BIG EEVblog Giveaway Coming Up

[Shadetreeprops]

sweetness im in on a Scope, NICE...i go by shadetree for the fact all my stuff is garbage i find, and hack together, and using plenty of what you call hot snot to hold things in place. even when making props i have used hot snot for making molds of small peices that were hard to come by before.

So unless the military base i rummage though, tosses out a scope, i am too poor to afford one. But they do toss out plenty of unopend components, I found several micro controllers today still in their bags, smell like they have been at the back of the closet for years.

If i can find what i did with one peice, id like to send it to you. cant tell you what it is, as it was sopposed to be destroyed, but they just tossed it, still has a big ole CLASSIFIED sticker on it. but i figured out what it was by where it came from.

[Shadetreeprops]

That is awesome!

It is indeed.
They originally wanted me to promote it for free. I of course turned them down as there wasn't anything in it for me. And considering I don't do paid promotions, I bartered two scopes for my audience instead 

Well do not see harm in it. I don't wake up in the mornings, and go into work, and say well fellas, im gonna do it all for free today, no need to give me anything in return for my services no one else provides at my low rates.  Nope, check, cash, card, money order, spare change, barter..There are 4 hungry people at home, who love their hobbies, and home. lol.

[jh15]

Is dave's face locked in with DRM or is it open source so I can have a narcissus experience?

[EEVblog]

They originally wanted me to promote it for free. I of course turned them down as there wasn't anything in it for me. And considering I don't do paid promotions, I bartered two scopes for my audience instead 

That's very commendable. It would be even more noble if you said "Sure. Even though there is nothing in it for me my audience will benefit. I'll be glad to participate."

I would have done that anyway in terms of tweeting it, mentioning it on the Amp Hour perhaps, just like I normally do for such things, but a specific video promoting it? I think that's a bit too far and sets a precedent where every tom dick and harry wants me to do a video promoting their contest.

But that is not exactly what is happening. You have set one aside for your Patreon followers and presumably you will benefit from the consequent increase in subscriptions. Not exactly a paid promotion but not going to leave you free from possible criticism due to appearing to have a conflict of interest.

The only criticism seems to be coming from you.

Personally I think you'd be better off doing a paid promotion and just disclosing the fact.

With hindsight I should maybe have asked for cash, and then used that cash to buy a dozen cheaper scopes.

[jippie]

With hindsight I should maybe have asked for cash, and then used that cash to buy a dozen cheaper scopes.

No worries, in my opinion it is just fine as it is now, even though some people (possibly myself) will not be able to enter or win the contest. There'll be other contests addressing other contenders. I think it is amazing to be able to give away a bizarre prize like this at least once in your life.

[rch]

With hindsight I should maybe have asked for cash, and then used that cash to buy a dozen cheaper scopes.

No worries, in my opinion it is just fine as it is now, even though some people (possibly myself) will not be able to enter or win the contest. There'll be other contests addressing other contenders. I think it is amazing to be able to give away a bizarre prize like this at least once in your life.

They're pretty wonderful general purpose 'scopes, but they're not really esoteric cutting-edge 100GHz sort of stuff, are they?  Much lower spec things wouldn't really be particularly impressive prizes from a company like Keysight.  I think they've got it about right, and it would have looked bad (even though it wasn't!) if they'd given Dave an inferior prize to hand out.

[bingo600]

Did i miss something ?
Or are there 11 pages of "How NOT" to  enter the contest right now ?

I seem to have missed the magic way

/Bingo

[kakureru]

With hindsight I should maybe have asked for cash, and then used that cash to buy a dozen cheaper scopes.

If I win, Ill donate it to you to sell to buy a dozen cheaper scopes..

[ECEdesign]

I saw the teaser pic on twitter it is very cool indeed.  I don't really see the problem with it being a high end piece of gear the whole point from Keysight's point of view is to show some people what a world class scope is like just giving away money would defeat the purpose.

[TheSteve]

Like most who have low post counts, we want there to be no minimum - Those who have high post counts want there to be a high minimum.

I think the minimum is in the single digits, so you would have to have just made the account to not qualify.  It's only to root out automated accounts and people gaming the system, not to cater to the most active forum members. 

The only thing I've said so far is you have to be an active member. What that active means, I don't know yet, but the winner will be checked live on air. And yeah, single digit posts likely won't cut the mustard. Nor will a few dozen one liners to get your numbers up.

Coolest looking scope on the planet, can't wait to enter!

[Brumby]

I have only one question ......

