Turn your Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope into a 100MHz DS1102E
David L. Jones
100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
Dave.
--
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
http://www.eevblog.com
Trevor Wilson
> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into
> a 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>
> Dave.
**You're a bad man, Dave. A very bad man.
Nice one. Thanks.
--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au
John Larkin
<alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>
>Dave.
What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
is expensive.
Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
versions.
I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
few more.
John
F Murtz
> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>
> Dave.
>
to update browser)(which I did not do)
mi...@sushi.com
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>
The design cost is amortized over all the units. [Hey, don't worry
what the consults charges, it will go to zero as we sell a million
units.]
Rigol does themselves a disservice by having to maintain two
products. They should just sell the higher speed scope, bomb the
market, and then own it.
George Jefferson
<mi...@sushi.com> wrote in message
news:0abfe648-de60-42c3...@z11g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never make it
very far. People like Larkin are too arrogant to understand this. Do you
think people would buy their products if they knew that the only difference
between the low end and high end versions is the price? At the very least
they could have added some true functional improvement that made it
justifiable but simply changing the model number doesn't justify a 40% price
increase.
oopere
> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>
> Dave.
>
You can also upgrade high end Agilent scopes buying the "feature" you
want, which turns out to be just a string of characters to be typed
somewhere. It is funny to know that you already own the required
hardware to go several GHz further! Now _that_ would be interesting to post!
Pere
Martin Brown
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
> <alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>
>> Dave.
>
> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
"Land of the Free" criminalises lots of things. The punters must be
ripped off by corporate excess at every turn - just look at the DMCA as
an example of how your congress critters are in hock to big business.
The Sony BMG CD rootkit fiasco in 2005 was a particularly nasty example
of this with the boot on the other foot.
>
> I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
> option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
> a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
> it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
> the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
> flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
> arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
Even as an originator of IP I find it difficult to have much sympathy
for Rigol here when they clearly made no effort to cover their tracks in
the firmware. It would only have taken an MD5 or CRC of the serial
number XORred with a bit pattern known only to them to prevent hackers.
If you can upgrade it by sending it a new model number then why not?
They won't easily stop hardware mods though. Engineers tweaking
commercially available products by swapping out weak components to
improve or make them more reliable has been going on since the year dot.
>
> Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
> is expensive.
Indeed. And that is why you should not make it trivial to hack.
> Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
> it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
> versions.
However, it does make the Rigol DS1052E a very attractive proposition
for the moment. UK/Oz attitudes to hacking kit are somewhat more relaxed
than in the US. Almost all DVD players here are available in MultiRegion
hacked form and even NASA brings its DVD kit to London to be doctored.
Region locked players do not sell particularly well to UK film buffs.
>
> I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
> filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
> than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
> few more.
You may as well patch them for 100MHz bandwidth then. Send Rigol the
price difference or whatever you think it is worth if your conscience
bothers you.
Regards,
Martin Brown
terryc
> It's also very dishonest
Fill me in one that please. (I do not waste bandwidth on youtube).
In this country, if I outrightly own item A and item B, what I do with
them is my business (legal restictions aside).
Where was the dishonest part?
Was their an agreement signed prohibiting use of some part on one of the
items
> Do
> you think people would buy their products if they knew that the only
> difference between the low end and high end versions is the price?
Well, the only difference with Casio calculators over the entire range
was the number of wires brought out from under the blob, but they still
sell like hot cakes.
Nial Stewart
> Larkin are too arrogant to understand this. Do you think people would buy their products if they
...and access to extended functionality that someone's had to be paid to
develop?
Yes.
> At the very least they could have added some true functional improvement that made it justifiable
> but simply changing the model number....
...and access to further functionality that someone's had to be paid to
develop....
> doesn't justify a 40% price increase.
By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs of the
DVD when they sell Windows7.
Nial
hamilton
>
>
>> It's also very dishonest
Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here.
They sell you a device that's made with 100Mhz circuitry and then hold
it hostage until you pay more.
hamilton
David L. Jones
>> It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never
>> make it very far. People like Larkin are too arrogant to understand
>> this. Do you think people would buy their products if they knew that
>> the only difference between the low end and high end versions is the
>> price....
>
> ...and access to extended functionality that someone's had to be paid
> to develop?
In this case Rigol actually went to the trouble to design-in circuitry to
enable this 50MHz "cripple" feature. The front end was clearly designed from
day one to be at least 100MHz bandwidth, and they then decided to dumb it
down to meet a lower end market and price point by adding the cripple
feature.
So George is essentially right, the only effective difference is the price.
>> At the very least they could have added some true functional
>> improvement that made it justifiable but simply changing the model
>> number....
>
> ...and access to further functionality that someone's had to be paid
> to develop....
The only extra functionality is being able to go to 2ns timebase instead of
5ns, everything else is identical. A couple of lines of code?
Any extra design effort that has gone into this product all went in to
designing the cripple feature to dumb it down!
>> doesn't justify a 40% price increase.
>
> By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs
> of the DVD when they sell Windows7.
A completely silly analogy.
Dave.
--
---------------------------------------------
Al Borowski
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue
[...]
>The act is
> arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
If I bought a house, and it included an extra bedroom that wasn't
advertised and was padlocked shut, I wouldn't feel guilty breaking the
padlock in the least. Would you?
Cheers,
Al
Nial Stewart
>
> They sell you a device that's made with 100Mhz circuitry and then hold it hostage until you pay
> more.
It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
optimise their profits.
Dishonesty would be promising 100MHz performance then delivering 50MHz performance
with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.
?
Nial
John Devereux
Not even that, sometimes. My first casio (age ~13) had lots of extra
"hidden" functions (statistical). They just did not appear on the screen
printing on the keyboard overlay! But you could access them by just
pressing the buttons as if they were.
I suppose in the USA now I would be guilty of computer hacking, breaking
the DMCA and breaching license conditions, moral and legal theft.
--
John Devereux
Nial Stewart
>>> make it very far. People like Larkin are too arrogant to understand
>>> this. Do you think people would buy their products if they knew that
>>> the only difference between the low end and high end versions is the
>>> price....
>>
>> ...and access to extended functionality that someone's had to be paid
>> to develop?
>
> In this case Rigol actually went to the trouble to design-in circuitry to enable this 50MHz
> "cripple" feature. The front end was clearly designed from day one to be at least 100MHz
> bandwidth, and they then decided to dumb it down to meet a lower end market and price point by
> adding the cripple feature.
> So George is essentially right, the only effective difference is the price.
OK but they had to design in the functionality to allow them to change the
front end bandwidth.
The only way this is dishonest is if they promised something and didn't
deliver it.
If you bought a 50MHz scope you got that, if you spent more you got one
with 100MHz bandwidth.
Someone posted earlier saying they should have just flooded the market with
the 100MHz scope but that's their business decision.
It's not dishonest.
> The only extra functionality is being able to go to 2ns timebase instead of 5ns, everything else
> is identical. A couple of lines of code?
> Any extra design effort that has gone into this product all went in to designing the cripple
> feature to dumb it down!
Or add the flexibility to set the bandwidth.
>> By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs
>> of the DVD when they sell Windows7.
> A completely silly analogy.
Not really, the argument was that the price should be set on the hardware
and that firmware that enables functionality is dishonest to charge for.
Nial
Phil Allison
"Naive Stewart"
" Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here. "
> It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
> optimise their profits.
** Shame that if they told buyers the truth they would not get away with
it.
Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal
fraud.
> Dishonesty would be promising 100MHz performance then delivering 50MHz
> performance
> with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.
** Nope - that would be blatant example of extortion.
You ignorant dickhead.
.... Phil
Nial Stewart
>> It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
>> optimise their profits.
>
> Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal fraud.
Fair enough, I agree completely with this statement.
If you pay for a scope they say has 50MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
that has a 50MHz bandwidth?
If you pay for a scope they say has 100MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
that has a 100MHz bandwidth?
Where is the deception?
>> Dishonesty would be promising 100MHz performance then delivering 50MHz performance
>> with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.
>
> ** Nope - that would be blatant example of extortion.
And dishonesty.
Perhaps a better example would be promising a scope with 100MHz bandwidth
then delivering 50MHz bandwidth.
People got exactly what they were prepared to pay for, and AFAIK were getting
good value for money.
> You ignorant dickhead.
I don't know much about classical music, or opera (apart from Gilbert and Sullivan),
or classical languages, or modern languages, or have read much 'great' literature
so in many ways I am ignorant.
I'll leave the dickhead judgement to my friends.
Nial
Phil Allison
"Naive Fuckwit Stewart"
" Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here. "
>>> It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
>>> optimise their profits.
** Shame that if they told buyers the truth they would not get away with
it.
Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal
fraud.
> Where is the deception?
** In the FACT that the 100MHz version is NOT actually a different model
but sells with a very significant price hike - like 40%.
If they told buyers THAT simple truth they would not have any sales.
FUCKWIT !!!!!!!!!!!
>>> Dishonesty would be promising 100MHz performance then delivering 50MHz
>>> performance
>>> with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.
>>
>> ** Nope - that would be blatant example of extortion.
>
> Perhaps a better example would be promising a scope with 100MHz bandwidth
> then delivering 50MHz bandwidth.
** Standard example of consumer fraud - ie obtaining a financial benefit
( ie product sales ) by a deception.
YOU FUCKWIT POMMY MORON !!!
> I'll leave the dickhead judgement to my friends.
** ROTFLMAO !!
This trolling pommy cunthead's only " friends" have four legs and go: "
hee haw - hee haw " !!
.... Phil
Nial Stewart
Where does all that frustration come from?
> YOU FUCKWIT POMMY MORON !!!
I don't know where you get that from.
Nial.
Mike Harrison
I don't have a problem with charging for extra functions which involve extra software, but when you
have to pay to enable hardware you already own it feels like a rip-off, like Agilent charging to
allow you to use memory you already bought by selling a ' memory upgrade license'.
What is even more ridiculous in Agilent's case is that the upgrade purchase involves them fedexing a
certificate with the unlock code on it..
John Tserkezis
>> Where is the deception?
> In the FACT that the 100MHz version is NOT actually a different model
> but sells with a very significant price hike - like 40%.
> If they told buyers THAT simple truth they would not have any sales.
Oddly enough, this technique is quite frequent, though, the selling
technique is more transparent, unlike Rigol who intentionally obscures
the similarities.
One that comes to mind are multi-processor mainframe computers that are
sold fully kitted out, but only enable the number of processors the
customer pays for.
The idea is, you have the entire box delivered, you *know* it's the
fully populated box, you call them and say you want x processors
enabled, and you pay accordingly. They connect remotely, and using
complex encrypted communications, your box is reconfigured: Almost
instantly you have the performance you paid for.
There is a risk to the vendor, who forks out for the entire box and
have clients who never pay for all of it. But it's not all bad, this
results in possible lock-in (depending on product) guaranteeing further
income from clients that would have considered moving in the future, AND
it gets YOUR brand name out there in the market, which is always good news.
Likewise, where I used to work, when questioned about the quite
significant price difference between our lower-speced and higher-speced
acoustic products. We tell the client the control circuitry is
*exactly* the same, and the difference is in the cost of the microphone,
and show them the price list in case they were interested.
