EEVblog #692 - Digilent Analog Discovery Review

[plexuss]

I got mine from Microchipdirect { TDGL023 } for $219 USD.  They also have the BNC adapter board { TDGL024 } for $20. Ships direct to Canada.

Wow great find! thank you. I also found a student in the classifieds that has one for sale for $100. so I am hoping to hear back from them.

Just a reality check: I plan to use this to do measurement and analysis on audio equipment, such as audio amplifiers for measuring response, phase etc across the audible range. are there any considerations I need to have about the Discovery in this application?

[pickle9000]

Should I infer from some recent posts that Digilent do not ship internationally?

I think that may be if there is a local distributor, fairly typical.

[pickle9000]

I got mine from Microchipdirect { TDGL023 } for $219 USD.  They also have the BNC adapter board { TDGL024 } for $20. Ships direct to Canada.

Any extra fees? Shipping costs for example.

[pickle9000]

Should I infer from some recent posts that Digilent do not ship internationally?

I think that may be if there is a local distributor, fairly typical.

Maybe you check out these guys.

http://www.blackboxconsulting.com.au/digilent-xilinx-boards/1/Analog.html

[miguelvp]

I got mine from Microchipdirect { TDGL023 } for $219 USD.  They also have the BNC adapter board { TDGL024 } for $20. Ships direct to Canada.

Any extra fees? Shipping costs for example.

Why don't you try to add one of the 13 left to your cart?
https://www.microchipdirect.com/ProductSearch.aspx?keywords=TDGL023

[pickle9000]

I got mine from Microchipdirect { TDGL023 } for $219 USD.  They also have the BNC adapter board { TDGL024 } for $20. Ships direct to Canada.

Any extra fees? Shipping costs for example.

Why don't you try to add one of the 13 left to your cart?
https://www.microchipdirect.com/ProductSearch.aspx?keywords=TDGL023

Brokerage and such varies greatly and shippers that don't maintain a company presence inside Canada can't calculate it. Often the carrier will tag on the "extras".

[mikeselectricstuff]

Should I infer from some recent posts that Digilent do not ship internationally?

I've bought direct from Digilent to the Uk a couple of years ago -  I don't recall shipping being too expensive.

[Howardlong]

Even the UK Microchip had a couple in stock for a reasonable price, £138. Great find.

Kinda frustrating as an OEM myself though that realistically Digilent will be getting these the parts at a such a serious discount. The likes of Analog and Linear Tech have some great devices in my line of work, but generally fail at the BOM cost. E.g., 5 quid for an opamp or a switch mode PSU chip when your micrcontroller is costing only 2, it makes no sense.

[f4eru]

"requires windows" seen on the box.

Showstopper right there for a lot of people...

[bitwelder]

By "lot" do you mean less than 9%?

And do you mean that 9% of several hundred millions computers is *not* a lot?

[nitro2k01]

By "lot" do you mean less than 9%? That's acording to this site http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8&qpcustomd=0
or Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Desktop_and_laptop_computers

You can bet your bottom dollar that the number of non-Windows users is higher than 9% among EE students.

[jmaja]

By "lot" do you mean less than 9%? That's acording to this site

That is web browsing based statistic. How real is that? E.g. in my ex job I had two Linux computers for "real work" and one Windows computer for writing reports, e-mail etc. I did 99.9% of web browsing with the Windows computer so the two Linux computers would not likely show on these kind of statistics.

I wouldn't be surprised if 20+% of the potential buyers of this device would like to use it on Mac/Linux. Especially universities use Linux a lot.

[ceteras]

It would be nice if these devices would come with a documented API, so others could build their own UI.
Then we could build microcontroller powered panels with knobs and switches to get a better user experience.
It would also be a huge opportunity for teaching software engineering.

[tggzzz]

"requires windows" seen on the box.

Showstopper right there for a lot of people...

What's windows? Is it something from a company that people used to care about, when they sold GUIs+operating systems that were actually usable? (Hint for the humour impared: Win8 is unusable, Win10 will probably be rented).

I've seen claims that the Waveforms software runs on usable affordable operating systems, under wine - anybody like to confirm/deny?

