Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cerebus]

Edit: gah just found a hole in my rain coat. If only we could throw some of the research money we burned at fabrics that are prickle-bush proof 

We did. They're called "iron-on patches"; good for repair and preventive maintenance.

mnem
 

Hey Mnem, the 70's called - they want their bell-bottom jeans back!

[Mr. Scram]

Thinking about the future... what will it be like in another 20-30 years?  -  Chips will most likely be crazy advanced and inexpensive,  mind blowing.

(Ignoring your points that I agree with).

Let's consider the future, as seen from what I was using a while ago...

35-40 years ago	Now
8-bit micros (Z80)	8-bit micros (atmega328)
ADCs, DACs, TTL	ADCs, DACs, TTL
LED/LCD output	LED/LCD output
programmed in C (Whitesmith's)	programmed in C (gcc, others)
crosscompiled under unix on a PDP11	crosscompiled under linux on a PC
breakpoints and singlestepping via a ICE	breakpoints and singlestepping via JTAG

Depressingly little has changed, hasn't it.

When I came back to this area as a hobby, I was horrified at how little I needed to relearn. Yes, things are  "smaller, faster, cheaper", but that was predicted and hence uninteresting.

A few technological points have changed significantly:

• stunning speed/resolution changes in ADCs/DACs
• nanopower circuits and environmentally harvested energy sources
• multiprocessor - but even there the best current technology is the XMOS' version of the early 80's Transputer/Occam - xCORE/xC
• FPGAs having greated capacity than semi-custom CMOS and PALs
• an even smaller proportion of developers understand the implications of hard realtime, and what is necessary to ensure it

The major change is probably that things which were once expensive and rare are now commodity or even disposable items. Semi-conductors have gone from special and rare to literally everywhere. I can light my entire house with the power a single light bulb used 20 years ago. Throwing computing power and silicon at problems is easy and cheap, which allows for things we never even imagined. And lots of stupid ideas too, but that comes with the territory. The same applies to TE. The oriental offerings near the bottom of the market are ridiculously capable devices which give the upper market devices of yesteryear a run for their money at a fraction of the price.

Seeing new gear like the new Keithley line-up launched which isn't just ridiculously capable, but also very flexible and bleeding into what traditionally were other areas is also very exciting. We see this more and more and makes me excited for the future of TE. Don't get me wrong, the 34401A and Keithley 2000 are amazing machines, but extracting the data you're interested in is a different story altogether.

[bd139]

Edit: gah just found a hole in my rain coat. If only we could throw some of the research money we burned at fabrics that are prickle-bush proof 

We did. They're called "iron-on patches"; good for repair and preventive maintenance.

mnem
 

Yes - already ordered a gore-tex repair kit. TBH I'm not sure why I bothered. It's 10 years old and way too big now. 

Edit: ooh amazon win. Just got myself a Berghaus hillwalker 3-in-1 fleece/hardshell combo for £83. Literally bounced back up to £167 after I bought it from retail of £215 (hope the hell it fits now  )

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Depressingly little has changed, hasn't it.
[...]

The key difference is probably not so much in the existence of the technology...  but in how small and cheap it has become.  E.g. it would have been unthinkable (even after the most intense LSD powered party) in the 70's to build a microprocessor and a radio communications system into a disposable light bulb!

If this trend continues, we will get entire PCs built into two dollar post cards, so you can have a live Zoom session with the recipient of the card!

[tggzzz]

Thinking about the future... what will it be like in another 20-30 years?  -  Chips will most likely be crazy advanced and inexpensive,  mind blowing.

(Ignoring your points that I agree with).

Let's consider the future, as seen from what I was using a while ago...

35-40 years ago	Now
8-bit micros (Z80)	8-bit micros (atmega328)
ADCs, DACs, TTL	ADCs, DACs, TTL
LED/LCD output	LED/LCD output
programmed in C (Whitesmith's)	programmed in C (gcc, others)
crosscompiled under unix on a PDP11	crosscompiled under linux on a PC
breakpoints and singlestepping via a ICE	breakpoints and singlestepping via JTAG

Depressingly little has changed, hasn't it.