If they wanted to upgrade (or downgrade), just swap microphones, make
relevant adjustments, and re-calibrate the instrument, and that's it.
The entire process was transparent.
How is this different from the Rigol situation? Three points:
Firstly, they have ADDED circuitry to hinder native performance, verses
include, or enable circuitry (or firmware/software) to improve performance.
Secondly, they've intentionally obscured this fact (exact same hardware
and firmware), by making it look like two different products.
And lastly, possibly worst of all, they've made it this easy to hack.
baron
> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into
> a 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>
> Dave.
Priceless. ;-)
--
Best Regards:
Baron.
George Jefferson
"Nial Stewart" <nial*REMOVE_THIS*@nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk> wrote in
message news:81gnlp...@mid.individual.net...
> "Phul (of it) Allinson"
>
>>> It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
>>> optimise their profits.
>>
>> Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of
>> criminal fraud.
>
> Fair enough, I agree completely with this statement.
>
> If you pay for a scope they say has 50MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
> that has a 50MHz bandwidth?
>
> If you pay for a scope they say has 100MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
> that has a 100MHz bandwidth?
>
> Where is the deception?
Are you really that ignorant? So I create a 100Mhz scope and sale it for X
dollars as a 100Mhz scope. I then slap a new sticker on the 100Mhz scope and
call it a 50Mhz scope and sale it for Y dollars.
Now, if my profit margins for the 100Mhz scope was not that high then how
could I make profit on the "new" 50Mhz scope? Either they jacked up the
profit margin significantly to be able to do this trick or they are making
virtually no profit on the 50Mhz scope.
BUT! If they are making no profit on the 50Mhz scope then why not just
reduce the price of the 100Mhz scope in the first place?
They are exactly trying to simply get into a market that the 100Mhz scope
can't because of it's higher price. They can lower the price, pretend it's a
crappier version and then increase their market size for three reasons.
Those that can't and never will buy the 100Mhz version but will buy the
50Mhz and those that are lured in by the 50Mhz version and decide "I might
as well get the 100Mhz version since it's just a "little more"". Also those
that buy the 50Mhz version may decide to buy the more powerful one as an
"upgrade"... which in fact there is no real upgrade involved.
The dishonesty is in the tactics they use and tells you a lot about what
they think of their customers. This, of course, is not a new trick.
The dishonesty part is equivalent to lying. If you called them and asked
them about it do you really think they will tell you they are exactly the
same hardware with just a firmware change to cripple the cheaper version?
You can hide behind the cloak of capitalism all you want but this is not
capitalism but outright theft.
How do we know you are wrong and I'm right? Very easily... call up rigol and
ask them about the difference between the models. If they are honest they
will tell you there is only a firmware difference. If they are dishonest
they will make up something that we already know is false. The street name
for this kinda shit is lying. You may be confused by the big word dishonesty
but maybe one day you'll figure it out.
Of course this is not necessarily criminal but is walking the fine line. An
ethical company would not implement such practices. I don't know about
you(well, I guess I do) but I'd rather do business with a company that isn't
out to screw me.
terryc
> By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs of
> the DVD when they sell Windows7.
Is it worth that much?
Phil Hobbs
Destroying a market isn't usually a good way to make money in the long
run.
And it's easily possible that Rigol saves a boatload of money by having
only one assembly number to design, code, build, and test. Remember
that (as Dave discovered earlier) they're actually overclocking the ADCs
on the 100 MHz model--so one can argue it's really a 50 MHz scope that
Rigol themselves hacked into a 100 MHz one.
Companies have been selling crippleware forever--the earliest example I
know of was the 6 MHz IBM PC-AT. You changed the crystal and one other
thing that I forget, and suddenly you had a blistering fast 8 MHz AT!
(Cooler than the coolest thing ever, no?) There were similar howls of
outrage over that one.
The moral question is actually an interesting one, I think, and the
different views seem to hinge on what people think they're buying, and
whether a hardware/software combination is more like hardware (which you
can hack up as you like) or software (which has a license agreement
you're bound by).
I don't think it's tenable to say that Rigol is dishonest when they sell
two models that differ only in firmware, and the difference in the front
ends. For instance, nobody thinks it's morally repugnant for Intel to
sell different speed grades of microprocessor which actually come from
the same wafer, right? That's because we fantasize that the slow-spec
ones all failed at speed sort--which is far from true, because otherwise
the available supply of the slow version would evaporate as the process
improved. Still, no big outrage there--overclockers can have fun, the
rest of us ignore the issue.
We also don't mind Microsoft selling a 60 cent DVD full of software,
because that's what we expect. (Some of us grumble, but nearly everyone
is willing to pay.)
It's where these hardware/software chimaeras come in that we don't have
an agreed model for what is fair and what isn't.
I'm not meaning to be a Dutch uncle here--I don't think I know the full
answer myself--but it's an interesting question.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
ElectroOptical Innovations
55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058
hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net
Nial Stewart
reasoned debate.
Would you accuse AMD of 'outright theft' for selling 4 core processors as
3 core processors?
http://www.guru3d.com/news/phenom-ii-x3--enable-the-4th-core/
Nial
Phil Allison
"Naive Fuckwit Stewart Pommy Shit "
" Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here. "
>>> It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
>>> optimise their profits.
** Shame that if they told buyers the truth they would not get away with
it.
Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal
fraud.
> Where is the deception?
** In the FACT that the 100MHz version is NOT actually a different model
but sells with a very significant price hike - like 40%.
If they told buyers THAT simple truth they would not have any sales.
FUCKWIT !!!!!!!!!!!
>>> Dishonesty would be promising 100MHz performance then delivering 50MHz
>>> performance
>>> with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.
>>
>> ** Nope - that would be blatant example of extortion.
>
> Perhaps a better example would be promising a scope with 100MHz bandwidth
> then delivering 50MHz bandwidth.
** Standard example of consumer fraud - ie obtaining a financial benefit
( ie product sales ) by a deception.
YOU FUCKWIT POMMY MORON !!!
> I'll leave the dickhead judgement to my friends.
** ROTFLMAO !!
This trolling pommy cunthead's only " friends" have four legs
and go: " hee haw - hee haw - hee haw " !!!!!!
.... Phil
John Larkin
People buy the standard and Pro versions of Windows knowing the only
difference is a few flags. Windows consumer versions are brain-damaged
to allow only a small number of network connections at a time, and
cost almost nothing bundled with a PC. Windows Server removes the
limit and costs about $2K.
I'm sure that all sorts of expensive automotive options are just
firmware these days. All sorts of products differ only in theor
firmware.
It's Rigol's choice how to price their products and amortize their
engineering. Buying their 50 MHz scope and hacking it, and gleefully
telling the world how to do it, it is essentially vandalism. Legally,
it may be criminal conspiracy to use a computer to commit a crime.
Jones is perfectly capable of estimating the considerable economic
damage he is doing to Rigol. I suppose he hates Rigol enough that he's
happy about it.
If you spent years writing a book or some software, would you be happy
if people copied it and distributed it for free, cutting off your
rotalties? After all, copies cost almost nothing. Now can you justify
charging $20 for a book or $500 for a program when it costs pennies to
manufacture copies?
John
John Larkin
Rigol may well be culling assembled scopes, picking the best ones to
sell as the 100 MHz versions.
>
>Companies have been selling crippleware forever--the earliest example I
>know of was the 6 MHz IBM PC-AT. You changed the crystal and one other
>thing that I forget, and suddenly you had a blistering fast 8 MHz AT!
>(Cooler than the coolest thing ever, no?) There were similar howls of
>outrage over that one.
The IBM 1401 has about a dozen cards that slowed it down, things like
homing disk heads on every seek. A 1410 cost more and didn't have this
stuff.
>
>
>The moral question is actually an interesting one, I think, and the
>different views seem to hinge on what people think they're buying, and
>whether a hardware/software combination is more like hardware (which you
>can hack up as you like) or software (which has a license agreement
>you're bound by).
>
>I don't think it's tenable to say that Rigol is dishonest when they sell
>two models that differ only in firmware, and the difference in the front
>ends. For instance, nobody thinks it's morally repugnant for Intel to
>sell different speed grades of microprocessor which actually come from
>the same wafer, right? That's because we fantasize that the slow-spec
>ones all failed at speed sort--which is far from true, because otherwise
>the available supply of the slow version would evaporate as the process
>improved. Still, no big outrage there--overclockers can have fun, the
>rest of us ignore the issue.
>
>We also don't mind Microsoft selling a 60 cent DVD full of software,
>because that's what we expect. (Some of us grumble, but nearly everyone
>is willing to pay.)
>
>It's where these hardware/software chimaeras come in that we don't have
>an agreed model for what is fair and what isn't.
>
>I'm not meaning to be a Dutch uncle here--I don't think I know the full
>answer myself--but it's an interesting question.
Yes. What's a fair price for IP that costs nothing to manufacture?
John
Jan Panteltje
<alt...@gmail.com> wrote in <uHwsn.32654$Ht4....@newsfe20.iad>:
>For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>
>Dave.
Nice work.
Now to upgrade it to 1Ghz BW :-)
George Herold
> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>
> Dave.
>
> ================================================
> Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:http://www.eevblog.com
Excellent, I just ordered a Rigol DS1052E! The best news is that
even without the mod the 50 MHz is closer to 70 MHz as is.... (just
scaling your measured 5ns rise/fall time.)
George H.
Jan Panteltje
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
<vgk6r59938gpih9mo...@4ax.com>:
>People buy the standard and Pro versions of Windows knowing the only
>difference is a few flags. Windows consumer versions are brain-damaged
Yes MS is a bunch or criminals who ask hundreds of dollars for crappy software.
They and Hollywood buy the system to impose laws so people who work around it are branded as criminals.
In MS case Linux is the way out.
>I'm sure that all sorts of expensive automotive options are just
>firmware these days. All sorts of products differ only in theor
>firmware.
Well, a Ferrari looks different.
>
>It's Rigol's choice how to price their products and amortize their
>engineering.
Yes.
>Buying their 50 MHz scope and hacking it, and gleefully
>telling the world how to do it, it is essentially vandalism.
No it is not, it is exposing the market mechanism.
You bought the hardware, it has everything IN it, INCLUDING
a varicap SO EXTRA COMPONENTS to make it inferior.
Disabling something that purposely reduces performance of something YOU OWN is GOOD.
Dave is taking a risk (these days with millennium copyright act and such),
but is helping all those OWNERS of that hardware to a better scope.
What this society no longer seems to recognise is OWNERSHIP,
that goes from your property being taxed to your say over your life.
He owns that scope, and the serial interface came with it.
> Legally,
>it may be criminal conspiracy to use a computer to commit a crime.
Fixing your car may be a crime too in the future.
maybe designing electronics is a crime too?
F*ck off.
Kudos for Dave, and f*ck that Millennium act and its puppets,
May else the nukes rain.
Have a nice rainy day.
Nial Stewart
I've just realised it's early morning there, have you been drinking (alot)?
Well done!
> YOU FUCKWIT POMMY MORON !!!
Nope, still not a 'Pom'.
Nial.