[nitro2k01]

I'm prepared to concede that point. Also Linux. I had considered that, but I don't know the figures so I just used figures for the general population. But, if it was higher by a significant margin, enough to make developing and supporting versions for other OS's profitable why hasn't it been done? The SDK for other OS's  is something of a concession to the potential market but it might also be an indication of the small size.

I have two comments on this.
From the developer's point of view, writing a cross-platform GUI application can become time-consuming. If you want to do it well, you're basically developing one GUI per application. The alternative is to use some framework, which for a large application will likely be half-baked on all, or all except one platform. Releasing an SDK is on other other hand trivial in comparison, and likely effective since Linux usage often correlates with an interest in coding.

The other thing is the demand side of the equation. Even those who (strongly) prefer to use Linux, or for that matter OSX, have often come expect "Windows only" as a recurring fact of life. Windows only for these people is not a show stopper, but simply an annoyance. They may have a Windows partition, or a second computer for occasions like this. They may manage to run it under Wine. They may choose to use the software only at dedicated school lab computers that have Windows anyway.

[Syntax_Error]

Oh wah wah, it requires Windows. So does most other software. Digilent is an American company, and while many Americans use Linux, nearly everybody uses Windows, including in schools. As for EEs having a different representation statistic, I'd say this is completely irrelevant because those same EEs and EE students that are Linux users grew up on Windows and know how to use it.

Digilent's decision is quite logical: The standard use case for this product is a university student (or high initiative hobbyist/autodidact) with a *laptop* computer. In the U.S. just about all laptps come preloaded with Windows. I say "just about" because I want to say all, but I know there has to be some outlier out there somewhere.

Digilent has also made the API available so some enterprising Linux engineer can port Waveforms to Linux. This also seems logical, since afterall, Linux was created by enterprising computer scientists in the first place. I mean, how else is Linux software made?

[tggzzz]

Oh wah wah, it requires Windows.

So where can I buy a usable Windows to replace my WinXP? I would buy Win7, but MS in their "wisdom", won't sell it to me. (Win8 isn't usable)

So does most other software.

The principal engineering software I use for my job does run on Windows -- but manufacturer drops strong hints that it is much easier to use in Linux/Unix. (Xilinx Vivado)

There are only two other packages I use that require Windows; one of those is a game, one has equivalents runing in Linux (but I couldn't be bothered to faff around). Everything else runs well in Linux.

MicroSoft is in the position that IBM was in back in the early 80s: dominant, but nobody paid much attention to what they were doing because there were much more attractive alternatives coming down the line. Shame.

[Syntax_Error]

Yep, companies screw their product line up all the time. It sucks. I use both Linux and Windows casually, and Windows professionally. I ran into a similar problem with Win8 unusability. Win7 is the ticket (for now) if you can get it. The world still runs on MS, just not Win8. I suspect Win10 will be much more like Win7, or history will repeat yet again. First WinME, then Win8.

It's funny you mention Vivado. I haven't used it (I'm not a professional), but I use ISE and I cannot get it to work right on Linux to save my soul, but on Win7 the thing installs itself and I've never had a problem with it.

Look, I get that we probably aren't going to agree. Ok, that's fine. My experience is largely based on Win7 and WinXP, because I skipped the truly abominable MS OSes. I use Linux casually and it seems a pain at times to me, but nothing unbearable. I see Linux fanboyism rampant just as Apple fanboyism lately, so this topic rung that bell pretty hard.

[tggzzz]

Yep, companies screw their product line up all the time. It sucks. I use both Linux and Windows casually, and Windows professionally. I ran into a similar problem with Win8 unusability. Win7 is the ticket (for now) if you can get it. The world still runs on MS, just not Win8. I suspect Win10 will be much more like Win7, or history will repeat yet again. First WinME, then Win8.

I see Linux fanboyism rampant just as Apple fanboyism lately, so this topic rung that bell pretty hard.

Unbalanced fanboyism = ignorance, of course.

It appears that you won't be able to buy Win10, only rent it.

