Old'ish vs New'ish test equipment

[AVGresponding]

GPIB and variants are still well supported, and those don't try to phone home when you plug them into your network...

Keysight I/O Libraries do.

Yes but that's the Keyshite software on the PC, not the device itself. If you use generic GPIB software, that doesn't happen.

[Finderbinder]

Can you be specific, as in examples?  Floppies have faded for sure, but I have "older" equipment that uses things like GPIB, RS232 and CF cards.

As a bonus, some of that old equipment is easier and faster to operate--2 second boot times and 1 button push for any function, things like that.

Ok, CF is acceptable. I didn't deal with GPIB so far so can't comment, maybe you are right. BTW are GPIB and HPIB compatible or are they separate standards?

As other person mentioned, there were hi end units based on PC (internally). Surely they would be appealing devices if not obsolete PC part. Or if PC part would be upgradeable  Looks like an easy task (as with most PSs) but...    old horse refuses to run 

[james_s]

Floppy disks still work fine, I use them with my scopes and logic analyzer, I have a USB floppy drive to transfer the data to a PC.

I never liked PC based test gear in the first place but you can still use it the same as always, running the original OS and software that it came with.

[tggzzz]

Ok, CF is acceptable. I didn't deal with GPIB so far so can't comment, maybe you are right. BTW are GPIB and HPIB compatible or are they separate standards?

HPIB = Hewlett Packard Interface Bus.

That was so successful other manufacturers adopted it and it became an IEEE standard, number 488, often referred to as the General Purpose Interface Bus. To put it simplistically, it is the PHY and MAC and IP layers.

Effectively GPIB = HPIB = IEEE488.

On top of that is SCPI, a set of commands for getting instruments to do something.

FFI, use google.

[bdunham7]

Floppy disks still work fine, I use them with my scopes and logic analyzer, I have a USB floppy drive to transfer the data to a PC.

Very often the drives no longer work.  Even my USB floppy drive has failed, the only one I have is a MAC one.  And 1.44MB is pretty limiting...

[tggzzz]

Floppy disks still work fine, I use them with my scopes and logic analyzer, I have a USB floppy drive to transfer the data to a PC.

Very often the drives no longer work.  Even my USB floppy drive has failed, the only one I have is a MAC one.  And 1.44MB is pretty limiting...

I ought to check whether my 8" drive still works : )

The capacity limitation matched what people used them for. Of necessity

[james_s]

I've never had one fail and they're still plentiful and easy to find. 1.44MB is limiting by modern standards but it's what these instruments were designed around at the time so it works fine for that. A disk will hold a few dozen screen captures.

You can get USB adapters to replace the floppy drive for those that prefer, but I don't mind using the floppies.

[tautech]

I never liked PC based test gear in the first place but you can still use it the same as always, running the original OS and software that it came with.

Yet with cheap modern processors, RAM and SSD there's potential for really modern PC based gear to provide really fast boot times.
Modern PC's with an i5 or better can easy boot in 15s and no doubt much faster with a trimmed down OS.

[bdunham7]

As other person mentioned, there were hi end units based on PC (internally). Surely they would be appealing devices if not obsolete PC part. Or if PC part would be upgradeable  Looks like an easy task (as with most PSs) but...    old horse refuses to run 

There are cases where you can upgrade the PC part and still run the device, or update the display from CRT to LCD.  However, other than HDD upgrades, you are usually better off just leaving them alone running their original operating system.  DOS-based devices generally work great, early Windows versions can be annoying because of modern ideas about what acceptable boot times are. 

[nctnico]

Floppy disks still work fine, I use them with my scopes and logic analyzer, I have a USB floppy drive to transfer the data to a PC.

Very often the drives no longer work.  Even my USB floppy drive has failed, the only one I have is a MAC one.  And 1.44MB is pretty limiting...

Same here. IIRC I have tried 2 USB disk drives. One didn't work out of the box and the next one kind of works but often you need to format the disk in the drive on the test equipment to get the tracks in the proper position on the disk. But even then the drives in the test equipment can also be flaky.  A disk-to-USB unit also turned out to be a turd.

Nowadays I'm using an ethernet GPIB adapter and some Python scripting. Even though the Python scripting takes a bit of work to setup, it is ready to go and works right out of the box every time.