Phil Hobbs
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:38:34 -0400, Phil Hobbs
> <pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>
>> On 3/31/2010 12:46 AM, mi...@sushi.com wrote:
>>> On Mar 30, 8:03 pm, John Larkin
>>> <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>>>
>>>> <altz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>>>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>>
>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>>
>>>>> Dave.
>>>>
>>> The design cost is amortized over all the units. [Hey, don't worry
>>> what the consults charges, it will go to zero as we sell a million
>>> units.]
>>>
>>> Rigol does themselves a disservice by having to maintain two
>>> products. They should just sell the higher speed scope, bomb the
>>> market, and then own it.
>>
>>
>> Destroying a market isn't usually a good way to make money in the long
>> run.
>>
>> And it's easily possible that Rigol saves a boatload of money by having
>> only one assembly number to design, code, build, and test. Remember
>> that (as Dave discovered earlier) they're actually overclocking the ADCs
>> on the 100 MHz model--so one can argue it's really a 50 MHz scope that
>> Rigol themselves hacked into a 100 MHz one.
>
> Rigol may well be culling assembled scopes, picking the best ones to
> sell as the 100 MHz versions.
Like the Intel MPU case, sure. And in that situation, one can argue
that slowing down the front end to match the capabilities of the slower
ADCs is a good thing for customers--you don't pay the 3 dB noise penalty
for bandwidth you can't use. All for an extra 20 cents worth of parts.
<snip>
>>
>> The moral question is actually an interesting one, I think, and the
>> different views seem to hinge on what people think they're buying, and
>> whether a hardware/software combination is more like hardware (which you
>> can hack up as you like) or software (which has a license agreement
>> you're bound by).
>>
>> I don't think it's tenable to say that Rigol is dishonest when they sell
>> two models that differ only in firmware, and the difference in the front
>> ends. For instance, nobody thinks it's morally repugnant for Intel to
>> sell different speed grades of microprocessor which actually come from
>> the same wafer, right? That's because we fantasize that the slow-spec
>> ones all failed at speed sort--which is far from true, because otherwise
>> the available supply of the slow version would evaporate as the process
>> improved. Still, no big outrage there--overclockers can have fun, the
>> rest of us ignore the issue.
>>
>> We also don't mind Microsoft selling a 60 cent DVD full of software,
>> because that's what we expect. (Some of us grumble, but nearly everyone
>> is willing to pay.)
>>
>> It's where these hardware/software chimaeras come in that we don't have
>> an agreed model for what is fair and what isn't.
>>
>> I'm not meaning to be a Dutch uncle here--I don't think I know the full
>> answer myself--but it's an interesting question.
>
> Yes. What's a fair price for IP that costs nothing to manufacture?
>
> John
>
Same as the fair price for anything else--i.e. what a willing buyer will
pay in a free market. (There are occasions when it's morally wrong to
charge the 'fair' price so defined, e.g. cornering the market in food
during a famine or other nasty monopoly behaviour--but it's a real
stretch to put Rigol in _that_ category.)
It's certainly a good lesson in customer relations, though--what was
that about no good deed going unpunished?
Vladimir Vassilevsky
John Larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
> <alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>
>>Dave.
>
>
> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
:))))))
According to your logic, CPU overclocking is a crime.
Although that 20 vs 50 MHz nonsense doesn't really make any difference
and probably not worth hassle.
But, why varicap and that lousy circuit? Looks like Rigol analog
designers don't have a clue... They are probably as unexperienced as
their programmers...
Vladimir Vassilevsky
DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant
http://www.abvolt.com
John Larkin
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>John Larkin wrote:
>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>> <alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>
>>> Dave.
>>
>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>
>"Land of the Free" criminalises lots of things. The punters must be
>ripped off by corporate excess at every turn - just look at the DMCA as
>an example of how your congress critters are in hock to big business.
You don't favor copyrights or legal protection for intellectual
property? If you spent years writing a book or a symphony or
developing a product that was mostly firmware, you wouldn't mind if
people copied it and sold cheap knockoffs?
There is an argument against copyrights and patents, but it would
change a lot of things.
>
>The Sony BMG CD rootkit fiasco in 2005 was a particularly nasty example
>of this with the boot on the other foot.
>>
>> I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
>> option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
>> a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
>> it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
>> the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
>> flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
>> arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
>
>Even as an originator of IP I find it difficult to have much sympathy
>for Rigol here when they clearly made no effort to cover their tracks in
>the firmware. It would only have taken an MD5 or CRC of the serial
>number XORred with a bit pattern known only to them to prevent hackers.
Yes. Their mistake was making it too easy.
>
>If you can upgrade it by sending it a new model number then why not?
>
>They won't easily stop hardware mods though. Engineers tweaking
>commercially available products by swapping out weak components to
>improve or make them more reliable has been going on since the year dot.
It looks as if hardware-hacking the varicap bandwidth limiter is
legal, but doing it through the serial port may be a crime in the US.
>>
>> Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
>> is expensive.
>
>Indeed. And that is why you should not make it trivial to hack.
Agreed. Hackers are amazingly inventive.
>
>> Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
>> it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
>> versions.
>
>However, it does make the Rigol DS1052E a very attractive proposition
>for the moment. UK/Oz attitudes to hacking kit are somewhat more relaxed
>than in the US. Almost all DVD players here are available in MultiRegion
>hacked form and even NASA brings its DVD kit to London to be doctored.
>Region locked players do not sell particularly well to UK film buffs.
>>
>> I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
>> filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
>> than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
>> few more.
>
>You may as well patch them for 100MHz bandwidth then. Send Rigol the
>price difference or whatever you think it is worth if your conscience
>bothers you.
I don't intend to hack any of them and I never steal IP. I hope that
people won't hack my products and steal my engineering investment.
And 50 MHz is a good place for a bench scope, clear of a lot of FM and
TV crud. The Rigol looks great at 50 MHz, but noisy and ringy at 100.
John
John Larkin
No. But that costs the seller nothing, and is perfectly legal. Jones
has cost Rigel a lot, now and in the future. And the way he did it is
probably criminal conspiracy to commit a computer crime, by US law at
least.
So, why did he do it, specifically why did he post a video showing the
whole world how to do it? He had to know it would cost Rigel real
revenue, and must have decided that they didn't deserve that revenue.
Jones? Why?
John
JW
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in Message id:
<41e5r5lufg6o9dktt...@4ax.com>:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
><alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>
>>Dave.
>
>What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>
>I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
>option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
>a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
>it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
>the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
>flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
>arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
Just out of curiosity John, would you think the same thing applies to the
kids who overclock their processors? After all, Intel makes less money on
the lower clocked CPU chips - is this depriving Intel from deserved
revenue? Note that I'm not making any judgment on whether this is right or
wrong...
Muzaffer Kal
The difference there is that you don't have access to AMD's
verification/test suite which shows some of the functionality on one
of the cores as broken so it would be marked as bad and disabled. It
is certainly the same die as the 4 core processor but it may not have
passed all the tests.
If you're upset at paying more for the same die, you don't even have
to go as far as different number of cores. Any CPU you buy today (from
AMD, Intel or IBM etc.) has different speed versions with different
pricing while it's exactly the same die. The only difference is how
they're binned (and testing may or may not have shown an issue with
lower binned/priced parts.)
--
Muzaffer Kal
DSPIA INC.
ASIC/FPGA Design Services
Phil Hobbs
If the 100 MHz scope flunks the speed test and is going to be restricted
to 50 MHz (with appropriate sampling rate), why make the customer pay
the 3 dB penalty for the wider bandwidth?
Al Borowski
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>
> People buy the standard and Pro versions of Windows knowing the only
> difference is a few flags. Windows consumer versions are brain-damaged
> to allow only a small number of network connections at a time, and
> cost almost nothing bundled with a PC. Windows Server removes the
> limit and costs about $2K.
Well, not really. You don't buy the software, you only license it. You
have to agree to the EULA for it to install. If you figure out how to
use regedit to enable certain features, it isn't illegal to tell
people how to do so (of course they may be violating the EULA if they
do)
> It's Rigol's choice how to price their products and amortize their
> engineering. Buying their 50 MHz scope and hacking it, and gleefully
> telling the world how to do it, it is essentially vandalism. Legally,
> it may be criminal conspiracy to use a computer to commit a crime.
Hang on a second. It's only Rigol's scope until I buy it. When I buy
it, it's mine. Not theirs. You don't have to sign an agreement that
says you won't modify it.
What crime is possibly being committed? To the best of my knowledge,
there is no charge of "taking advantage of a companies stupid business
decision".
> If you spent years writing a book or some software, would you be happy
> if people copied it and distributed it for free, cutting off your
> rotalties? After all, copies cost almost nothing. Now can you justify
> charging $20 for a book or $500 for a program when it costs pennies to
> manufacture copies?
Apples and Oranges.
The customer only ever owns the physical copy of the book, or the CD
the software came from. The customer does not own the IP itself. The
customer CAN modify their property (Eg scribble over pages or smash
the CD in half). When you buy a Rigol scope, Rigol may still own the
IP to the design, but you own and can modify the scope itself.
It's illegal to make copies of the book or software without permission
because otherwise there is no real way for programmers or authors to
make an income.
Rigol were foolish by making their scope so easy to upgrade. Some
software mods could have made the job much harder. You can hardly say
that without a law to prevent modification to "their" product (which
is now owned by the customer) it's impossible for scope manufacturers
to make a living. If they HAVE to make a product and cripple it to
make a low-end model, they are free to use every trick in the book to
prevent it being modified. Rigol didn't bother.
I own a car - I do not own the IP associated with that car (an untold
number of patents, copyright on the microcontroller firmware etc). I
service it myself - you seem to be saying that's unethical. After all,
I'm taking business away from my local mechanic. Suppose I find a very
easy way to boost the engine output by cutting a certain wire, which
fools the ECU into thinking I paid for a better motor. Is it unethical
for me to tell people? I don't think so.
Al
John Larkin
<nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>
>John Larkin wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>> <alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>>100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>
>>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>
>>>Dave.
>>
>>
>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>
>:))))))
>
>According to your logic, CPU overclocking is a crime.
In fact it's not. According to my logic, something is a crime if a
country has laws that declare it to be a crime.
>Although that 20 vs 50 MHz nonsense doesn't really make any difference
>and probably not worth hassle.
>
>But, why varicap and that lousy circuit? Looks like Rigol analog
>designers don't have a clue... They are probably as unexperienced as
>their programmers...
Do you think that it doesn't work? And that their firmware was coded
by inexperienced programmers? How many oscilloscopes have you designed
and manufactured and marketed?
Looking at the transient response at 100 MHz, which kinda sucks, I
wonder if the 50 and 100 MHz scopes are indeed identical except for
firmware.
John
Al Borowski
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
> >If I bought a house, and it included an extra bedroom that wasn't
> >advertised and was padlocked shut, I wouldn't feel guilty breaking the
> >padlock in the least. Would you?
>
> No. But that costs the seller nothing, and is perfectly legal.
