AVR-Chat

Anyone on the list own a PC scope, in particular the Cleverscope?  I am
willing to spend $4k usd on a used HP MSO, but if I can get essentially the
same for $1k I am tempted to take the risk.  I need this tool for protocol &
logic debugging on my AVR boards.

My concerns:
1. The analog performance isn't really what is specified.  I have compared
cheap with quality for "equivalent" hardware in other test equipment and in
general one gets what one pays for.
2. It is a one man shop so promised software enhancements might be slow to
come or fail to arrive altogether.
3. It is kind of nice having a separate screen for signal display and actual
knobs to spin.  I am afraid I'll eventually have yet another PC & Display on
my bench which in the end is larger than the dedicated MSO...

On the plus side, the Cleverscope is FPGA based and new features (like
protocol triggers) are simply a matter of control software updates.  It is
small so I could pack it in with the laptop on field trips, etc.


-----------
Larry Barello
www.barello.net

On 4/29/06, Larry Barello <yahoo@barello.net> wrote:
> Anyone on the list own a PC scope, in particular the Cleverscope?  I am
> willing to spend $4k usd on a used HP MSO, but if I can get essentially the
> same for $1k I am tempted to take the risk.  I need this tool for protocol &
> logic debugging on my AVR boards.

I recently bought an RS-232 multimeter from somebody on eBay. He
mentioned to me that he upgraded to the following two tools:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7607401245
The logic analylyzer is available from here:
http://www.pctestinstruments.com/

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7604105820
I see that the eBay seller has another for sale (click on Visit Seller's Store).

I found somebody else selling used ones for $499:
http://www.equipmatching.com/used_equipment/3/44/45700.php

I haven't used either of these, but they look interesting, especially
the LogicPort.

I bough a BitScope, but I'm not happy with the UI software that comes with it.

--
Dave Hylands
Vancouver, BC, Canada
http://www.DaveHylands.com/

I wouldn't be as nervous as Dave, Larry, many of us are small shops and 
we need to support one another as much as possible as long as we can 
provide support for what we make.  But as he wrote...$4K will get you an 
awful lot of scope these days, especially on the used market.

Test equipment is our business and many of our customers have tried to 
go the "PC Scope" route over the years.  They're okay for someone 
working at their desk rather in the lab where they can spread out.  
However, when there's a need to do real work and take real measurements 
there's nothing like having a real scope with its own display and knobs 
to fiddle with...be it analog or digital.  The digital scopes these days 
aren't much bigger than a notebook computer, too, so they're not that 
big a deal to pack around in the field.  There are also a lot of them 
available on the used market.  There should also be a rather good supply 
of them up in your area.

No matter what you do, I would go with at least a 100MHz model.  
Remember that your pulse edges cause your equivalent bandwidth needs to 
increase significantly.


REB


Larry Barello wrote:

>Anyone on the list own a PC scope, in particular the Cleverscope?  I am
>willing to spend $4k usd on a used HP MSO, but if I can get essentially the
>same for $1k I am tempted to take the risk.  I need this tool for protocol &
>logic debugging on my AVR boards.
>
>My concerns:
>1. The analog performance isn't really what is specified.  I have compared
>cheap with quality for "equivalent" hardware in other test equipment and in
>general one gets what one pays for.
>2. It is a one man shop so promised software enhancements might be slow to
>come or fail to arrive altogether.
>3. It is kind of nice having a separate screen for signal display and actual
>knobs to spin.  I am afraid I'll eventually have yet another PC & Display on
>my bench which in the end is larger than the dedicated MSO...
>
>On the plus side, the Cleverscope is FPGA based and new features (like
>protocol triggers) are simply a matter of control software updates.  It is
>small so I could pack it in with the laptop on field trips, etc.
>
>
>-----------
>Larry Barello
>www.barello.net
>  
>

Hi Larry,

I own a CleverScope. I should also add that I sell them so I will try 
to keep the bias to a minimum... ;-)

On 29 Apr 2006 at 7:52, Larry Barello wrote:

> Anyone on the list own a PC scope, in particular the Cleverscope?  I am
> willing to spend $4k usd on a used HP MSO, but if I can get essentially the
> same for $1k I am tempted to take the risk.  I need this tool for protocol &
> logic debugging on my AVR boards.
> 
> My concerns:
> 1. The analog performance isn't really what is specified.  I have compared
> cheap with quality for "equivalent" hardware in other test equipment and in
> general one gets what one pays for.

The analogue performance is actually quite good though I have seen 
problems with earth loops when the Cleverscope is connected to a PC 
and the signal is also earth-referenced. Shouldn't be a problem with 
a laptop. The vertical resolution is 10-bit (most others are only 8-
bit) and the offset facility means you don't have to loose DC info to 
look at some small signals.

