please dont purchase PC controlled test equipment

[TomKatt]

With the complexity of modern gear, there is simply no avoiding one kind of obsolescence over another...  In 15 years any system will be difficult to locate software or components for operation or repair.

[alm]

I think oz2cpu's point is that the problem is still easier if all the necessary hardware and software is contained in a single box, rather than if you need to get the instrument, cable, computer, software, etc all from different sources, and inevitably separated from each other over time. Bonus points if the software has some annoying copy-protection like a hardware dongle or online activation. If the PC is embedded in the instrument, like modern high-end scopes, then at least it will stay with the instrument over its life. But if you don't even have the software, and the instrument is fully reliant on that software to do anything useful, then it's game over for that instrument.

For DMMs: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix, ...
For Scopes: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix, LeCroy, ...
For Signal Generators: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix,  ...

How many DMMs and signal generators do Tektronix, Rigol and Siglent make that rely on PC-control? How many scopes and signal generators does Keithley make at all?

list may be continued. All of them now offer remote-only instruments. The market is clearly automated testing
in a factory environment, and this market is huge. Here you need the max of test functionality in a cramped space. All this PXI stuff is just doing that.

Sure, this has been going on for decades. NI has been doing that or a long time, but their hardware is generally very reliant on their software. Can you talk to PXI devices without any instrument-specific driver, like a stand-alone scope that supports LAN and SCPI over TCP/IP? Is for example the R&S PXI line SCPI? The only thing I find in their documentation is how to use their drivers, which will no doubt stop working at some future Windows / LabView update.

[pdenisowski]

Is for example the R&S PXI line SCPI?

Well, we (R&S) don't really make PXI instruments   But with very rare (like, < 5%) exceptions, all of our remotely-controllable products are SCPI-compliant.

The only thing I find in their documentation is how to use their drivers, which will no doubt stop working at some future Windows / LabView update.

Remote control (SCPI / VISA) is extremely important to many of our customers, so I can pretty much guarantee uninterrupted support for our drivers, etc.   I've also personally covered a very wide range of R&S products (spec ans, sig gens, VNAs, scopes, power sensors, power supplies, specialty products like direction finders, avionics testers, etc.) for over 15 years and I can't remember a single time that remote control was "broken" for any of them.

As a matter of fact, many of our instruments can even work with SCPI (or even non-SCPI) code written for older, obsolete instruments, both from R&S and from our competitors (!).  And we don't charge for that

https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/solutions/test-and-measurement/aerospace-defense/r-s-legacypro/legacypro_254458.html

[jasonRF]

I think oz2cpu's point is that the problem is still easier if all the necessary hardware and software is contained in a single box, rather than if you need to get the instrument, cable, computer, software, etc all from different sources, and inevitably separated from each other over time. Bonus points if the software has some annoying copy-protection like a hardware dongle or online activation. If the PC is embedded in the instrument, like modern high-end scopes, then at least it will stay with the instrument over its life. But if you don't even have the software, and the instrument is fully reliant on that software to do anything useful, then it's game over for that instrument.

For DMMs: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix, ...
For Scopes: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix, LeCroy, ...
For Signal Generators: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix,  ...

How many DMMs and signal generators do Tektronix, Rigol and Siglent make that rely on PC-control? How many scopes and signal generators does Keithley make at all?

list may be continued. All of them now offer remote-only instruments. The market is clearly automated testing
in a factory environment, and this market is huge. Here you need the max of test functionality in a cramped space. All this PXI stuff is just doing that.

Sure, this has been going on for decades. NI has been doing that or a long time, but their hardware is generally very reliant on their software. Can you talk to PXI devices without any instrument-specific driver, like a stand-alone scope that supports LAN and SCPI over TCP/IP? Is for example the R&S PXI line SCPI? The only thing I find in their documentation is how to use their drivers, which will no doubt stop working at some future Windows / LabView update.

Yup.  We built up a system based on a PXI chassis for a customer that had equipment from NI, Agilent, etc. in it.  Whether or not it would still work in 20 years was of no consideration.   Portability of a system designed for a specific set of automated measurements was the issue.  It was mounted in a portable, shock-mounted mini-rack, and the PXI form-factor PC ran some version of windows and Labview.  It was shipped a bunch of different places over the course of a few years as a single unit and just worked every time with just a few minutes of setup, no complicated cabling to reproduce every time, etc. 