Suppose (bear with me) the builder's business model was to mass-
produce 4 bedroom houses, but offer a cheaper '3 bedroom' one with the
4th bedromm locked behind a $2 padlock. Suppose Mike figures this out,
and tells the world 'Hey, if you need a 4 bedroom house, just buy the
3 bedroom one from Jones Brothers, move the supplied wardrobe out of
the way, cut the lock and you have an extra bedroom'. Families needing
4 bedroom houses read this advice and do so, meaning they spend less
money on the house then they would otherwise. This deprives Jones
Brothers of income they'd otherwise recieve. Jones Brothers has to cut
costs, and their children go hungry.
Who, if anyone, do you think is in the wrong in the above story?
>Jones
> has cost Rigel a lot, now and in the future. And the way he did it is
> probably criminal conspiracy to commit a computer crime, by US law at
> least.
I'm not denying it might cost Rigol some cash, but I fail to see what
the crime was.
>
> So, why did he do it, specifically why did he post a video showing the
> whole world how to do it? He had to know it would cost Rigel real
> revenue, and must have decided that they didn't deserve that revenue.
Personally I don't see it as morally wrong in the least. And I'm sorry
to inform you John, but if I owned one of your devices and figured out
how to enable an extra feature I needed for free (as long as it wasn't
by downloading some hacked firmware, which would be a copyright
violation) I'd do so and still sleep at night. Because when I did so,
I'd be modifying _my_ box of tricks. You stopped owning the physical
item when you sold it to me. If it's a real concern, ask the customer
to sign an agreement not to modify the product.
Cheers,
Al
Vladimir Vassilevsky
Phil Hobbs wrote:
> On 3/31/2010 11:00 AM, Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:
>
>> According to your logic, CPU overclocking is a crime.
>> Although that 20 vs 50 MHz nonsense doesn't really make any difference
>> and probably not worth hassle.
>>
>> But, why varicap and that lousy circuit? Looks like Rigol analog
>> designers don't have a clue... They are probably as unexperienced as
>> their programmers...
>>
>
> If the 100 MHz scope flunks the speed test and is going to be restricted
> to 50 MHz (with appropriate sampling rate), why make the customer pay
> the 3 dB penalty for the wider bandwidth?
Quite often, the things are getting tossed into the different bins not
because of a difference in quality, but for marketing, legal, inventory
reduction or whatever non-technical reasons. There are many examples of
that. But the question is not about moral/legal implications.
The idea of using varicap in the scope analog front end doesn't make
much sense to me. What do you think?
>
> Cheers
>
> Phil Hobbs
John Larkin
I am aware of no laws against overclocking. Intel most likely bins
production parts for speed, so if you overclock a CPU you degrade
timing margins at your own risk. The Freescale 3.3 volt version of the
MC68332 is guaranteed for 16 MHz. I've verified that they work to 45,
and run them at 20. I don't think that I've broken any laws, and I
doubt that Freescale minds, and I assume the risk.
Intel may well sell 1.3 GHz parts as 1 GHz parts, especially as their
manufacturing yields improve over time. It's their choice as to what
they promise and what they charge for it.
John
John Larkin
It has very clean transient response as shipped, at the 50 (or 70) MHz
bandwidth. The hacked version is ratty looking. I wouldn't do the hack
even if it was morally and legally fine.
This is a very nice little scope, superb for the price. It has loads
of more features than a comparable Tek at around 1/3 the price.
Why Jones would choose to hurt Rigel is a mystery to me.
John
John Larkin
<al.bo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Apr 1, 1:14 am, John Larkin
><jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>
>> >If I bought a house, and it included an extra bedroom that wasn't
>> >advertised and was padlocked shut, I wouldn't feel guilty breaking the
>> >padlock in the least. Would you?
>>
>> No. But that costs the seller nothing, and is perfectly legal.
>
>Suppose (bear with me) the builder's business model was to mass-
>produce 4 bedroom houses, but offer a cheaper '3 bedroom' one with the
>4th bedromm locked behind a $2 padlock. Suppose Mike figures this out,
>and tells the world 'Hey, if you need a 4 bedroom house, just buy the
>3 bedroom one from Jones Brothers, move the supplied wardrobe out of
>the way, cut the lock and you have an extra bedroom'. Families needing
>4 bedroom houses read this advice and do so, meaning they spend less
>money on the house then they would otherwise. This deprives Jones
>Brothers of income they'd otherwise recieve. Jones Brothers has to cut
>costs, and their children go hungry.
>
>Who, if anyone, do you think is in the wrong in the above story?
>
It's too hypothetical. Each extra room costs real money to build and
has real value on the market. IP costs real money to develop, has
market value, but costs nothing to reproduce. That's why an EDA vendor
can charge you $60K for each copy of a DVD, and why the law protects
their right to do so.
There's a clear legal distinction between physical property and
intellectual property.
>
>>Jones
>> has cost Rigel a lot, now and in the future. And the way he did it is
>> probably criminal conspiracy to commit a computer crime, by US law at
>> least.
>
>I'm not denying it might cost Rigol some cash, but I fail to see what
>the crime was.
Under US law, I belive it's criminal conspiracy to use a computer to
hack software for profit. Which I think is illegal.
>
>>
>> So, why did he do it, specifically why did he post a video showing the
>> whole world how to do it? He had to know it would cost Rigel real
>> revenue, and must have decided that they didn't deserve that revenue.
>
>Personally I don't see it as morally wrong in the least.
Well, I do. Especially telling the world how to do it, which will cost
Rigel serious revenue.
John
John Larkin
I think it makes sense if it works, as it seems to do.
John
Vladimir Vassilevsky
John Larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:00:33 -0500, Vladimir Vassilevsky
> <nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>John Larkin wrote:
>>
>>
>>But, why varicap and that lousy circuit? Looks like Rigol analog
>>designers don't have a clue... They are probably as unexperienced as
>>their programmers...
>
>
> Do you think that it doesn't work? And that their firmware was coded
> by inexperienced programmers?
There are many small details which indicate that the software was
written by indiots.
> How many oscilloscopes have you designed
> and manufactured and marketed?
BTW, one of the things that I design are the analog front ends for
scopes and like. Some with BW to 1 GHz. The idea of using varicap just
doesn't make any sense to me.
> Looking at the transient response at 100 MHz, which kinda sucks, I
> wonder if the 50 and 100 MHz scopes are indeed identical except for
> firmware.
"Good - Better - Best" marketing principle is old as a World.
Spehro Pefhany
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>
>Why Jones would choose to hurt Rigel is a mystery to me.
>
>John
What makes you think he hurt Rigol? They've have probably just sold
dozens of scope to people who wouldn't have otherwise bought a scope
from a Chinese maker.
Most companies will continue to buy what's guaranteed.
He might have hurt or helped them.
John Larkin
I'm sure that some people who would have bought the 100M version will
buy the 50 and hack it. Not many, I expect, mostly amateurs. But he
chose to make this option available to the public where Rigol did not.
So why did he do it?
John
John Larkin
<nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>
>John Larkin wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:00:33 -0500, Vladimir Vassilevsky
>> <nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>But, why varicap and that lousy circuit? Looks like Rigol analog
>>>designers don't have a clue... They are probably as unexperienced as
>>>their programmers...
>>
>>
>> Do you think that it doesn't work? And that their firmware was coded
>> by inexperienced programmers?
>
>There are many small details which indicate that the software was
>written by indiots.
I've only had mine a couple of weeks, but I haven't seen any problems.
What are they?
The menus take a minute to figure out (and of cource I haven't cracked
the manual) but generally make sense. The cursor logic is a little
annoying.
I like the selectable filtering, specifically the lowpass. The digital
filters aren't perfect, but the slower lowpass settings are the most
useful to me and behave well.
For around $550, with memory stick slot and RS232 and USB, it's
stunning. I'm going to get one for our cabin in Truckee. You never
know when you'll need a scope.
John
Tim Wescott
If the hardware wasn't capable of 100MHz, then the software wouldn't
make it so. Therefore, flipping a software switch is just like cutting
a lock. If it needs a completely different load of software to do
100MHz, then the manufacturer is playing games with the law.
>>> Jones
>>> has cost Rigel a lot, now and in the future. And the way he did it is
>>> probably criminal conspiracy to commit a computer crime, by US law at
>>> least.
>> I'm not denying it might cost Rigol some cash, but I fail to see what
>> the crime was.
>
> Under US law, I belive it's criminal conspiracy to use a computer to
> hack software for profit. Which I think is illegal.
Define "hack". And yes, it is probably illegal, and if he's really
hacking it by my definition of hack, then wrongly so.
If he's taking a software load from another Rigol scope, and that load
is under copyright, then that's going beyond hacking. If he's finding a
way to reach in there and flip a switch to turn on the 100MHz
capability, then that should be legal.
>>> So, why did he do it, specifically why did he post a video showing the
>>> whole world how to do it? He had to know it would cost Rigel real
>>> revenue, and must have decided that they didn't deserve that revenue.
>> Personally I don't see it as morally wrong in the least.
>
> Well, I do. Especially telling the world how to do it, which will cost
> Rigel serious revenue.
Arresting a career criminal will cost him serious revenue -- should we
refrain from that?
Preventing Kennith Lay from raping Enron would have cost him serious
revenue, had someone done it -- had it been legally possible, should we
have refrained?
Making food manufacturers print lists of ingredients on their products,
and insisting that what they produce is safe no doubt costs them serious
revenue -- should we stop?
The digital copyright protection act gives IP providers extreme and
egregious tools to extort money from consumers, and repealing it would
cost them serious revenue when they use it to do things that are just
plain wrong. Should we refrain from repealing it?
--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com
Dave Platt
YouTube video of the hack, I accidentally turned on the
"closed-caption decoder" feature in the playback (up-arrow at the
lower right corner of the window).
The result was... well, interesting. The closest analogy I can come
up with at the moment is "beatnik free verse". I think the
auto-transcription feature being used has a problem with David's
accent :-)
--
Dave Platt <dpl...@radagast.org> AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
Fred Bartoli
Just suppose that Rigol isn't so dumb and that they've done this on
purpose so that when the word of mouse spreads they sell tons of 50MHz
scopes because buyers will be supposed to have a bargain...
Who's weird? (well not me)
--
Thanks,
Fred.
John Larkin
<al.bo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Apr 1, 12:01 am, John Larkin
><jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> People buy the standard and Pro versions of Windows knowing the only
>> difference is a few flags. Windows consumer versions are brain-damaged
>> to allow only a small number of network connections at a time, and
>> cost almost nothing bundled with a PC. Windows Server removes the
>> limit and costs about $2K.
>
>Well, not really. You don't buy the software, you only license it. You
>have to agree to the EULA for it to install. If you figure out how to
>use regedit to enable certain features, it isn't illegal to tell
>people how to do so (of course they may be violating the EULA if they
>do)
>
>> It's Rigol's choice how to price their products and amortize their
>> engineering. Buying their 50 MHz scope and hacking it, and gleefully
>> telling the world how to do it, it is essentially vandalism. Legally,
>> it may be criminal conspiracy to use a computer to commit a crime.
>
>Hang on a second. It's only Rigol's scope until I buy it. When I buy
>it, it's mine. Not theirs. You don't have to sign an agreement that
>says you won't modify it.