When I came back to this area as a hobby, I was horrified at how little I needed to relearn. Yes, things are  "smaller, faster, cheaper", but that was predicted and hence uninteresting.

A few technological points have changed significantly:

• stunning speed/resolution changes in ADCs/DACs
• nanopower circuits and environmentally harvested energy sources
• multiprocessor - but even there the best current technology is the XMOS' version of the early 80's Transputer/Occam - xCORE/xC
• FPGAs having greated capacity than semi-custom CMOS and PALs
• an even smaller proportion of developers understand the implications of hard realtime, and what is necessary to ensure it

The major change is probably that things which were once expensive and rare are now commodity or even disposable items.

Just so. As I put it 'things are "smaller, faster, cheaper" '

Semi-conductors have gone from special and rare to literally everywhere. I can light my entire house with the power a single light bulb used 20 years ago.

Just so. I noted the extreme version of that, in the form of "nanopower circuits and environmentally harvested energy sources".

Still takes the same amount of electricity to make a cup of coffee, though!

Throwing computing power and silicon at problems is easy and cheap, which allows for things we never even imagined. And lots of stupid ideas too, but that comes with the territory. The same applies to TE. The oriental offerings near the bottom of the market are ridiculously capable devices which give the upper market devices of yesteryear a run for their money at a fraction of the price.

Just so. Stuff in general is ridiculously cheap and affordable; maybe that will change over the next few years

I realised that when I found I could easily afford a decent bench PSU and 100MHz scope.

[mnementh]

Edit: gah just found a hole in my rain coat. If only we could throw some of the research money we burned at fabrics that are prickle-bush proof 

We did. They're called "iron-on patches"; good for repair and preventive maintenance.

mnem
 

Hey Mnem, the 70's called - they want their bell-bottom jeans back!

Hey C!

The '90s called, and they have iron-on patches in leather, suede, twill & cotton duck in every color imaginable to match pretty much any fabric imaginable, and they're still around. Your favorite news/sports/weather anchor is probably sporting them on elbows of their suit jacket right now. Your least-favorite is probably ALSO sporting them as well. 

mnem
*Gets a very confused look on his face as a pretty redhead in a sportscar speeds up, stops and say "Nice pants..." then speeds off into the distance*
Because, you know... dwagons don't wear pants.

[SilverSolder]

[...]
- Your instruments are detected and controllable using NI VISA (finding them, sensing commands, reading data) with no action required on the PC side.
  They are found as ASRL:COMxx, you can open, send, write, read, query, ...

What is the benefit of using NI VISA, compared with hitting the instruments directly over the serial port from inside your program?  (Especially if you are not using LabView etc.)

That's how I do it over GPIB -  straight commands to each instrument, and processing the responses in the application (whether the instrument uses SCPI or even older, instrument specific protocols)

[tggzzz]

[...]
Depressingly little has changed, hasn't it.
[...]

The key difference is probably not so much in the existence of the technology...  but in how small and cheap it has become.  E.g. it would have been unthinkable (even after the most intense LSD powered party) in the 70's to build a microprocessor and a radio communications system into a disposable light bulb!

If this trend continues, we will get entire PCs built into two dollar post cards, so you can have a live Zoom session with the recipient of the card!

I did write "Yes, things are  "smaller, faster, cheaper", but that was predicted and hence uninteresting."

I'd have hoped things would become smaller, faster, cheaper, and better, for some technical meaning of "better" such as "reliable" or "predictable" or "long-lived" or "robust".

[bd139]

They are quite robust and long-lived. You can get 10 years out of a PC and 5 years out of a (decent quality) phone.

[Wolfgang]

[...]
- Your instruments are detected and controllable using NI VISA (finding them, sensing commands, reading data) with no action required on the PC side.
  They are found as ASRL:COMxx, you can open, send, write, read, query, ...

