Nicolet sigma 60-8

[MilanM]

Hello,
Today i bought this oscilloscope, can someone who owns it tell me more about it?
I am interested in its software. Is there any software that i can download for it? I cant find much data on web.
It still didn't arrive and i cant wait to power it on!
Best regards
Milan

[coromonadalix]

sober look  loll    never saw this brand, is it touch screen ?     when you get it try to see infos in the setup menu if there is ??.  picture of the rear panel could help ?

EDIT : found theeses specs  and a manual

10.4" SVGA color touch-screen display, sophisticated array of real-time measurements, 100 baseT, PCI expansion slot, USB, SVGA output, PC audio in/out, mic in, RS-423 and parallel interfaces and integrated Windows PC. Standard active IntelliProbe interfaces. Operates as an 8-bit DSO at 200MS/s, with 200MHz bandwidth or as a 10-bit four channel DSO at 2.5MS/s, with tracking anti-alias filter.



Windows Pc loll   If you're knowledgeable in  computer(s),  be careful, and before doing anything or playing in it,   do a hard drive backup / clone ...

[MilanM]

Thank you for your help.

I also firs time heard of this Nicolete brand.
Yes cloning hard drive will be first thing to do.
This thing is running some custom made programs and looks like there is no download for them so cloning will fix that
I bought it because it was like 10X cheaper than it average price on ebay.

[coromonadalix]

on ebay
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Nicolet-Sigma-60-4x200MHz-Oszilloskop-200MS-s-/263625254262
1800 euro    outch

be sure to backup or write your windoews license   too , you have some free programs to show it,  the taskbar is hidden,  with a mouse you should be able to do many  things, an usb or ps2 keyboard should work too,    i dont see the back ?

[MilanM]

Yeah it starting from 1800USD for 4 channel version and going up to 4600USD.
I am attaching you the rear picture, looks like it allow me to attach only single picture per post.
From picture there is some windows license on the back.
What is your suggestion on license backup, i didn't get that well?
Thank you so much for your help!
Best regards
Milan
P.S first time experience with such oscilloscopes

[coromonadalix]

oh  good for you, hope you got the probees with it   ....  seems like an atx power supply, at least 4 usb ports to play or add an mouse and keyboard ... could be an intel based motherboard.

Not sure if they are hidden ps2 ports under the metalic tape, an X  seems to tell they are not existent or not available ?

Be careful if you ever open the scope,   anti static counter measures should be applied, i dont think the blue casing plastic is brittle, but be careful too for the case parts.

For a cloning solution use an external computer to do the job, you can not fully clone a hdd if windows is started up ( hidden partitions or obsur ones, loaded dll's  etc .. )

kinda jealous  loll

[MilanM]

I will for sure have few days full of good time spent with this oscilloscope.
Yeah i expect like motherboard separated from the scope PCB.
This thing is made to work in high voltage environment and its heavily shielded so i will not even try to disassemble it.
My plan at the moment is to use some external hard drive and to try to make clone of its existing hard drive.
So far i find some free software that can do that, but your input that i can make clone that is not fully same gives some really good thing that i was not aware of.
Ahhhh if i told you that i paid only 350EUR for this beauty you will be really jealous on me, i would be on you. 
It was great find and best buy for sure.
I will get like 3 probes with it and some attenuators and some more modified probes with crocodile clamps on end.
Do you think it will be safe to remove hard drive to clone it ?
My concern is if they put some protection there.
For example if each part is assigned with unique ID and that you cant clone it.
But who knows i will try it

Also probably it will be a good idea to stick extra ram there to speed up this machine a bit. I think it have only 1gb of ram.
From my research this is how it works.
They have like standard computer inside and oscilloscope electronic (PCB), on this computer they are running their sigma software that i am interested in, and to talk to oscilloscope they have custom drivers.
My bigger concern are those drivers.
If i get drivers and this sigma software instalation in hard drive than it will be a big plus.
At least it will be a fun time around this beauty. 
Thank you a lot for your input, it really helped me a lot already.
This thing will arrive on monday.