>
>What crime is possibly being committed?
It may be a felony under DCMA. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure.
John
John Larkin
wrote:
How does DCMA extort money from customers? If you don't like a product
and its price/terms, don't buy it. DCMA prevents you from using a
computer to violate the contract you made with the seller, and from
spreading around copies of his IP.
If you want to repeal DCMA, write to your Congressman or whatever. Get
rid of the patent office while you're at it.
John
John Larkin
<alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Nial Stewart wrote:
>>> It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never
>>> make it very far. People like Larkin are too arrogant to understand
>>> this. Do you think people would buy their products if they knew that
>>> the only difference between the low end and high end versions is the
>>> price....
>>
>> ...and access to extended functionality that someone's had to be paid
>> to develop?
>
>In this case Rigol actually went to the trouble to design-in circuitry to
>enable this 50MHz "cripple" feature. The front end was clearly designed from
>day one to be at least 100MHz bandwidth, and they then decided to dumb it
>down to meet a lower end market and price point by adding the cripple
>feature.
>So George is essentially right, the only effective difference is the price.
>
>>> At the very least they could have added some true functional
>>> improvement that made it justifiable but simply changing the model
>>> number....
>>
>> ...and access to further functionality that someone's had to be paid
>> to develop....
>
>The only extra functionality is being able to go to 2ns timebase instead of
>5ns, everything else is identical. A couple of lines of code?
>
>Any extra design effort that has gone into this product all went in to
>designing the cripple feature to dumb it down!
>
>>> doesn't justify a 40% price increase.
>>
>> By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs
>> of the DVD when they sell Windows7.
>
>A completely silly analogy.
Not at all. IP costs money to develop and has to be paid for. And
there are economies of scale from building one hardware platform and
marketing competitive products that have different firmware. Rigol's
error was to make the hack too easy.
It's like stealing stuff out of cars. People will steal thongs if you
don't roll up the windows and lock the doors, so everybody has to roll
up the windows and lock the doors. Ditto big steel vaults in banks.
It's inefficient because a minority of people will game the rules any
way they can, sometimes just because they can.
>
>Dave.
Rigol did the engineering and selected a business model, and you chose
to break it based on some moral judgement of your own. They will have
to react somehow, which will cost them money one way or another.
Why did you do this? Did you feel that Rigol was cheating the public
and deserved to be exposed and, additionally, deprived of revenue?
John
George Herold
>
> - Show quoted text -
Oh I don't plan on hacking it. I just figured that there might be a
tick up in sales of the 50MHz version and I should get mine before
they sell out. And yeah the pulse response looked nice. (I also like
that it's a bit faster than the spec.) I'm not sure about the
rattiness of the 100MHz response.. after all the 100MHz TEK pulse
looked ratty too and it might have been that Dave was hitting it with
a raggy pulse to begin with. (Sorry Dave, I don't mean to dis your
bench test skills.)
I think Dave likes Rigol and I'm not sure his hack will hurt sales. I
would guess it's only a small fraction of users that would want the
hack anyway. I would bet.. though I don't know how to prove it.. that
Dave has been good for Rigol sales. (He is certainly responsible for
my purchase of one.)
George H.
John Fields
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:19:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
><spef...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:53:03 -0700, John Larkin
>><jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>
>>>Why Jones would choose to hurt Rigel is a mystery to me.
>>>
>>>John
>>
>>What makes you think he hurt Rigol? They've have probably just sold
>>dozens of scope to people who wouldn't have otherwise bought a scope
>>from a Chinese maker.
>>
>>Most companies will continue to buy what's guaranteed.
>>
>>He might have hurt or helped them.
>
>I'm sure that some people who would have bought the 100M version will
>buy the 50 and hack it. Not many, I expect, mostly amateurs.
---
So now it's _not_ "serious money" like you originally claimed?
---
>But he chose to make this option available to the public where Rigol
>did not.
---
So what?
It's just like if somebody wrote a book with an ending I didn't like and
then I wrote my own ending and posted it.
Where's the crime?
---
>So why did he do it?
---
Because, unlike you, he's one of the good guys who wants folks to get
the most bang for their buck.
JF
Hammy
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>
>How does DCMA extort money from customers? If you don't like a product
>and its price/terms, don't buy it. DCMA prevents you from using a
>computer to violate the contract you made with the seller, and from
>spreading around copies of his IP.
>
>If you want to repeal DCMA, write to your Congressman or whatever. Get
>rid of the patent office while you're at it.
>
>John
Innocent until proven guilty,doesn't mean anything to you?
By placing software on your computer they are assuming you are going
to use it for illegal software. Not only that the software uses
resources ,typically is buggy and hardly is 100% right.
I have no problem with people getting paid for thier work but
sometimes the cure is worse then the disease. Which is most of the
copyright protection shit MS uses is just junk causes problems and
assumes I'm guilty of something I'm not.
PeterD
<Geo...@Jefferson.com> wrote:
>
>
>"Nial Stewart" <nial*REMOVE_THIS*@nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk> wrote in
>message news:81gnlp...@mid.individual.net...
>> "Phul (of it) Allinson"
>>
>>>> It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
>>>> optimise their profits.
>>>
>>> Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of
>>> criminal fraud.
>>
>> Fair enough, I agree completely with this statement.
>>
>> If you pay for a scope they say has 50MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
>> that has a 50MHz bandwidth?
>>
>> If you pay for a scope they say has 100MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
>> that has a 100MHz bandwidth?
>>
>> Where is the deception?
>
>
>Are you really that ignorant? So I create a 100Mhz scope and sale it for X
>dollars as a 100Mhz scope. I then slap a new sticker on the 100Mhz scope and
>call it a 50Mhz scope and sale it for Y dollars.
>
>Now, if my profit margins for the 100Mhz scope was not that high then how
>could I make profit on the "new" 50Mhz scope? Either they jacked up the
>profit margin significantly to be able to do this trick or they are making
>virtually no profit on the 50Mhz scope.
>
>BUT! If they are making no profit on the 50Mhz scope then why not just
>reduce the price of the 100Mhz scope in the first place?
>
>They are exactly trying to simply get into a market that the 100Mhz scope
>can't because of it's higher price. They can lower the price, pretend it's a
>crappier version and then increase their market size for three reasons.
>Those that can't and never will buy the 100Mhz version but will buy the
>50Mhz and those that are lured in by the 50Mhz version and decide "I might
>as well get the 100Mhz version since it's just a "little more"". Also those
>that buy the 50Mhz version may decide to buy the more powerful one as an
>"upgrade"... which in fact there is no real upgrade involved.
>
>The dishonesty is in the tactics they use and tells you a lot about what
>they think of their customers. This, of course, is not a new trick.
>
>The dishonesty part is equivalent to lying. If you called them and asked
>them about it do you really think they will tell you they are exactly the
>same hardware with just a firmware change to cripple the cheaper version?
>
>You can hide behind the cloak of capitalism all you want but this is not
>capitalism but outright theft.
>
>How do we know you are wrong and I'm right? Very easily... call up rigol and
>ask them about the difference between the models. If they are honest they
>will tell you there is only a firmware difference. If they are dishonest
>they will make up something that we already know is false. The street name
>for this kinda shit is lying. You may be confused by the big word dishonesty
>but maybe one day you'll figure it out.
>
>Of course this is not necessarily criminal but is walking the fine line. An
>ethical company would not implement such practices. I don't know about
>you(well, I guess I do) but I'd rather do business with a company that isn't
>out to screw me.
I will say this...
One (or maybe more than one) contact lens maker got into serious
trouble in the US for selling identical lens as different products
with different prices. The FTC went after them with a vengence, and
hit them with a major fine for doing what (it appears) Rigol is doing
with their scopes.
I'm not saying that hacking it is right, or selling it as two models
is right, just saying that at least in the USA, there are federal
regulations that govern this type of situation, and it is likely that
Rigol didn't fully investigate their liabiliities in doing what they
have been doing.
John Larkin
<jfi...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:30:03 -0700, John Larkin
><jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:19:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
>><spef...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:53:03 -0700, John Larkin
>>><jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Why Jones would choose to hurt Rigel is a mystery to me.
>>>>
>>>>John
>>>
>>>What makes you think he hurt Rigol? They've have probably just sold
>>>dozens of scope to people who wouldn't have otherwise bought a scope
>>>from a Chinese maker.
>>>
>>>Most companies will continue to buy what's guaranteed.
>>>
>>>He might have hurt or helped them.
>>
>>I'm sure that some people who would have bought the 100M version will
>>buy the 50 and hack it. Not many, I expect, mostly amateurs.
>
>---
>So now it's _not_ "serious money" like you originally claimed?
If it's, say, 100 scopes hacked at a loss of $400 each, until Rigol
makes the firmware more secure (which will also cost money to do)
that's $40K. I don't know if $40K is "serious" money that matters to
Rigol, or to you. $40K is fairly serious to me.
How would you feel if Jones hacked one of your products and cost you
$40K? But I think you don't do firmware, so the question is probably
moot.
John
Tim Williams
news:mdp6r5186sr4nk4n9...@4ax.com...
> No. But that costs the seller nothing, and is perfectly legal. Jones
> has cost Rigel
Rigel 7?
Tim
--
Deep Friar: a very philosophical monk.
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/dawill/tmoranwms
John Larkin
The scopes are not identical because they have different specs and
firmware. Just like versions of Windows, or GPS units, or all sorts of
things have different specs and functions differentiated by firmware.
Rigol made it too easy to hack their scope, and Jones took advantage
of it. I still don't know why.
John
Charlie E.
<nos...@nowhere.com> wrote:
I don't have one, but from what John is saying, it may not be a "all
the same hardware, just different firmware" but may instead be "all
the same firmware, but not all the same hardware!" The 100 MHz
version may have different component choices, even if the PCB is the
same. When you build out the unit, you enable the correct hardware
toggles to match the unit you are installing on...
If you have one of both units, you could probably find out!
Charlie
Jan Panteltje
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
<mdp6r5186sr4nk4n9...@4ax.com>:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 02:51:52 -0700 (PDT), Al Borowski
><al.bo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Mar 31, 1:03 pm, John Larkin
>><jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>
>>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>>The act is
>>> arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
>>
>>If I bought a house, and it included an extra bedroom that wasn't
>>advertised and was padlocked shut, I wouldn't feel guilty breaking the
>>padlock in the least. Would you?
>>
>
>No. But that costs the seller nothing, and is perfectly legal. Jones
>has cost Rigel a lot, now and in the future. And the way he did it is
>probably criminal conspiracy to commit a computer crime, by US law at
>least.
>
>So, why did he do it, specifically why did he post a video showing the
>whole world how to do it? He had to know it would cost Rigel real
>revenue, and must have decided that they didn't deserve that revenue.
>
>Jones? Why?
>
>John
Let us all be grateful, as this will a have cumulative effect.
Tek will notice that he price for a 100 MHz BW 1Gs scope has come down to 500 $ or so.
And that with a color display and nice labels on the buttons on top of that...
So it will increase competition, and bring prices down.
Those are clearly artificially high.
You can turn your argument around too, like:
'the criminals at Rigol ask 400 $ more for the same scope.'