What is the benefit of using NI VISA, compared with hitting the instruments directly over the serial port from inside your program?  (Especially if you are not using LabView etc.)

That's how I do it over GPIB -  straight commands to each instrument, and processing the responses in the application (whether the instrument uses SCPI or even older, instrument specific protocols)

Of course you may do that, and it works. The reason why I chose VISA was:
- all my other commercial lab stuff uses it and they have no serial connectivity but USB
- VISA does some housekeeping (timeouts, error handling, ...) you would have to duplicate
- there is a prefabricated front-end (NI Explorer) handy for testing
- Its no more effort than serial because I need VISA anyway
- I dont like the same things to be done in a lot of different ways.

[tggzzz]

*Gets a very confused look on his face as a pretty redhead in a sportscar speeds up, stops and say "Nice pants..." then speeds off into the distance*
Because, you know... dwagons don't wear pants.

It is an unpleasant thought that she might ever be able to see your pants in that situation

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Depressingly little has changed, hasn't it.
[...]

The key difference is probably not so much in the existence of the technology...  but in how small and cheap it has become.  E.g. it would have been unthinkable (even after the most intense LSD powered party) in the 70's to build a microprocessor and a radio communications system into a disposable light bulb!

If this trend continues, we will get entire PCs built into two dollar post cards, so you can have a live Zoom session with the recipient of the card!

I did write "Yes, things are  "smaller, faster, cheaper", but that was predicted and hence uninteresting."

I'd have hoped things would become smaller, faster, cheaper, and better, for some technical meaning of "better" such as "reliable" or "predictable" or "long-lived" or "robust".

OK, the disposable light bulb did become "better" as a result of all the guts becoming cheaper, right?  -  Tech has been built into cars that would not have been possible in the past.  How many microprocessors are there in the typical mid range car these days?  Quite a few...

I think it is only too easy to catch a bit of the "boiled frog syndrome" to some extent in daily life - it doesn't take long to take a new level of existence for granted  (until you lose it!)

[SilverSolder]

[...]
- Your instruments are detected and controllable using NI VISA (finding them, sensing commands, reading data) with no action required on the PC side.
  They are found as ASRL:COMxx, you can open, send, write, read, query, ...

What is the benefit of using NI VISA, compared with hitting the instruments directly over the serial port from inside your program?  (Especially if you are not using LabView etc.)

That's how I do it over GPIB -  straight commands to each instrument, and processing the responses in the application (whether the instrument uses SCPI or even older, instrument specific protocols)

Of course you may do that, and it works. The reason why I chose VISA was:
- all my other commercial lab stuff uses it and they have no serial connectivity but USB
- VISA does some housekeeping (timeouts, error handling, ...) you would have to duplicate
- there is a prefabricated front-end (NI Explorer) handy for testing
- Its no more effort than serial because I need VISA anyway
- I dont like the same things to be done in a lot of different ways.

Understood.  -  I just hate using big libraries if I can avoid it!     

I did install the Keysight libraries in order to talk to my scope.  These were so massive that I felt I was using an atomic bomb to crack a nut...   so I uninstalled them again.

USB connections usually just look like a serial port to your application.  There may be cases where something more sophisticated than that has been done, of course, in which case my approach wouldn't work.

I even use a serial-to-GPIB converter (connected via USB-to-serial adapter), so my applications only ever need to know how to communicate via serial -  the lowest common denominator!

[tggzzz]

They are quite robust and long-lived. You can get 10 years out of a PC and 5 years out of a (decent quality) phone.

The PC I'm in the process of replacing[1] is ~10 years old.

I do have a cellphone (rather than a computer with audio); I dropped the last one off my roof onto concrete, and it survived.

But I wasn't really thinking of "robust" in mechanical terms. More like https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50747526 "BBC iPlayer stops working on some Samsung TVs Samsung said the problem had been caused by "security certificates" expiring on Sunday". Or Microsoft's "PlaysForSure (TM)" music [sic].
 

