhat on where you are and what your priorities are. I'd agree a 165x is better for almost every feature.
The 1630x is more for nostalgia and maybe very low price. I do think it's manuals and usage are better than later models if you're learning.

The 16500/16700 are very fine .. if you can stand the fan noise and bulk (or change the fans). If you want the light weight etc, of the 165x,. what's the best option ? The later integrated units are still quite large.


 

[MarkL]

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, if you were doing serious hardware development, you bought HP Logic Analyzers and Tek Oscilloscopes.  The HP analyzers were more polished and more reliable; likewise for the Tek scopes.

Not sure if that is still the case with the more modern Tektronix TLA700/TLA7000 series. One feature the Tektronix acquisition modules have is a 56 bit timestamp for each samplepoint. And this timestamp does not eat into the acquisition depth like the HP / Agilent logic analysers do. The timestamped recording is a very nice feature to reach long records (in time) without needing hundreds of megapoints of memory.

When timestamping is selected, the HP/Agilent analyzers actually provide a choice of either halving the sample depth, or you can leave a pod unassigned and still get the full memory depth (at least on the 40-pin 167xx modules).  It's nice that Tektronix designed in a consistent timestamp without any tradeoff complexities.

[gslick]

The 1630x is more for nostalgia and maybe very low price. I do think it's manuals and usage are better than later models if you're learning.

The 16500/16700 are very fine .. if you can stand the fan noise and bulk (or change the fans). If you want the light weight etc, of the 165x,. what's the best option ? The later integrated units are still quite large.

I'd say the 1630-series is only for nostalgia. Unless you can find one for local pickup, with shipping factored in you probably won't save much compared to a significantly more capable but still portable 1670-series, with the best choice being the 1670G series with color LCD, which saves on the weight of the CRT, which might be dim and suffer from burn-in.

I do have some 1630-series myself, strictly for nostalgia purposes. The have noisy/bouncy front panel buttons, very limited capture depth, somewhat narrow screens which may cause the need for more horizontal scrolling, no built-in storage which requires the addition of an HP-IB floppy drive or HP-IB floppy drive emulator (HPDrive), no network connectivity, limited Inverse Assembler support compared to all of the newer series, clunkier probes, etc., etc.