I wonder if the board is the same as the one that has the logic analyser connector on front
and if adding a connector and making a hole in the front would give it even more features.
IRC you ordered one, and now claim you will not upgrade,
that sounds a bit idiotic to me.
As to the the 'secrets of your designs', some are all over usenet,
you posted them or got them from here, complete with pictures of details.
That brings me to the point that we could all just as well publish source
of firmware and software, the people who have no time will
buy your hardware, others will improve your work, everybody benefits,
except the billy gates type, but he has enough for coffee anyways so who cares.
There is a lot more to be said on this subject, but anyways,
I recommend people to record that video before it vanishes from youtube, I recorded the sound.
Soundtrack has all the info you need.
Digital world.
I wonder what will happen when somebody finally comes up with a 'replicator' as in startrek.
Nico Coesel
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
><alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>
>>Dave.
>
>What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>
>I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
>option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
>a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
>it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
>the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
>flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
>arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
Sure? How about buying a whole bread and only being allowed to eat
half of it?
>Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
>is expensive.
>
>Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
>it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
>versions.
I don't understand why they make it so easy to upgrade their hardware
through software. Tek's logic analyzer modules are also relatively
easy to upgrade.
>I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
>filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
>than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
>few more.
Sure about that? I'm not so convinced about the effective bit
resolution and the sampling jitter on the Rigol scopes.
--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------
Nico Coesel
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:02:13 -0500, "George Jefferson"
><Geo...@Jefferson.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>><mi...@sushi.com> wrote in message
>>news:0abfe648-de60-42c3...@z11g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
>>> On Mar 30, 8:03 pm, John Larkin
>>> <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>>>
>>>> <altz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>>> >100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>>
>>>> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>>
>>>> >Dave.
>>>>
>>>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>>>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>>>> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>>>>
>>>> I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
>>>> option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
>>>> a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
>>>> it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
>>>> the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
>>>> flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
>>>> arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
>>>>
>>>> Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
>>>> is expensive.
>>>>
>>>> Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
>>>> it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
>>>> versions.
>>>>
>>>> I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
>>>> filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
>>>> than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
>>>> few more.
>>>>
>>>> John
>>>
>>> The design cost is amortized over all the units. [Hey, don't worry
>>> what the consults charges, it will go to zero as we sell a million
>>> units.]
>>>
>>> Rigol does themselves a disservice by having to maintain two
>>> products. They should just sell the higher speed scope, bomb the
>>> market, and then own it.
>>
>>It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never make it
>>very far. People like Larkin are too arrogant to understand this. Do you
>>think people would buy their products if they knew that the only difference
>>between the low end and high end versions is the price? At the very least
>>they could have added some true functional improvement that made it
>>justifiable but simply changing the model number doesn't justify a 40% price
>>increase.
>
>People buy the standard and Pro versions of Windows knowing the only
>difference is a few flags. Windows consumer versions are brain-damaged
>to allow only a small number of network connections at a time, and
>cost almost nothing bundled with a PC. Windows Server removes the
>limit and costs about $2K.
>
>If you spent years writing a book or some software, would you be happy
>if people copied it and distributed it for free, cutting off your
>rotalties? After all, copies cost almost nothing. Now can you justify
>charging $20 for a book or $500 for a program when it costs pennies to
>manufacture copies?
Look at Microsoft and Wordperfect. These companies became huge because
of people copying their software. The same can happen to Rigol.
Hobbyists buy their 50MHz scopes to hack them. Their bosses just buy
the 100MHz version so the warranty is not voided. This way Rigol sells
two scopes instead of zero.
Jan Panteltje
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
<pj47r5dnsih27ikg7...@4ax.com>:
>
>The scopes are not identical because they have different specs and
>firmware. Just like versions of Windows, or GPS units, or all sorts of
>things have different specs and functions differentiated by firmware.
They are identical!
Stop complaining.
Tim Wescott
> firmware these days. All sorts of products differ only in theor
> firmware.
> It's Rigol's choice how to price their products and amortize their
> engineering. Buying their 50 MHz scope and hacking it, and gleefully
> telling the world how to do it, it is essentially vandalism. Legally,
>
> Jones is perfectly capable of estimating the considerable economic
> damage he is doing to Rigol. I suppose he hates Rigol enough that he's
> happy about it.
>
> If you spent years writing a book or some software, would you be happy
> if people copied it and distributed it for free, cutting off your
> rotalties? After all, copies cost almost nothing. Now can you justify
> charging $20 for a book or $500 for a program when it costs pennies to
> manufacture copies?
If you spend years writing a technical book and you expect to get back
even minimum wage for your effort, you're cracked. If you spend years
writing a work of fiction and expect to sell it _at all_, then unless
you're an established author, you're cracked.
If I don't think that there are more photocopied versions of _my_ book
in China than there are paid-for copies, even at the ridiculously low
rates they charge for them over there, then _I'm_ cracked.
Perhaps you've been asleep for a few decades. Read this, it'll help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman.
Joel Koltner
news:pj47r5dnsih27ikg7...@4ax.com...
> The scopes are not identical because they have different specs and
> firmware.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the various operating parameters
stored in flash or NVRAM part of the "firmware" -- I consider "firmware" to be
the output from an assembler or compiler.
> Rigol made it too easy to hack their scope, and Jones took advantage
> of it. I still don't know why.
To save some money?
While I support regulation of intelectual property, certainly don't support
pirating of software, etc., *in this particular case* I tend to side more with
Dave than Rigol:
-- They specifically *added circuitry!* to turn their 100MHz scope into a
50MHz scope; this suggests that they set out to build a 100MHz scope in the
first place -- there was no additional engineering cost to recover as there
might be, if, e.g., they started with a 50MHz scope and then made some design
tweaks to turn it into a 100MHz scope. Instead, it's just "pricing to the
market." (At least that what I'm guessing -- I fully realize there's no way
to know this for certain if one isn't inside of Rigol and familiar with the
development.)
-- The commands needed to remove the 50MHz limitation are just "regular old
commands" -- while they're undocumented by Rigol, they don't contain any,
e.g., encryption or checksums or anything at all to suggest that Rigol was
trying to control or prevent access to them (...and hence would have a basis
for charging Dave with, e.g., circumventing anti-piracy safeguards)
Clearly this is a somewhat gray area. But I don't see it as that different
from, e.g., years ago with all-analog scopes where the only difference between
the 20MHz and 30MHz models was the binning of transistors, with the better
ones going into the 30MHz models: Would it have been wrong for someone to buy
the 20MHz model and replace the relevant transistors with ones they'd binned
themselves to get to 30MHz?
Heck, in the case of the Rigol, there are people who are working on replacing
100% of the firmware with one of their own making. Surely it's not wrong for
those people to not artificially cripple the hardware capabilities of the
device with that replacement firmware? (Look at all the replacement firmwares
available for, e.g., wireless routers like the WRT54G family that provide all
sorts of new features that were previously only avaialble on much higher-end,
more expensive devices...) If someone replaces the firmware in one of your
boxes and provides features that you normally charge for, are you going to try
to get them to stop via legal means?
---Joel
Nico Coesel
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:47:27 +0100, Martin Brown
><|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>> <alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>>
>>>> Dave.
>>>
>>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>>> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>>
>>"Land of the Free" criminalises lots of things. The punters must be
>>ripped off by corporate excess at every turn - just look at the DMCA as
>>an example of how your congress critters are in hock to big business.
>
>You don't favor copyrights or legal protection for intellectual
>property? If you spent years writing a book or a symphony or
>developing a product that was mostly firmware, you wouldn't mind if
>people copied it and sold cheap knockoffs?
As long as we have actors, writers, filmakers, musicians, etc that
each make more money in a year than the people lurking this newsgroup
make in a lifetime the current system seems to be working just fine
for them.
If your 'product' is good people are willing to pay for it. If your
product sucks and no-one is willing to pay for it then you better find
another job. The way I look at it is that people who copy your
software would not have bought it in the first place.
Nico Coesel
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:19:09 -0400, JW <no...@dev.null> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:03:51 -0700 John Larkin
>><jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in Message id:
>><41e5r5lufg6o9dktt...@4ax.com>:
>>
>>>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>><alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>>>100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>>
>>>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>>
>>>>Dave.
>>>
>>>What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>>>computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>>>perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>>>
>>>I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
>>>option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
>>>a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
>>>it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
>>>the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
>>>flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
>>>arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
>>
>>Just out of curiosity John, would you think the same thing applies to the
>>kids who overclock their processors? After all, Intel makes less money on
>>the lower clocked CPU chips - is this depriving Intel from deserved
>>revenue? Note that I'm not making any judgment on whether this is right or
>>wrong...
>
>I am aware of no laws against overclocking. Intel most likely bins
>production parts for speed, so if you overclock a CPU you degrade
>timing margins at your own risk. The Freescale 3.3 volt version of the
>MC68332 is guaranteed for 16 MHz. I've verified that they work to 45,
>and run them at 20. I don't think that I've broken any laws, and I
>doubt that Freescale minds, and I assume the risk.
But according to your own logic you keep Freescale from selling you a
faster processor and therefore cutting their profits!
whit3rd
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>
> >For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
> >100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA ...
> I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
> option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
> a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
> it.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. IBM tried marketing
computers with a similar tactic, shipping two models that were
internally
identical, but one had twice the memory of the other. If you paid
for
the 'upgrade' a technician installed a jumper to enable the full
memory.
Time passes, and instead of lease-only, they sold a few computers.
The customers then installed the jumper, and sued (or threatened to
sue)
IBM when the field service tech wanted to uninstall it. IBM lost.
You sell it, the customer can modify at will. DMCA is perhaps gonna
change this, but it's unclear how; it may take another decade before
it
gets a court test. (for the non-US crowd, DMCA "digital millennium
copyright act" is a controversial statute that protects/creates/
modifies
all intellectual property in unlovely ways)
Jon Kirwan
<pcdhSpamM...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
>On 3/31/2010 12:46 AM, mi...@sushi.com wrote:
>> On Mar 30, 8:03 pm, John Larkin
>> <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>>
>>> <altz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>
>>>> Dave.
>>>
>>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>>> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>>>
>>> I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
>>> option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
>>> a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
>>> it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
>>> the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
>>> flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
>>> arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
>>>
>>> Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
>>> is expensive.
>>>
>>> Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
>>> it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
>>> versions.
>>>
>>> I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
>>> filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
>>> than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
>>> few more.
>>>
>>> John
>>
>> The design cost is amortized over all the units. [Hey, don't worry
>> what the consults charges, it will go to zero as we sell a million
>> units.]
>>
>> Rigol does themselves a disservice by having to maintain two
>> products. They should just sell the higher speed scope, bomb the
>> market, and then own it.
>
>
>Destroying a market isn't usually a good way to make money in the long
>run.
>
>And it's easily possible that Rigol saves a boatload of money by having
>only one assembly number to design, code, build, and test. Remember
>that (as Dave discovered earlier) they're actually overclocking the ADCs
>on the 100 MHz model--so one can argue it's really a 50 MHz scope that
>Rigol themselves hacked into a 100 MHz one.
