So, in summary, There are two HW #'s for 800's, 2ch and 4ch model.
the HW version for all series have been laid out by souldevelop, how he came to the conclusion we dont know, probably from his software rev engineering skill, now he is missing so he cant answer, but from evidences posted in forums, his conclusion is so far correct... except S2084 discovered new HW version extension from resistor mod such as HW4,5,13.. what are they? who cares?
I do not get any benefits running my 804 as HW-8. The extra CAN and LIN appears to come from running the 914 vendor.bin
nobody forces you to change to HW8 if vendor.bin hack provides you with everything you need. some even dont want to upgrade to 900 because they hate the digital and afg tab under the GUI. and for companies they dont even want to touch any of rigol_hack with 10" barge pole due to warranty reason. should i sorry for them? heck no because i understand what i need is probably what they hate. free choice for their own benefit and interest and how much risk they want to take.
All the 900's are HW-8 ? Does that mean they all have AFG but only S models have it activated? Isn't AFG more hardware, or is that done via FPGA or something?
AFG is commanded by FPGA and vendor.bin hack to 900 alone will activate it even on HW12, so far no differences that i can spot. bode plot was working fine in HW12. btw checking start_rigol_app.sh i spotted there is another afg_gpio.ko module is loaded if anyone interested, so far i am not interested in wasting time on it since every AFG functionalities that i expect to work, work as expected either on HW12 or 8. the point we looked for HW8 is because we want the 16CH digital channels can be used as trigger source correctly. this has some applications, but if you dont need it, thats fine for you.
point is, we only report and share how to get the hack done in case readers came to find for the solution, same thing other people reported possible but nonsensical HW number or possibility to burn FPGA pins by switching fpga binary alone, a risk that we wont do nor try. no enforcement whatsoever this is not blind religion. if you dont need it, then dont do it. just as some people are not comfortable enough to edit start_rigol_app.sh and cause the dso to hanged, lucky if they made image backup, if not, they can be danggling in the Windows11 air, ymmv.
attached is CAN and LIN trigger support, but i never find a use for them since the beginning until today and probably many years to come, so i dont care if CAN or LIN work or not in HW12 or HW8... if someone comes up with trigger XXX hack, why would i need to do it if i dont use it?