But then again, MS prevented me reinstalling XP a machine that I owned and for which I had the product key and certificate of authenticity. Stunningly they claimed the "Microsoft says no" screen was Samsung's problem! That machine is still running Xubuntu, years later.

The first Unix I used professionally was made by guess who? (see bottom) Since then all my delivered software has been on one variety of unix or another, for cost and reliability reasons (Do you really want to debug/restart a Windows machine on another continent connected by a 2400bps modem? Relatively easy with unix)

Oh yes, the Unix was made and sold by a small company called Microsoft.

[f4eru]

Hey guys, calm down

I personally am on linux at work and at home, and it's really plasant.
I see more and more devs (HW and SW) working on linux, even if it's still in the 15-20% range ( in Europe), it increases every year.
An obvious advantage for a developer is the simplicity of installing a (friendly) devtool suite.

I still need to use windows from time to time, but only when a config tool is needed for some HW. Yep I tend to avoid such HW....

Last week, the admin of my company felicited me coz i was the only one who did not get the latest virus...

I would not release a HW with an associated program working only on windows. (probably also not a linux exclusive, coz limiting users...)

Just my experience... YMMV

[tggzzz]

I personally am on linux at work and at home, and it's really plasant.
I see more and more devs (HW and SW) working on linux, even if it's still in the 15-20% range ( in Europe), it increases every year.
An obvious advantage for a developer is the simplicity of installing a (friendly) devtool suite.

I still need to use windows from time to time, but only when a config tool is needed for some HW. Yep I tend to avoid such HW....

Last week, the admin of my company felicited me coz i was the only one who did not get the latest virus...

I would not release a HW with an associated program working only on windows. (probably also not a linux exclusive, coz limiting users...)

That pretty much sums up my experience as well.

[orin]

So where can I buy a usable Windows to replace my WinXP? I would buy Win7, but MS in their "wisdom", won't sell it to me. (Win8 isn't usable)

Just install "Classic Shell", pretend you are on Windows 7 and ignore the Windows 8 crap.

At work, I actually use 2012 Server which is Windows 8 based.  Other than the dumbed down task manager*, with "Classic Shell", it looks and acts pretty much like Windows 7.

Orin.

*and you are better off with "Process Explorer" than any version of task manager anyway.

[MaBerY]

I wonder how this device can compete with the Red Pitaya (http://redpitaya.com/)
It's had a interesting review in the Dutch Elektor december magazine. It has 50Mhz bandwith and 125 MSps and also 16 GPIO connections
All Open Sourced so it seems. It costs more than the digilent (375 Euro) , but it has higher rated specs

I was considering a new rigol scope for Xmas but this pitaya thing whetted my appetite.

[tggzzz]

I wonder how this device can compete with the Red Pitaya (http://redpitaya.com/)
It's had a interesting review in the Dutch Elektor december magazine. It has 50Mhz bandwith and 125 MSps and also 16 GPIO connections
All Open Sourced so it seems. It costs more than the digilent (375 Euro) , but it has higher rated specs

I was considering a new rigol scope for Xmas but this pitaya thing whetted my appetite.

The key differentiating factor is the ability to put your code in the FPGA+ARM, which is undoubtedly an interesting benefit. It will be interesting to see how well any ecosystem develops

The GPIO connectors are, IMNSHO opinion, suboptimal: bad GND (too few, not evenly distributed) and no differential input standards due to the I/O voltage. Fine for medium speed stuff, I presume.

The hardware isn't open source; unless something has changed, the schematic is unavailable. It is your decision as to whether that is a problem.

[jaxbird]

Had a look at both the Digilent and the Red Pitaya, in the end I decided to get the Digilent. Mostly because the Digilent software looks far superior. I'm primarily interested in the network analyzer and function generator.

For Red Pitaya the available software appears very limited and honestly looks like some hipster designed browser based crap.

While the specs of the Red Pitaya appear better, I do have concerns with things like 50MHz bandwidth with 125MSPS and max ambient operating temperature being 30 degrees C, sounds like very marginal thermal design.

Would be interesting to see Dave do a similar review of the Red Pitaya.