>
>Companies have been selling crippleware forever--the earliest example I
>know of was the 6 MHz IBM PC-AT. You changed the crystal and one other
>thing that I forget, and suddenly you had a blistering fast 8 MHz AT!
>(Cooler than the coolest thing ever, no?) There were similar howls of
>outrage over that one.
I did that modification, myself, upon buying an IBM PC/AT
for, if I recall correctly, $5499! It would work up to about
8.5MHz, by the way. I tried 9, but the I/O bus clocked up
with the CPU (at that time) and some of the add-in boards
couldn't keep up. However, 8.5MHz worked across the board,
quite well. I clocked back to 8.0MHz and lived happily ever
after.
Not for one split second did I believe I was doing something
wrong, here. Not for one moment. I still think it was fine
to do.
The Kaypro 286i was the first "truly compatible" IBM PC
machine built after that and it cost almost $2000 less to
buy, new. (There were other attempts, but they failed on a
variety of applications at the time and were crippled in one
way or another until the Kaypro 286i made it out.)
There was a short period (year?) where the ISA (wasn't known
as that, at the time, but I'm referring to the 8/16 bit bus
that came out with the PC/AT) bus had to be separated better
from the CPU clock and thus was born the ability to clock the
CPU up higher (10,12,16MHz) without making bus boards fail.
That led to Chips&Technology developing their IC to save all
those discrete IC parts populating the boards. And that led
to Intel deciding (eventually, years later on) to take over
that market and develop their own chipset. Etc.
But it was morally RIGHT to clock up the system. I still
think so and if John L. is on the other side of this question
then we have a fundamental difference of opinion. However,
he hasn't weighed in on it, so it is hard to know.
>The moral question is actually an interesting one, I think, and the
>different views seem to hinge on what people think they're buying, and
>whether a hardware/software combination is more like hardware (which you
>can hack up as you like) or software (which has a license agreement
>you're bound by).
><snip>
It is an interesting question and made all the more so
because different people may fall on different sides here.
That's what makes it interesting. If everyone took the same
position, it would indeed be dullsville.
Jon
John Larkin
<zapwireD...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>"John Larkin" <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
>news:pj47r5dnsih27ikg7...@4ax.com...
>> The scopes are not identical because they have different specs and
>> firmware.
>
>I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the various operating parameters
>stored in flash or NVRAM part of the "firmware" -- I consider "firmware" to be
>the output from an assembler or compiler.
>
>> Rigol made it too easy to hack their scope, and Jones took advantage
>> of it. I still don't know why.
>
>To save some money?
>
>While I support regulation of intelectual property, certainly don't support
>pirating of software, etc., *in this particular case* I tend to side more with
>Dave than Rigol:
>
>-- They specifically *added circuitry!* to turn their 100MHz scope into a
>50MHz scope;
It also does the standard bandwidth limit function, so it would have
been there anyhow.
Since the ADCs are overclocked, it may be that Rigol selects the best
scopes to be the 100 MHz versions.
John
mi...@sushi.com
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:02:13 -0500, George Jefferson wrote:
> > It's also very dishonest
>
>
> In this country, if I outrightly own item A and item B, what I do with
> them is my business (legal restictions aside).
>
> Where was the dishonest part?
> Was their an agreement signed prohibiting use of some part on one of the
> items
>
> > Do
> > you think people would buy their products if they knew that the only
> > difference between the low end and high end versions is the price?
>
> was the number of wires brought out from under the blob, but they still
> sell like hot cakes.
I agree with you regarding youtube. This would be one simple webpage.
I'm really annoyed that google is including youtube video in google
searches. It takes so much work to see if the youtube "document" is
what you need.
John Larkin
wrote:
Does that mean you are willing to copy software, purchased by yourself
or others, in violation of a license agreement? And that your
willingness depends on your opinion of the quality of the product?
John
mi...@sushi.com
> "Naive Stewart"
>
> " Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here. "
>
> > It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
> > optimise their profits.
>
> it.
>
> Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal
> fraud.
>
> > performance
> > with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.
>
> ** Nope - that would be blatant example of extortion.
>
> You ignorant dickhead.
>
> .... Phil
He bought the scope, he can do whatever he wants with it. If you want
hardware with a Nazi attitude, buy gear from Apple.
John Larkin
I paid them for a 50 MHz scope. I will not hack their firmware to make
it into a 100 MHz scope (with rotten step response)
John
John Fields
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:08:45 -0500, John Fields
><jfi...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:30:03 -0700, John Larkin
>><jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:19:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
>>><spef...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:53:03 -0700, John Larkin
>>>><jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Why Jones would choose to hurt Rigel is a mystery to me.
>>>>>
>>>>>John
>>>>
>>>>What makes you think he hurt Rigol? They've have probably just sold
>>>>dozens of scope to people who wouldn't have otherwise bought a scope
>>>>from a Chinese maker.
>>>>
>>>>Most companies will continue to buy what's guaranteed.
>>>>
>>>>He might have hurt or helped them.
>>>
>>>I'm sure that some people who would have bought the 100M version will
>>>buy the 50 and hack it. Not many, I expect, mostly amateurs.
>>
>>---
>>So now it's _not_ "serious money" like you originally claimed?
>
>If it's, say, 100 scopes hacked at a loss of $400 each, until Rigol
>makes the firmware more secure (which will also cost money to do)
>that's $40K. I don't know if $40K is "serious" money that matters to
>Rigol, or to you. $40K is fairly serious to me.
---
Jeez, John, I see you still haven't quit being a cheater...
1052E's go for $595 max _retail_, and 1102E's go for $795 max, also
retail, so that's a difference of $200, of which Rigol sees maybe $50.
Applied to 100 scopes, that's $5K which is probably chump change for the
likes of Rigol.
Now if I cheated a little and claimed that those 100 scopes would never
have been bought except to be "converted", then I could claim that the
extra sales more than offset any losses (especially since it costs them
the same to build either scope) and that the hack was actually a
blessing in disguise, if not leaked on purpose...
---
>How would you feel if Jones hacked one of your products and cost you
>$40K? But I think you don't do firmware, so the question is probably
---
If he hacked one of my products and wasn't in violation of any IP
restrictions, then I'd be unhappy but that's the way it goes...
BTW, you think wrong.
Again.
I do hardware, firmware, software, AND bleeding edge 555 circuit design.
So there...
JF
mi...@sushi.com
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:09:44 -0500, "George Jefferson"
>
>
>
> <Geo...@Jefferson.com> wrote:
>
> >messagenews:81gnlp...@mid.individual.net...
The "two week disposable" lenses are the same as the "yearly" lenses
(if they are even sold anymore).
Jon Kirwan
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:45:38 +1100, "David L. Jones"
><alt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Nial Stewart wrote:
>>>> It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never
>>>> make it very far. People like Larkin are too arrogant to understand
>>>> this. Do you think people would buy their products if they knew that
>>>> the only difference between the low end and high end versions is the
>>>> price....
>>>
>>> ...and access to extended functionality that someone's had to be paid
>>> to develop?
>>
>>In this case Rigol actually went to the trouble to design-in circuitry to
>>enable this 50MHz "cripple" feature. The front end was clearly designed from
>>day one to be at least 100MHz bandwidth, and they then decided to dumb it
>>down to meet a lower end market and price point by adding the cripple
>>feature.
>>So George is essentially right, the only effective difference is the price.
>>
>>>> At the very least they could have added some true functional
>>>> improvement that made it justifiable but simply changing the model
>>>> number....
>>>
>>> ...and access to further functionality that someone's had to be paid
>>> to develop....
>>
>>The only extra functionality is being able to go to 2ns timebase instead of
>>5ns, everything else is identical. A couple of lines of code?
>>
>>Any extra design effort that has gone into this product all went in to
>>designing the cripple feature to dumb it down!
>>
>>>> doesn't justify a 40% price increase.
>>>
>>> By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs
>>> of the DVD when they sell Windows7.
>>
>>A completely silly analogy.
>
>Not at all. IP costs money to develop and has to be paid for. And
>there are economies of scale from building one hardware platform and
>marketing competitive products that have different firmware. Rigol's
>error was to make the hack too easy.
>
>It's like stealing stuff out of cars. People will steal thongs if you
>don't roll up the windows and lock the doors, so everybody has to roll
>up the windows and lock the doors. Ditto big steel vaults in banks.
>It's inefficient because a minority of people will game the rules any
>way they can, sometimes just because they can.
I don't see it that way, at all, John. I think the
manufacturer took a risk designing as they did and chose to
do so, anyway. They knew it was possible that this may be
uncovered and decided to go for it.
When I buy a tool, I am completely free to repurpose it in
any way I want to. When I buy a hammer, it may not get used
as the manufacturer intended. So what. When I buy a Tek
scope, I may decide to gut it and redo some things in it to
improve its use to me.
Your point hangs entirely on what was in the MIND of those
who fielded this DS1052E. I would have to somehow _know_ in
advance (and although we can assume and are probably right
here, it is still an assumption) that Rigol didn't want me
making these particular modifications but don't mind if I
make other ones I might someday decide to make (such as
hauling out sections and using them with more effort and work
on my part for something entirely different.) In other
words, you are arguing that because _these_ modifications are
simple and other ones more complex, that repurposing in one
direction is wrong and another direction is just fine (I'm
assuming here that you wouldn't mind me dismantling it and
using it for parts, for example.)
That's a crazy argument.
If they want to make it difficult, and you have suggested
they may now have to do that, then that is fine, too. There
is nothing wrong with that. But to argue that a buyer is
limited in certain ways and NOT limited in certain other ways
in using a tool they have purchased, merely based upon the
manufacturer's mindset about some of these vs others, is
going too far. They always have the option of making it more
difficult, if they are that concerned. But when I buy a some
hardware, it is MINE to use as I see fit. Including shooting
it with a shotgun, hammering it to pieces, or slipping a wire
from here to there. Period. End of story. I'm not going to
get involved in worrying about whether or not MY behavior is
congruent to THEIR business. I am focused on what is good
for me, they are focused on what is good for them, and that
is a good thing I think you'd agree with considing your other
remarks on other topics. We each look out for ourselves, I
think you'd say. Self-interest is a good thing, I think
you'd say.
Dave is merely putting information out for end users, freely.
I see no problem with that, either. It's his own decision.
Jon
Jon Kirwan
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:14:03 -0700 (PDT), George Herold
><gghe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Mar 30, 8:29�pm, "David L. Jones" <altz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>
>>> Dave.
>>>
>>> --
>>> ================================================
>>> Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:http://www.eevblog.com
>>
>>Excellent, I just ordered a Rigol DS1052E! The best news is that
>>even without the mod the 50 MHz is closer to 70 MHz as is.... (just
>>scaling your measured 5ns rise/fall time.)
>>
>>George H.
>
>It has very clean transient response as shipped, at the 50 (or 70) MHz
>bandwidth. The hacked version is ratty looking. I wouldn't do the hack
>even if it was morally and legally fine.
>
>This is a very nice little scope, superb for the price. It has loads
>of more features than a comparable Tek at around 1/3 the price.
>
>Why Jones would choose to hurt Rigel is a mystery to me.
It's not Dave's job to protect Rigol.