> 2. It is a one man shop so promised software enhancements might be slow to
> come or fail to arrive altogether.

True. I happen to know the guy personally. He knows his stuff and has 
been playing (and building) digital scopes for about 15 years.

> 3. It is kind of nice having a separate screen for signal display and actual
> knobs to spin.  I am afraid I'll eventually have yet another PC & Display on
> my bench which in the end is larger than the dedicated MSO...

Possibly. Mine is connected to my main development PC so the PC is 
already there. The ability to copy/paste a waveform for documentation 
is very useful.

> On the plus side, the Cleverscope is FPGA based and new features (like
> protocol triggers) are simply a matter of control software updates.  It is
> small so I could pack it in with the laptop on field trips, etc.

I have done one full upgrade and it was painless - just follow the 
instructions. As far as field operation is concerned, you can't power 
the Cleverscope from the USB port so you will need a separate power 
source. But it is quite small. The supplied probes are not 'cheap and 
nasty'.

You will find the very deep memory (4M samples per input) very useful 
for protocol debugging. I have.

I hope that helps.

Cheers,
Les Grant.


-------------------------------------------------------------
Les Grant. VK2KYJ.      Phone: 02 9896 7150 Fax: 02 9896 7153
Grantronics Pty Ltd     Int'l: +612 9896 7150, +612 9896 7153
ABN 46 070 123 643
PO Box 275, Wentworthville. NSW. 2145. Australia.            
http://www.grantronics.com.au  mailto:info@grantronics.com.au
Microcontroller Hardware and Software development: 
Atmel AVR - C, ASM, Digital and analogue 
-------------------------------------------------------------
o ImageCraft AVR, TI, Motorola and ARM Windows-hosted C compilers
o ELNEC Device Programmers (E)EPROMs, Flash, Micros, PLDs
o CAN-BUS Hardware and Software from LAWICEL
o Logical Systems Programming, Prototyping & Production Adaptors
o Cleverscope USB oscilloscopes
-------------------------------------------------------------

As an aside, just read the blurb from Glyn today, anyone had any experience with 
the Cyan Technology mcu's. Look very interesting.  With AVR32's, ARM's etc just 
too many choices. Time to return to the safety & simplicity of the 2650's ;-)

Cheers

Don

Les Grant wrote:
> Hi Larry,
> 
Add me to the list...

I brought mine to have something to carry with the laptop when I want a bit more 
portability than the bench DSO or a bit more capability than the Fluke scope. 
The price means that if it gets run over, knocked off or dropped form a great 
height then there aren't too many tears.

The unit has proven to be very capable, a few niggles in the software but 
gradually getting better. Support by the author has been very good.

I have found the complex triggering and display scaling to be very helpful for 
development work as the display can be calibrated in sensor measurement units.

The other item which has been really bloody useful is the digital filtering 
facility. You can set up filter parameters & look at the effect on the actual 
raw sensor signal, it gives you a feel for any analog post processing which you 
may intend to implement on an input signal prior to actually doing so. Bit like 
a real world spice ;-)  There is also a tracking gen to test network responses.

A lot of recent toil has been on the development of a sensor with a response 
below 1 meg, the trusty tek dso has been idle for a while as the added 
functionality provided by the cleverscope has been very helpful. Having said 
that, it is not a high speed CRO, it is however a very useful, reasonably 
priced, low speed instrument.

-- 

Cheers

Don

On May 2, 2006, at 5:27 AM, Les Grant wrote:

>
>> 2. It is a one man shop so promised software enhancements might be  
>> slow to
>> come or fail to arrive altogether.
>
> True. I happen to know the guy personally. He knows his stuff and has
> been playing (and building) digital scopes for about 15 years.

My big concern on any PC-based instrument would be future support.

Before I would buy such an instrument I'd have to be sure that I had  
full documentation of any over-the-wire protocols so that even if the  
instrument were orphaned I could write my own software.

For that matter, having the sources for a library that supported the  
full protocol set would be a very good thing.

Better yet would be to have such a library as well as sources for the  
PC end.

As would be support for something beyond Windows/x86, though I  
suppose I could take Linux off a laptop if I could find its bundled  
Windows disks.

-- 
Ned Konz
MetaMagix embedded consulting
MetaMagix@gmail.com

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Don Ingram" <don@led.com.au>
To: <AVR-Chat@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 1:46 PM
Subject: [AVR-Chat] OT OT Cyan


> As an aside, just read the blurb from Glyn today, anyone had any 
> experience with
> the Cyan Technology mcu's. Look very interesting.  With AVR32's, ARM's etc 
> just
> too many choices. Time to return to the safety & simplicity of the 2650's 
> ;-)

They've been around for some years in various forms. I saw them discussed a 
few months ago, somewhere, and the opinion was that they weren't much good. 
I got a little tin of mints from them at the Embedded Systems Show last 
year, with a label reading 'Cyanide'. 8-) I think that is the name of the 
the development toolset. The mints were OK.