As other person mentioned, there were hi end units based on PC (internally). Surely they would be appealing devices if not obsolete PC part. Or if PC part would be upgradeable  Looks like an easy task (as with most PSs) but...    old horse refuses to run 

There are cases where you can upgrade the PC part and still run the device, or update the display from CRT to LCD.  However, other than HDD upgrades, you are usually better off just leaving them alone running their original operating system.  DOS-based devices generally work great, early Windows versions can be annoying because of modern ideas about what acceptable boot times are. 

Agreed. Upgrading to the fastest processor and most memory the existing motherboard supports AND adding an SSD is the best course of action. Upgrading the motherboard and/or OS (which is more likely to be a downgrade) is asking for trouble. More often than not, you'll need special drivers. Some test equipment software doesn't even like multi-core / hyperthreading CPUs.

But this doesn't mean you can't get healthy speed upgrades. At some point I replaced a 468DX2 with a Pentium1 Overdrive that fitted in the same socket (socket 7 IIRC). That made the system fly because it did a lot of floating point calculations which is exactly what a Pentium is way better at than the regular 486.

[alm]

Very often the drives no longer work.  Even my USB floppy drive has failed, the only one I have is a MAC one.  And 1.44MB is pretty limiting...

I've started replacing floppy drives in instruments by Gotek floppy emulators (can be found on AliExpress / eBay / Amazon) with FlashFloppy firmware. That allows you to use an 1.44 MB floppy image on a USB memory stick while still looking like a floppy drive to the instrument. Multiple 1.44 MB images if you need more space. They can be found for $25.

[Ground_Loop]

Old Iron is hard to beat.  And from what I've seen, no one has come close to the display quality of the TDS 5xx/7xx color shutter display.

[precaud]

How do you kep it so neat? I'm jealous.

[james_s]

Old Iron is hard to beat.  And from what I've seen, no one has come close to the display quality of the TDS 5xx/7xx color shutter display.

The NuColor displays are fantastic, that was a significant part of the reason I bought my scope that has one. Nice sharp colorful display with no shadow mask.

[0culus]

O-scopes? Sure, why not. At the other end of the expense spectrum, how about a microwave network analyzer covering 26.5 GHz? Considering a NEW one likely costs at least twice what my house did, I'll stick with my 8510C...not to mention the far east cheap brands don't even offer something in that space AFAIK.

8.5 GHz 4 port no problem....have one but not sure if I'll splash out on the 26.5 GHz one coming soon. 

Yah, and that box won't be anything like affordable to the average hobby person either, even if it is a fraction of the cost of a PNA-X (which it basically looks like a rip off of).  So, it will probably cost as much as a nice car, vs a nice house. Still liking my 8510C better. 

[tautech]

Yup. My 4.5 GHz 4 port SNA5004A (now 8.5 GHz) was bad enough at nearly $14k and its big bro $24 so that beast will certainly be a good deal more plus the darn test set more still. 
Even for a little guy like me it starts getting outta reach. 

[nctnico]

Old Iron is hard to beat.  And from what I've seen, no one has come close to the display quality of the TDS 5xx/7xx color shutter display.

The NuColor displays are fantastic, that was a significant part of the reason I bought my scope that has one. Nice sharp colorful display with no shadow mask.

Unles you can't stand the flickering of the display... The image is sharp with super contrast but I can't work with the NuColor displays. Always swapped them for TFT.

[Fungus]

added issue of sales droids who ask for daft stuff like touch screens

Spoken like a true curmudgeon.

Do you own a smart phone? Do you find the user interface "too modern"? What do you suggest as input instead of a touch screen?

[tggzzz]

Do you own a smart phone? Do you find the user interface "too modern"? What do you suggest as input instead of a touch screen?

No; a smart phone would be useless as I am deaf.

As for GUIs, I do hate the "modern" flat GUIs since they give

• no indication of what is a clickable link and what is a graphics designer's idea of "pretty"
• no indication of state. For example, if you see a black rectangle with white characters "ON", is that an indication that it is already on and/or that you can click it to turn something on? Answer: it varies depending on the GUI designer

All of those problems were solved in the late 80s by, of all companies, HP with the Motif "3D" widgets. They were a significant improvement over the earlier "flat" GUIs, and were rapidly and universally adopted.

Shame web weenies have forgotten history.

[Ground_Loop]

The NuColor displays are fantastic, that was a significant part of the reason I bought my scope that has one. Nice sharp colorful display with no shadow mask.

Unles you can't stand the flickering of the display... The image is sharp with super contrast but I can't work with the NuColor displays. Always swapped them for TFT.

