Turn your Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope into a 100MHz DS1102E

[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?

 

[Nial Stewart]

I was going to type out a lengthy reply but you're obviously not open to
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. "



** 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 !!!!!!!!!!!

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

 

[Nial Stewart]

"Naive Fuckwit Stewart Pommy Shit "

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.

 

[JW]

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...

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

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.

 

[PeterD]

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.

 

[Tim Williams]

No. But that costs the seller nothing, and is perfectly legal. Jones
has cost Rigel

Rigel 7?

Tim

 

[Nico Coesel]

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.

 

[Charlie E.]

There are many small details which indicate that the software was
written by indiots.


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.


"Good - Better - Best" marketing principle is old as a World.


Vladimir Vassilevsky
DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant
http://www.abvolt.com

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

 

[Nico Coesel]

On Mar 30, 8:03 pm, John Larkin
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:

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.

 

[Nico Coesel]

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.

 

[Jon Kirwan]

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:

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

 

[Jon Kirwan]

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]

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]

<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

 

[David L. Jones]

The scopes are not identical because they have different specs and
firmware.

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.

 

[Nico Coesel]

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?

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]

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.

 

[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