Leon

False labeling on the mints!  You obviously lived through them.  :-)

Zack

On Tue, 2 May 2006, Leon Heller wrote:

> 
> They've been around for some years in various forms. I saw them discussed a
> few months ago, somewhere, and the opinion was that they weren't much good.
> I got a little tin of mints from them at the Embedded Systems Show last
> year, with a label reading 'Cyanide'. 8-) I think that is the name of the
> the development toolset. The mints were OK.
> 
> Leon
>

At 10:46 PM 2/05/2006, you wrote:
>Time to return to the safety & simplicity of the 2650's ;-)

For the ELITE few that know :-)


Regards

John Samperi

********************************************************
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
11 Brokenwood Place Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153 AUSTRALIA
Tel. (02) 9674-6495       Fax (02) 9674-8745
Email: john@ampertronics.com.au
Website  http://www.ampertronics.com.au
*Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
********************************************************

John Samperi wrote:
> At 10:46 PM 2/05/2006, you wrote:
>> Time to return to the safety & simplicity of the 2650's ;-)
> 
> For the ELITE few that know :-)
> 

"ELITE few"... My son would contend that that is just a euphemism for "grumpy 
old fart" ;-)


-- 
Cheers

Don

> 
> Regards
> 
> John Samperi
> 
> ********************************************************
> Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
> 11 Brokenwood Place Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153 AUSTRALIA
> Tel. (02) 9674-6495       Fax (02) 9674-8745
> Email: john@ampertronics.com.au
> Website  http://www.ampertronics.com.au
> *Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
> ********************************************************
> 
> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
>

Memories :) I started on SC/MP for a few weeks while I waited on my 2650 
eval board. Then it was all 2650 for the next couple of years. I still 
have the board and manual to this day. That's back when we would 
actually write machine code and lookup the opcodes till I knew them by 
heart and calculate all the relative addresses etc. Since I didn't have 
a terminal I obtained a surplus keyboard matrix and etched an encoder 
board to talk serially at 300 baud to the 2650 monitor sitting in 1K of 
fusible-link PROM. The only output (if you didn't have a terminal) was a 
paper-tape status led by which you could with some practice work out 
whether the 2650 monitor program was happy so far as you typed the 
machine code in rather carefully.

Signetics 2650
8-bit 1Mhz 3us cycle time (3-9us/instruction!!)
32K addressing in 8K pages

Yes, the hardware certainly was safe and very definitely simple although 
the development environment was the complete opposite, but I managed to 
cut my teeth on micros with it. These days the hardware and software are 
complex but the development tools ease the pain immensely.

NOW, back on thread (but still off topic), I have studied the CYAN and 
CYANIDE with interest, the CPU reminds me of the 6502/65816 which I was 
very happy with although it's only 16-bits (spoiled on ARMs). But it's 
the mix of peripherals and packaging that grabs me. Presently I am 
evaluating LPC2888 amongst many others but the BGA is a bummer for protos.

Also, the cyanide ide and configurator look great making it so much 
easier to configure peripherals and assign I/O pins etc.

Surely someone has had some experience with this chip and I would like 
to hear about it although I think it might be better to continue the 
cyan thread in a more appropriate group like c.a.e perhaps.

BTW, I am also looking at PARALLAX's PROPELLER but that's a different story.

*Peter*



Don Ingram wrote:

> John Samperi wrote:
>> At 10:46 PM 2/05/2006, you wrote:
>>> Time to return to the safety & simplicity of the 2650's ;-)
>> For the ELITE few that know :-)
>>
> 
> "ELITE few"... My son would contend that that is just a euphemism for "grumpy 
> old fart" ;-)

At 10:29 AM 3/05/2006, you wrote:
>2650 monitor sitting in 1K of fusible-link PROM.

So you would have used the original Signetics PIPBUG :-)
I used both it and BINBUG by Ian Binnie who was
a champion for the 2650. Purchased his (and still have)
assembler and editor, ended up getting 2 x 5" floppies
going on it as well as BASIC AND SYSTEM80 compatible graphics
(copied the SYS80 video card on veroboard) so I was able to
run pretty much all BASIC games that the SYS80 or TRS80 could
run, well after I put some extension to the basic interpreter
that is.


Regards

John Samperi

********************************************************
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
11 Brokenwood Place Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153 AUSTRALIA
Tel. (02) 9674-6495       Fax (02) 9674-8745
Email: john@ampertronics.com.au
Website  http://www.ampertronics.com.au
*Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
********************************************************