[1] the new incarnation (Ryzen 3700x, x570) is functional but awating final choice of operating system. I've tried centos and found it to be a bit of a pain. I've tried ubuntu 20.04, but dislike the snaps concept. OpenSUSE seems quite reasonable, particularly YAST, and I used it before I switched to Ubuntu. Linux Mint with xfce also seems good, but I'll wait for the new LTS variant to be issued "in June". If Win10 doesn't get uppity with me, I'll keep that around too.

There's only been one disappointment. I decided to play around with Joanna Rutkowska's Qubes, simply because it is so different and pushes one concept to the limit. Unfortunately it only likes inbuilt graphics and some Radeon cards, and I have an Nvidia. The core is that it Qubes, very reasonably, doesn't trust binary blobs.

[tggzzz]

[...]
Depressingly little has changed, hasn't it.
[...]

The key difference is probably not so much in the existence of the technology...  but in how small and cheap it has become.  E.g. it would have been unthinkable (even after the most intense LSD powered party) in the 70's to build a microprocessor and a radio communications system into a disposable light bulb!

If this trend continues, we will get entire PCs built into two dollar post cards, so you can have a live Zoom session with the recipient of the card!

I did write "Yes, things are  "smaller, faster, cheaper", but that was predicted and hence uninteresting."

I'd have hoped things would become smaller, faster, cheaper, and better, for some technical meaning of "better" such as "reliable" or "predictable" or "long-lived" or "robust".

OK, the disposable light bulb did become "better" as a result of all the guts becoming cheaper, right?  -

Not in some important ways. You have to hope the capacitors aren't so cheap they catch fire, and that it will continue to work if the power supply rattles up and down.

Tech has been built into cars that would not have been possible in the past.  How many microprocessors are there in the typical mid range car these days?  Quite a few...

Yes Read comp.risks or your local crime reports for some of the problems those cause.

Start with "I was locked out of my car in the desert because there was no cellular service", and look at all the keyless locks/ignitions that are easily exploited when someone wants to steal a car. Or, of course, the Tesla-meets-DarwinAward videos.

I think it is only too easy to catch a bit of the "boiled frog syndrome" to some extent in daily life - it doesn't take long to take a new level of existence for granted  (until you lose it!)

See the car examples above

[Mr. Scram]

The PC I'm in the process of replacing[1] is ~10 years old.

I do have a cellphone (rather than a computer with audio); I dropped the last one off my roof onto concrete, and it survived.

But I wasn't really thinking of "robust" in mechanical terms. More like https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50747526 "BBC iPlayer stops working on some Samsung TVs Samsung said the problem had been caused by "security certificates" expiring on Sunday". Or Microsoft's "PlaysForSure (TM)" music [sic].
 

[1] the new incarnation (Ryzen 3700x, x570) is functional but awating final choice of operating system. I've tried centos and found it to be a bit of a pain. I've tried ubuntu 20.04, but dislike the snaps concept. OpenSUSE seems quite reasonable, particularly YAST, and I used it before I switched to Ubuntu. Linux Mint with xfce also seems good, but I'll wait for the new LTS variant to be issued "in June". If Win10 doesn't get uppity with me, I'll keep that around too.

There's only been one disappointment. I decided to play around with Joanna Rutkowska's Qubes, simply because it is so different and pushes one concept to the limit. Unfortunately it only likes inbuilt graphics and some Radeon cards, and I have an Nvidia. The core is that it Qubes, very reasonably, doesn't trust binary blobs.

DRM is the bane of modern technology and should be banished to the place it came from. It always hurts the paying customer.

[Wolfgang]

[...]
- Your instruments are detected and controllable using NI VISA (finding them, sensing commands, reading data) with no action required on the PC side.
  They are found as ASRL:COMxx, you can open, send, write, read, query, ...

What is the benefit of using NI VISA, compared with hitting the instruments directly over the serial port from inside your program?  (Especially if you are not using LabView etc.)