Best regards
Milan

[coromonadalix]

You should remove the hard drive,  Windows will have running files IE: executables, dll's, running kernel  etc ...  and other processes

You can not backup yourself if i may say, that goes for every windows out there ... 64bit kernels are more difficult ... thats why i've told you about another pc ... 

You should not have any anti virus running while doing it, and you do not go on the drive root or folder(s) until you cloned it, to be safe.

I would say your scope is kinda precious,    not sure you'll ever find a recovery disk or files ??


And a good cloning software will see all the drives partitions, boot sector  etc ...

I think in that time,  the max memory could be 2 gb of ram, not sure of 4gb   you'll need to find the mobo specs / chipset ...   if your scope works fine,  dont play too much in it, resist the urge to get faster more ram, change the board  etc ...   even upgrading the ram could bring some surprises ??

Sometimes you must have access to the bios, or hit a keyboard touch to boot with more ram ... or the bios could be locked    IE:  no crtl alt del, del of F1 thru f10 touch ??


I have one of this pc here, absolutely no bios access, i had to re-program the bios eeprom on the board to get 99% of a normal computer, just the printer port wont function anymore, but i have full bios access.

[MilanM]

Yes i agree with you.
I remember when i bought my SSD and i cloned my old HDD while my system was up and that worked fine.
But your thoughts have much more sense to me as you cant clone processes that are running.
Just on antistatic, do you think standard antistatic bracelet connected to the main earth will be enough when i open it?
I am wondering if i will find some sata or some older ata hard drives inside. For ata it will be a bit harder to clone it as its obsolated and it will be harder to find some spare HDD and rack for it.
Thank you a lot for your help!
You will for sure make this project happen!
Best regards
Milan

[coromonadalix]

you could even  find what we call an DOM module (disk on module)  in it, it could be plugged on the ide port  or even a sata port ??  just need a 5vdc to operate

https://www.cactus-tech.com/resources/blog/details/what-is-an-ide-dom-disk-on-module-and-how-is-it-used-in-an-application/

I worked with them in the past, i still have an sata "DOM" module  8gb,  pins directly on the sata port ...  an ssd ancestor  loll

Mostly used in industrial environments, no mechanical or moving parts ...

Your scope could be ugraded with this technology and could consume less current ...  Doh   did i say  resist the urge   

[MilanM]

I pray to see sata connectors inside.
If that is the case i would upgrade it with SSD immediately.
Cant wait monday to see what i can do.

[MilanM]

Quick update,
I was lucky to find all instalation files on hard drive including drivers.
Its a machine from 2000s inside, intel pentium 4 on 3Ghz and around 256Mb ram with 30gb hard drive.
I tried drivers and instalations on my desktop and they are working fine.
My future plans now are to replace complete motherboard with some more powerful modern components as i really dont like the speed of the machine and its windows 2K.

[0xdeadbeef]

Nicolet actually built the first (low speed) DSO ever (1 MHz, 12 bit) even though the first usable high speed scope was built by LeCroy. My 1st scope at work (like 21 years ago) was a Nicolet - and it totally sucked.
Nicolet kinda specialized in scopes with very low sampling rates but >8bit resolution very early. 
Note that this thing only has 200MSa/s - and only for one channel obviously. More or less every cheap entry level scope offers today offers 1Gsa/s at least in a 1-channel mode. Most proper scope deliver full sampling rate at two channels.
Anyway, these Nicolet scopes were/are obviously not really meant for typical EE applications but for some medial and vibration analysis (or acoustic) fields.

[MilanM]

Really true. Even my old Rigol DS1052E will beat it, but benefit is that it have 8 channels so sometimes it can be useful.
Too heavy too big for my bench, but their idea is to use it as workstation so you can have oscilloscope build in to your computer.

[0xdeadbeef]

Well, most higher end scopes (LeCroy, Keysight, Tektronix) use Windows but not because they are supposed to be used as normal workstation.
First reason is that some analysis functions can be done faster on the beefier PC CPUs. Second reason is that users can typically use interfaces to Matlab and the like to process data on the scope.