I don't understand why folks here cannot wrap their heads around the fact that there are a gazillion different applications that can have very different priorities.  None of us could possibly know all the different ways all of these instruments are used.  Insisting that it is always a bad idea to buy a specific kind of equipment shows a kind of arrogance that is laughable is silly. 

jason

[Wolfgang]

I think oz2cpu's point is that the problem is still easier if all the necessary hardware and software is contained in a single box, rather than if you need to get the instrument, cable, computer, software, etc all from different sources, and inevitably separated from each other over time. Bonus points if the software has some annoying copy-protection like a hardware dongle or online activation. If the PC is embedded in the instrument, like modern high-end scopes, then at least it will stay with the instrument over its life. But if you don't even have the software, and the instrument is fully reliant on that software to do anything useful, then it's game over for that instrument.

For DMMs: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix, ...
For Scopes: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix, LeCroy, ...
For Signal Generators: Keysight/HP/Agilent, Rohde&Schwarz, Siglent, Rigol, Keithley, Tektronix,  ...

How many DMMs and signal generators do Tektronix, Rigol and Siglent make that rely on PC-control? How many scopes and signal generators does Keithley make at all?

list may be continued. All of them now offer remote-only instruments. The market is clearly automated testing
in a factory environment, and this market is huge. Here you need the max of test functionality in a cramped space. All this PXI stuff is just doing that.

Sure, this has been going on for decades. NI has been doing that or a long time, but their hardware is generally very reliant on their software. Can you talk to PXI devices without any instrument-specific driver, like a stand-alone scope that supports LAN and SCPI over TCP/IP? Is for example the R&S PXI line SCPI? The only thing I find in their documentation is how to use their drivers, which will no doubt stop working at some future Windows / LabView update.

After some research:
Rigol does have PC-only signal generators, oscilloscopes
Siglent has PC-only oscilloscopes
Tektronix has PC-only oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers
Keithley makes PC-only SMUs and multimeters

Tek/Keithley are now the same company.

 I think that the demand for remote-only is huge. PXI is fine as long as standard interfaces are used, otherwise you are again hooked to a specific manufacturer.

[alm]

I think that the demand for remote-only is huge. PXI is fine as long as standard interfaces are used, otherwise you are again hooked to a specific manufacturer.

No argument the demand is huge for all kinds of automated setups. But it is a niche market. For bench use, a more traditional unit with a front panel and remote control is more versatile for the majority of people.

Is PXI like PCI in that you need a driver for every instrument? Or is it like GPIB where you only need a driver for the interface and the rest is standard SCPI?

[Wolfgang]

I think that the demand for remote-only is huge. PXI is fine as long as standard interfaces are used, otherwise you are again hooked to a specific manufacturer.

No argument the demand is huge for all kinds of automated setups. But it is a niche market. For bench use, a more traditional unit with a front panel and remote control is more versatile for the majority of people.

Is PXI like PCI in that you need a driver for every instrument? Or is it like GPIB where you only need a driver for the interface and the rest is standard SCPI?

Regarding PXI I suppose that there are good (SCPI, ...) and bad (proprietary protocol) guys. I dont have any PXI stuff so I cannot tell from personal experience. In my lab everything from Keysight, R&S, Rigol, ... has a user interface (expect a PicoScope) plus SCPI programmability, but the instruments for automation I built myself, still using SCPI interfaces.

[zrq]

If so many people don't like PC controlled test equipment, please sell them at once one get hands on them, on ebay or this forum. They are going to loose value quickly, maybe after a Windoze update it will break, so better put a lower asking price to get rid of them quickly.

So that I can pick them up  .

[switchabl]

Is PXI like PCI in that you need a driver for every instrument? Or is it like GPIB where you only need a driver for the interface and the rest is standard SCPI?

PXI is essentially just PCI with a different form factor and some extra signals (trigger and so on). Some PXI cards expose a SCPI interface through VISA but you still need a vendor-specific driver. PXI also supports DMA transfers for high-throughput applications and there isn't really a standard interface for that (maybe IIO on Linux) so that will always be proprietary.