That's how I do it over GPIB -  straight commands to each instrument, and processing the responses in the application (whether the instrument uses SCPI or even older, instrument specific protocols)

Of course you may do that, and it works. The reason why I chose VISA was:
- all my other commercial lab stuff uses it and they have no serial connectivity but USB
- VISA does some housekeeping (timeouts, error handling, ...) you would have to duplicate
- there is a prefabricated front-end (NI Explorer) handy for testing
- Its no more effort than serial because I need VISA anyway
- I dont like the same things to be done in a lot of different ways.

Understood.  -  I just hate using big libraries if I can avoid it!     

I did install the Keysight libraries in order to talk to my scope.  These were so massive that I felt I was using an atomic bomb to crack a nut...   so I uninstalled them again.

USB connections usually just look like a serial port to your application.  There may be cases where something more sophisticated than that has been done, of course, in which case my approach wouldn't work.

I even use a serial-to-GPIB converter (connected via USB-to-serial adapter), so my applications only ever need to know how to communicate via serial -  the lowest common denominator!

Had the same issue. I have a lot of Keysight equipment, but their software suite is crap. The NI stuff is a lot smaller and not as invasive. The worst thing to install is BenchVue. It uses hundreds of MB to create a license-managed bloatware that is completely buggy.

[Mr. Scram]

Had the same issue. I have a lot of Keysight equipment, but their software suite is crap. The NI stuff is a lot smaller and not as invasive. The worst thing to install is BenchVue. It uses hundreds of MB to create a license-managed bloatware that is completely buggy.

Not just that, but they're asking rather substantial amounts of money for software with very similar functionality to software they used to offer for free, or at much more modest prices. You bought equipment thinking you could use these applications and now they're suddenly gone and replaced with quite expensive "alternatives". Good thing people on this forum have been making amazing software which is better in almost every regard.

[bd139]

They are quite robust and long-lived. You can get 10 years out of a PC and 5 years out of a (decent quality) phone.

The PC I'm in the process of replacing[1] is ~10 years old.

I do have a cellphone (rather than a computer with audio); I dropped the last one off my roof onto concrete, and it survived.

But I wasn't really thinking of "robust" in mechanical terms. More like https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50747526 "BBC iPlayer stops working on some Samsung TVs Samsung said the problem had been caused by "security certificates" expiring on Sunday". Or Microsoft's "PlaysForSure (TM)" music [sic].
 

[1] the new incarnation (Ryzen 3700x, x570) is functional but awating final choice of operating system. I've tried centos and found it to be a bit of a pain. I've tried ubuntu 20.04, but dislike the snaps concept. OpenSUSE seems quite reasonable, particularly YAST, and I used it before I switched to Ubuntu. Linux Mint with xfce also seems good, but I'll wait for the new LTS variant to be issued "in June". If Win10 doesn't get uppity with me, I'll keep that around too.

There's only been one disappointment. I decided to play around with Joanna Rutkowska's Qubes, simply because it is so different and pushes one concept to the limit. Unfortunately it only likes inbuilt graphics and some Radeon cards, and I have an Nvidia. The core is that it Qubes, very reasonably, doesn't trust binary blobs.

DRM can go to hell, unless it's convenient and cheap and I don't care about losing whatever it is or my costs would be higher. Hence why I keep the kindle around and use Apple Music.

Worth seeing what bits of Qubes and Linux overlap with windows (device guard / UWP containers / windows sandbox)

My Linux desktop is windows at the moment. WSL2 is quite frankly amazing. Add VScode and I think I've hit the jackpot now. I'm currently using VScode for windows to write a Go program that runs on Linux that talks to an instance of prometheus on kubernetes deployed from windows. And it's all seamless!

I'm mostly concerned that the tools I use are heading in the right direction of compromises rather than a set of ideologies which are unrealistic and impossible to get close to these days. I need to get stuff done!