Whether he hurt them or not is a question that isn't clear,
nor answered yet. If Rigol is forced to make further
modifications because of Dave, and only because of Dave, then
you may have a point on that narrow ledge. But it still
doesn't mean Dave has any responsibility to protect them from
such actions they may later choose to take.
Besides the issue that Dave is acting as an independent, free
agent and may choose what is in his own better interests, he
cannot possibly be expected to consult some personal Ouija
board about the mind of Rigol about their own business
interests. Rigol can fend for themselves. And they are
perfectly able to do so.
In any case, I generally prefer a world where knowledge is
freely shared, education valued, and the consequences lived
with more than one where knowledge ie metered out. Dave gave
information, which is fine. You did too when you commented
about the "clean transient response" and the fact that you
don't think it is wise to hack it for your own needs. Which
is good information, as well. Then just let the end user
decide for themselves what is better for them. As it should
be.
Jon
Jon Kirwan
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
><snip>
>Jones is perfectly capable of estimating the considerable economic
>damage he is doing to Rigol.
><snip>
I sincerely doubt that. I doubt even you could. Besides, I
think you've made an excellent point that the unit works well
as designed and doesn't work for your needs nearly so well,
hacked. Other people like you will choose units that meet
needs well and Rigol will be just fine.
But let me make an argument to the other side, just for
grins. Professionals like you will do what is in your own
interests and, if you are correct, hacking it doesn't make it
much better so they won't bother. Besides, it works great as
a 50MHz unit as it should. The niche of people who will
modify the unit _rather_ than buy something that really does
do 100MHz well will be those who simply cannot afford the
higher priced spread, anyway. So they aren't really in the
1102E market to begin with. So Rigol will actually benefit
by getting the money that is "on the table" from those who
cannot really afford much more but decide __now__ to buy the
lower cost Rigol unit because they can hack it for a small
now-perceived extra benefit to them. Hobbyists, for the most
part, I'd suspect. That might help Rigol, rather than hurt
them. Professionals need stuff they can rely upon, anyway,
and support when things need repair under warranty.
besides, it's not Dave's job to pimp their interests, anyway.
Rigol can take care of themselves, just fine.
Jon
John Larkin
<jfi...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Gosh, maybe you do have a sense of humor.
John
Phil Hobbs
For hardware, I agree entirely. You bought it, you can hack it up any
way you want. For software, you don't own it, you only license it, and
that restricts what you can do.
So far, so well understood.
These hardware/software gizmos we're surrounded with are in a bit of a
grey area. If you bought an Apple computer, for instance, you'd own the
hardware but only license the pre-installed software. You don't get a
right to hack/rip off/disassemble their software just because you bought
their hardware.
I don't like the DMCA in general, and I think it was silly of Rigol to
make hacking it this easy--all they needed was a SSH stack, a hardware
key, or even an obfuscated command--but that doesn't change the moral
position. The hardware is hardware, so you can hack it any way you
like. Cutting traces on the PCB to get the extra vertical bandwidth
would be perfectly fine.
Disassembling the firmware and ripping it off would not be fine.
Hacking the firmware as Dave did is a grey area, one that will become
more and more important as we go along.
As I said, it's a good lesson in product design, and an interesting
moral question that is more complicated than most folks here are willing
to see.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
ElectroOptical Innovations
55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058
hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net
John Larkin
He sure didn't protect them. He apparently organized an effort to hack
their scopes and cost them money, and went public with it.
>
>Whether he hurt them or not is a question that isn't clear,
>nor answered yet. If Rigol is forced to make further
>modifications because of Dave, and only because of Dave, then
>you may have a point on that narrow ledge. But it still
>doesn't mean Dave has any responsibility to protect them from
>such actions they may later choose to take.
>
>Besides the issue that Dave is acting as an independent, free
>agent and may choose what is in his own better interests, he
>cannot possibly be expected to consult some personal Ouija
>board about the mind of Rigol about their own business
>interests. Rigol can fend for themselves. And they are
>perfectly able to do so.
Maybe they have lawyers to help them fend for themselves.
>
>In any case, I generally prefer a world where knowledge is
>freely shared, education valued, and the consequences lived
>with more than one where knowledge ie metered out. Dave gave
>information, which is fine. You did too when you commented
>about the "clean transient response" and the fact that you
>don't think it is wise to hack it for your own needs. Which
>is good information, as well. Then just let the end user
>decide for themselves what is better for them. As it should
>be.
Jones still hasn't said why he did it.
John
David L. Jones
No, the firmware is identical in both models. They simply enter in whatever
model number at final assembly via serial or USB and the firmware detects
that and switches the I/O line that turns on/off the 50MHz filter. It also
limits the displayed timebase to 5ns instead of 2ns. All other specs are
idential.
Dave.
--
---------------------------------------------
John Larkin
They made it too easy to hack. Now they're going to have to rework the
firmware to make it harder, which will cost them something.
I commented that what he did may be a crime under US law. Personally,
I class it with vandalism.
They always have the option of making it more
>difficult, if they are that concerned. But when I buy a some
>hardware, it is MINE to use as I see fit.
IP is different under law. You can't buy music or videos or software
and do whatever you like with it... for instance make and sell copies,
or open your own theatre and show movies that aren't licensed. IP is
different from physical things.
You can buy a brick and make and sell all the copies you like.
Including shooting
>it with a shotgun, hammering it to pieces, or slipping a wire
>from here to there. Period. End of story. I'm not going to
>get involved in worrying about whether or not MY behavior is
>congruent to THEIR business. I am focused on what is good
>for me, they are focused on what is good for them, and that
>is a good thing I think you'd agree with considing your other
>remarks on other topics. We each look out for ourselves, I
>think you'd say. Self-interest is a good thing, I think
>you'd say.
>
>Dave is merely putting information out for end users, freely.
>I see no problem with that, either. It's his own decision.
Obviously. But I'm curious as to why he did it, and especially why he
went to the touble to make a video and post it on youtube.
Why, Dave?
John
Nico Coesel
Judging the way the world works it doesn't seem to matter.
Anyway I don't give out copies of software to others. Although I
always use cracked versions because I don't want to be mess around
with dongles and license servers. If there is no cracked copy
available I don't buy the software package. The availability of a
cracked copy is also a measure whether its worth the money or not.
Furthermore I try to use open-source software as much as possible (and
contribute as a payment).
Ray
in news:81gj1...@mid.individual.net:
>
>
> By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs of
> the DVD when they sell Windows7.
>
>
Interesting you mention Microsoft.
If I recall correctly, I think the only difference between the
Workstation and Server forms of NT was a pair of registry entries.
These could only be set correctly upon install, once running in
whichever guise, the operating sytem made it impossible to change either
one as the opposing pair enabled some algortihm to prevent change.
Perhaps this was an urban legend, but it would not surprise me.
From http://oreilly.com/news/differences_nt.html
Microsoft recently introduced version 4.0 of NT Workstation (NTW) and NT
Server (NTS), and claims that there are substantial technical
differences between the Workstation and Server products. Microsoft uses
this claim to justify an $800 price difference between NTW and NTS, as
well as legal limits on web server usage in NTW, both of which have
enormous impact on existing NTW users. But what if the supposed
technical differences at the heart of NTW and NTS are mythical?
We have found that NTS and NTW have identical kernels; in fact, NT is a
single operating system with two modes. Only two registry settings are
needed to switch between these two modes in NT 4.0, and only one setting
in NT 3.51. This is extremely significant, and calls into question the
related legal limitations and costly upgrades that currently face NTW
users.
John Fields
<jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
---
What in the hell is wrong with you, Larkin?
He certainly isn't the criminal you make him out to be and he most
certainly isn't obligated to dance to your tune.
JF
Nico Coesel
>
>Jones still hasn't said why he did it.
>
Probably because it is possible. The reason why there have been so
many great inventions :-)
Joel Koltner
news:4BB3A9C7...@electrooptical.net...
> These hardware/software gizmos we're surrounded with are in a bit of a grey
> area. If you bought an Apple computer, for instance, you'd own the hardware
> but only license the pre-installed software. You don't get a right to
> hack/rip off/disassemble their software just because you bought their
> hardware.
Actually I think (in the USA) you do have rights to do a certain amount of
hacking and disassembling regardless of what the shrinkwrap license might
suggest, but I agree it's largely a grey area.
I'm willing to bet you that plenty of the big guys like Agilent, Tek, and
LeCroy have completely taken apart, analyzed, and disassembled as much
hardware and software as they could manage of their competitors' gear -- and
then incorporated any hardware AND SOFTWARE improvements they found into their
own kit. (All with one of the company lawyers around to make sure it was done
legally, though.)
> As I said, it's a good lesson in product design
HP/Agilent and Tek have were using simple-minded-but-effective encryption
already 20+ years ago to control access to software years in their gear...
> and an interesting moral question that is more complicated than most folks
> here are willing to see.
Agreed.
---Joel
Joel Koltner
> It also does the standard bandwidth limit function, so it would have
> been there anyhow.
OK, but there's still an extra resistor needed to set it to 50MHz vs. 20MHz.
:-)
You never did tell us if you'd pursue legal action against someone taking one
of your widgets, completely replacing the firmware, and thereby providing
functionality that you currently charge for?
> Since the ADCs are overclocked, it may be that Rigol selects the best
> scopes to be the 100 MHz versions.
Good point.
---Joel
fritz
"John Larkin" <jjla...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:31:14 -0700 (PDT), Al Borowski
> <al.bo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Apr 1, 12:01 am, John Larkin
>><jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> People buy the standard and Pro versions of Windows knowing the only
>>> difference is a few flags. Windows consumer versions are brain-damaged
>>> to allow only a small number of network connections at a time, and
>>> cost almost nothing bundled with a PC. Windows Server removes the
>>> limit and costs about $2K.
>>
>>Well, not really. You don't buy the software, you only license it. You
>>have to agree to the EULA for it to install. If you figure out how to
>>use regedit to enable certain features, it isn't illegal to tell
>>people how to do so (of course they may be violating the EULA if they
>>do)
>>
>>> It's Rigol's choice how to price their products and amortize their
>>> engineering. Buying their 50 MHz scope and hacking it, and gleefully
>>> telling the world how to do it, it is essentially vandalism. Legally,
>>> it may be criminal conspiracy to use a computer to commit a crime.
>>
>>Hang on a second. It's only Rigol's scope until I buy it. When I buy
>>it, it's mine. Not theirs. You don't have to sign an agreement that
>>says you won't modify it.
>>
>>What crime is possibly being committed?
>
> It may be a felony under DCMA. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure.
>
> John
Fuck the lawyers ! They are the leeches of the world. And although you
ain't one, you seem to aspire to be one by your subservient attitude.
All this crap about 'software licensing' is lawyer talk. If I buy a product
(software or hardware) I own the fucking thing and I can do what I want
with it as long as I don't sell it to anyone else.
Take a step back from your silly posturing and consider the following...
How is anyone going to find out what you have done to your own
'scope in the privacy of your home ? Can you see Rigol getting
search warrants to invade their customer's homes ???
John Larkin
You can't know what their manufacturing procedures are. They may
select the better scopes to be the 100 MHz versions.
John