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Tektronix Scope Frustration

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Carbon_Rod

Sun Nov 12 2006, 09:41AM

Registered Member #65 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155

IIRC NI drivers had serial and emulated card memory i/o for DOS.

The command set is old.

Steve Conner

Sun Nov 12 2006, 11:23AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

I use Labview (and its snaggle toothed cousin Agilent VEE) a lot at work. I actually get on pretty well with it and have made a fair bit of money writing Labview programs for people over the years.

The only bad thing about Labview is the non-open-source philosophy and the 4 grand price tag on their professional development system. And the fact that they mostly only bother supplying drivers for NI instruments: one of the things I used to do was write drivers for weird Agilent gear at my old work.

Oh and the fact that things that would take a simple search and replace in a text-based language can take a whole day of pointing and clicking. Anyway if you get stuck with this stuff I'm sure me or ... can unstick you.

BTW, we bought this USB-GPIB interface at work so we could use our GPIB kit with our laptop. It was about $400 :(

Note that Labview only ships with drivers for NI GPIB interfaces. If you buy a GPIB dongle made by someone else, they also have to supply a Labview driver for it. So if buying one used, check you can get the driver somewhere. Also, a Labview driver that was written for your scope using one brand of GPIB card may not work with another. If there even is a driver for your scope- neither Tektronix nor NI list one.

If it were me, I'd be looking for people selling the 2402/scope combo on eBay, who mention that they have the disks, and e-mailing them to ask for copies. (make sure they make them bootable!) All you need is that "DSO Utility Disk" or whatever it's called to tell the Tekmate that it's to be a computer for a DSO today, and it should come to life and connect up to the scope. It looks like it would be a great system once you get it working. I don't know whether you need a different disk for each model of scope.

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Sun Nov 12 2006, 08:42PM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

Thank you for all of your help.

I am asking for student pricing, and hopefully I can get a student version of LabView. My dad is suggesting that this could be a gift.

The NI forums are suggesting that users of old GPIB use the MAX communication interface to get started, so that's where i'd start.

I have someone trying to get software, but im not going to hold my breath.

I've been going over my manuals, but I need to get them printed out.

this is going to be an interesting experience. I get to learn yet another software system, and I thought I was done at MatLab. Oh well. Software is what makes the world turn.

I'll keep you posted

Matt

Carbon_Rod

Sun Nov 12 2006, 09:08PM

Registered Member #65 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155

You may want to dig up the C64 HPIB how-to too. =]

For open source stuff try these Linux kernel mods:

It also has C code docs with it etc.

see pdf for supported hardware .
Good luck,
]1163365705_65_FT17832_linuxgpib.pdf[/file]

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Tue Nov 14 2006, 11:47PM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

I've done a lot of communicating with a lot of equipment dealers. I still haven't begged Tektronix yet, but that is coming.

What I learned is that since the tekmate is an IBM clone, there really wasn't anything special about the dos, so I'm bidding on an old dos 3.3 system. Hopefully I can boot from that.

It seems that, allthough people can be helpful, they are hardfast about copying something that's over 20 years old! It really saddens me that someone would have the dos diskette and they won't copy it for a good sum of money. If someone needed a copy of dos and it could net you $50 wouldn't you do it? For what, 2 minutes of work? So you're afiraid of copyright law, then charge me the value of the diskette, copy it for free, and charge me $49 in S&H!

I said it was for college, but still, no go.

One of the equipment dealers I talked to said that it was Tek's attitude to 'destroy' the software, such that customers would have to buy the new products. I guess I'll find out when I beg Tek for software.

I think everything is coming down to taking digital photos of the screen. Talking with one of my instructors who is a BMEE, I found out that its perfectly accpetable to take the datapoints from the image and get the data that way. And with programs out there to trace the line of the scope, he told me that its not as big of a problem as I believed.

This is really getting under my skin. I love my scope, but #$%#$%!#$^#$^!####_))_(_*5!!!!! TEk man, it sure makes my life miserable.

...

Wed Nov 15 2006, 12:12AM

Registered Member #56 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445

Not suggesting anything, but have you considered something like this

Then you could grab the $300 usb dongle off ebay and dl the free vi's for the scope and call it a day...
There are also a few copies of labview 7 (or 8) on ebay... Looking at past auctions there are a number that have sold for sub $100 for student and sub $200 for pro...

Just something to consider...

Also, I have a pci-gpib card you could borrow for a while if you want to try get a feel as to what direction you want to go...

Steve Conner

Wed Nov 15 2006, 11:44AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Where are the VIs for the scope ...? I had a quick look round but couldn't find any.

...

Wed Nov 15 2006, 04:43PM

Registered Member #56 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445

linked in my first post. After you log in there is a zip with a number of vi's in it (but you need labview 7/8 to open them so I can't say what they actually do)

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Thu Jan 11 2007, 09:55AM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

*little update*

I now have a working Tekmate with software.
I'm still downloading and I would like to get into the real nitty-gritty of GPIB. With the Tekmate part of the frustration is over, but now I have to see if what I saved on diskette is readable on my PC, or if I have to resort to making an 'old' computer to process the waveform data from the tekmate.
I'm going to have to do some exercises to see how compatable the two systems are.

Thank you for your input. I'm not yet out of the woods, but some things are starting to look better.

Matt

** I found out why my other Tekmate isn't working. I pulled the Real Time Clock out and booted the machine. It exhibits the same read-disk failure, so I know the RTC is dead. I'm sampling 2 from Dallas now.

Jrz126

Fri Jan 12 2007, 03:20PM

Registered Member #242 Joined: Thu Feb 23 2006, 11:37PM
Location: Erie PA
Posts: 210

Hey matt, I have a text-searchable electronic copy of all 3 (operators, service, and programming) manuals if you're interested.

I'm also looking into the GPIB interface. I was wondering why these cards are so cheap

is it because of the ISA slot?

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