[Specmaster]

They are quite robust and long-lived. You can get 10 years out of a PC and 5 years out of a (decent quality) phone.

Should be able to get even more from them if only the software support was available.

[tggzzz]

DRM can go to hell, unless it's convenient and cheap and I don't care about losing whatever it is or my costs would be higher. Hence why I keep the kindle around and use Apple Music.

It's not just DRM. It is anything which presumes infrastructure and remote services. That means most IoT things.

OTOH, it is an amusing exercise to determine the absolute minimum necessary to, say, keep a record of temperature/humidity in a loft/garage.

I have a kindle. I've never bought anything to put on it; Amazon doesn't know it exists. It does have a lot of project gutenberg and drm-free stuff on it - more than I will be able to read in my remaining lifetime

Worth seeing what bits of Qubes and Linux overlap with windows (device guard / UWP containers / windows sandbox)

Edward Snowden recommends Qubes, and I know of one EE (Phil Hobbs, referred to in TAoE3 ) that uses it for many of his machines (centos on the others?).

I'm mostly concerned that the tools I use are heading in the right direction of compromises rather than a set of ideologies which are unrealistic and impossible to get close to these days. I need to get stuff done!

So your ideology is "get things done", which is fine until it is taken to the extreme

[tggzzz]

They are quite robust and long-lived. You can get 10 years out of a PC and 5 years out of a (decent quality) phone.

Should be able to get even more from them if only the software support was available.

I'm basically running Ubuntu 12.04, and everything is beginning to creak.

The sensible action would be to merely install a more up to date ubuntu, which is pretty trivial given my partitioning.

Instead I'm using it as the opportunity to migrate to hardware that is (or ought to be) further away from popping its clogs or capacitors. I'll keep the current machine for onsite file backup and emergency use. Mind you, I do have a 1.6Ghz Atom laptop that runs ubuntu perfectly well.

[mnementh]

I just had the fancy for a ultrasonic cleaner thats big enough to accept a PCB of approx 200 x 200 until I saw the prices of those things, geez why are they so bloody expensive 

Short version: RMS factoring of the emitter power/driver circuitry required to actually do the job vs volume. Log scale in power, log scale in price vs actual usable volume.

mnem
 

What?

Required power to sufficiently energize a tank full of solution roughly follows the same RMS power factoring as power required for loudspeakers/amplifiers in any given volume in air; it is not linear it is a log scale. Only difference is the starting point of the scale, because Watts/CC liquid vs Watts/CC air.

As a result, cost is similarly not a linear scale.

mnem
*nonlinear*

[Cerebus]

Your favorite news/sports/weather anchor is probably sporting them on elbows of their suit jacket right now. Your least-favorite is probably ALSO sporting them as well. 

Erm, our newsreaders have better taste than to dress like a Geography/PE teacher. Standards in British broadcasting may have slipped, but they haven't slipped that far.

Really. I do believe the poor fellow thinks that someone would put elbow patches on a Saville Row suit or that a newsreader would appear on the BBC in a shooting jacket. It's not like we expect them to read the radio news in an evening suit any more, but there is such a thing as relaxing standards too far...

A news reader properly attired for presentation upon the electric wireless:


Alistair Cooke, a naturalised American, presents "A Letter From America" on the BBC radio in a lounge suit no less:


Clearly the BBC has to accommodate the mores of this American, but please note that they still managed to get him to avoid looking like a Geography teacher:

[mnementh]

EDIT: C, I love you man but just looking at your examples kindof proves my point... they're all pretty much from the dark ages. 

*Gets a very confused look on his face as a pretty redhead in a sportscar speeds up, stops and say "Nice pants..." then speeds off into the distance*
Because, you know... dwagons don't wear pants.

It is an unpleasant thought that she might ever be able to see your pants in that situation

"Bubbida-bubbida... pretty redhead... talked to me... bubbida-bubbida..." 

mnem
Girl fumes: Completely dismantling the male thought process since before time was time...