I have a 584D (upgraded to 784D) with a TFT.  I don't even turn it on any more.  It's been relegated to parts mule if ever needed.

[joeqsmith]

My job is to repair electronics, mainly TVs, but other consumer stuff too. Indeed I don't badly need any serious equipment to get job done, but as a techie a like to use one or another.

Surprised with the disposable products like TVs and the high cost of repairs, that making a living this way would be an option.   Seems like if the repair required more than a very basic meter and possibly a scope,  it would be ready for scrap.  An hour of service time may be half the price of a new TV.     

So, in your case, I tend to agree with you.  You lost me when you brought up an 8.5 digit meter.  There is certainly uses for it but it's not for TV service.

[xrunner]

Is there a serious reason to pack valuable space with a high level but bulky and heavy old benchtop test equipment (like 90' HP, Agilent, Keithley and so on)?    Besides that, old equipment have a less informative displays, consumes more electricity, is less compatible with nowadays technologies.
Finally mentally it makes you feel stuck in the past 
Or... I am wrong? 

It's not a simple thing to answer (of course right?).

You say "bulky and heavy old benchtop test equipment (like 90' HP, Agilent, Keithley and so on)". well it's not all "bulky / heavy" stuff. 90's test equipment isn't all like that. In fact some of it is the same size as much modern stuff. In the pic you see two 90's hp kit alongside a very new Siglent scope (SDS2202X-E). The hp kit is an hp 5385A 1 GHz frequency counter, and an hp 437B power meter. The older stuff works fine and isn't expensive compared to brand new equipment of the same type, isn't bulky, and doesn't use megawatts of power.

However, an older CRO of that era would be bulky (depth) and use a lot more power, and for the price point, wouldn't have the bandwidth of the SDS2202X-E (opened to 400 MHz). So you see these different generations of equipment alongside one another.

In the second pic you see two units of the bulky / heavy class of which you speak. The Agilent 8648A RF generator cannot be replaced with a new item of the same caliber of design for the same money. You'd have to spend a whole lot more for brand new so I make room for that. Below it is an hp 5334B frequency counter. It can be replaced with a smaller unit (which I already showed). However, some of these things are items I used in my career and I choose to have them out for sentimental reasons (but they do work very well).

[Fungus]

Do you own a smart phone? Do you find the user interface "too modern"? What do you suggest as input instead of a touch screen?

No; a smart phone would be useless as I am deaf.

Smartphones are perfect for deaf people. You can do text messages with them...

As for GUIs, I do hate the "modern" flat GUIs since they give

• no indication of what is a clickable link and what is a graphics designer's idea of "pretty"
• no indication of state. For example, if you see a black rectangle with white characters "ON", is that an indication that it is already on and/or that you can click it to turn something on? Answer: it varies depending on the GUI designer

I agree with that but I don't see what it has to do with touch screens. My Windows laptop is touch screen and I can't imagine going back to non-touch/trackpad.

[tggzzz]

Do you own a smart phone? Do you find the user interface "too modern"? What do you suggest as input instead of a touch screen?

No; a smart phone would be useless as I am deaf.

Smartphones are perfect for deaf people. You can do text messages with them...

I send/receive text messages with my phone.

If you give people/companies a phone number, they tend to presume they can contact you on the phone. That's perfectly reasonable, of course.

As for GUIs, I do hate the "modern" flat GUIs since they give

• no indication of what is a clickable link and what is a graphics designer's idea of "pretty"
• no indication of state. For example, if you see a black rectangle with white characters "ON", is that an indication that it is already on and/or that you can click it to turn something on? Answer: it varies depending on the GUI designer

I agree with that but I don't see what it has to do with touch screens. My Windows laptop is touch screen and I can't imagine going back to non-touch/trackpad.

You asked about a 'user interface [being] "too modern"':

• pixels are part of the user interface
• most graphical user interfaces aren't touch

The only good user interfaces where touch is important are safety critical, e.g. nuke power plant controls and aircraft controls. There the touch gives you a vital clue as to whether you are about to operate the right control

[Fungus]

Do you own a smart phone? Do you find the user interface "too modern"? What do you suggest as input instead of a touch screen?

No; a smart phone would be useless as I am deaf.

Smartphones are perfect for deaf people. You can do text messages with them...

I send/receive text messages with my phone.

You're missing out on sending/receiving photos?