How long does the splash screen stay on for?

[MarvinTheMartian]

I have only one question ......

How long does the splash screen stay on for?

Good question Brumby - I'll let you know when I first switch it on. 

(or you can let me know when you first switch it on! )

[Brumby]

Deal.     

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

Is dave's face locked in with DRM or is it open source so I can have a narcissus experience?

This is actually taking advantage of an "easter egg" on the InfiniiVision scopes.  Upload any image named splashscreen.* (.jpg .png or .bmp) in the file explorer on the scope and it becomes the boot screen.  Image must be 800x480 or smaller.

I have only one question ......

How long does the splash screen stay on for?

The screen stays up until the scope has finished booting up (not super long).

[Helix70]

Is the giveaway scope provided with any options applied, like the wavegen, segmented memory, SPI/I2C/UARTl decoding or the most interesting in my opinion, the educator training pack?

[FrankBuss]

I have a very long and sorry history of shipping uCurrent's to Germany. Huge number of returns, most get stuck in customs, some for months. It's horrible. Germany has the reputation of one of the worst customs in the world.

In my experience it depends very much on which shipping company you are using. For example if I order something from Digikey, I get it always in 2-3 days, no customs, UPS does it all for me. Of course, more expensive, if you don't have a large contract with UPS, as Digikey has. But if something is sent with USPS from the US, or other services from other countries which ends up at Deutsche Post here, there are always problems with customs and most of the time I need to send all papers for the product and PayPal receipt etc. to the customs office, even if they are in the packet. They require it in a letter glued outside of the package, and looks like they don't open the packet, if there are no papers outside

[Spamlobster]

Meh. I guess I'll be waiting for a DS1054Z draw for users with less than 10 posts, I'm good for it at least a year still. 

[Towger]

Is the giveaway scope provided with any options

I believe it is 'fully loaded'.
I am sure Dave will do a detailed teardown, once the spell of the garbage room off it has died down ;-)

[Helix70]

Even better, no further expense required by the lucky winner!

[MK14]

Even better, no further expense required by the lucky winner!

That's why I CAN'T sensibly enter the competition.

The import duties and VAT (20% rate), into the UK, and maybe other charges, would be something like (assuming item is CORRECTLY declared on custom forms) of $5000, or £3650).

If I entered the competition, and won. Dave sends it to me. I refuse to pay the £3650. It gets sent back to Dave, BUT then gains import duties into Australia (I believe).
Dave refuses the huge $$$$$$$$$$ import tax bill etc.

Hence the $15,000 scope really will be put into a dumpster, near some  duty collecting bond warehouse.

...So I won't/can't enter.

It looks a very nice scope. But £3650 would be way over budget for me.

P.S. I object to incorrectly filling out custom returns, so that would NOT be an option for me.

REALLY, countries should allow people to genuinely win prizes, TAX etc free. In the same way, many lotteries are tax free. But I guess such a mechanism could be misused, so it is a difficult dilemma.

Ideally (as others have said), the company, kind enough to offer the prize(s), should pay all costs to the winners doorstep. Except countries which are being way too unreasonable.

E.g. Good luck sending it to North Korea, via the USA. In the current climate.

[Samogon]

Hi

I would certainly vote for the simple answer of "send it to me"

The way many other places do it is a simple post in a thread sort of thing. There must be some sort of program (or at least a script) to pull names out of the list. I think that having people do *something* to enter is better than a totally passive process. The idea is to kick up interest with the contest. Drawing numbers out of a hat and then matching them with member numbers runs the risk of picking people who no longer have accurate info on file.

Bob

Simple SQL query against forum database with posts from given thread to pull unique names and apply even criteria, like data of registration older mmddyyyy then and number of posts greater then xx. Then randomly select name from the query result. But random in software is not quite random. I suggest to use hardware using noise genarator   
I can help with that

[rch]

I suggest to use hardware using noise genarator   
I can help with that

Yes, I am just inventing a little black box which accepts up to 10,000 names in a comma separated list via a serial port. It then randomly selects one using a state of the art entropy collection system from a noise diode.   However, as part of my cunning plan I am also going to register the forum name "This is not a genuine FTDI chip".

[FrankBuss]

Yes, I am just inventing a little black box which accepts up to 10,000 names in a comma separated list via a serial port. It then randomly selects one using a state of the art entropy collection system from a noise diode.   However, as part of my cunning plan I am also going to register the forum name "This is not a genuine FTDI chip".

You could make a fortune selling this box. random.org provides a drawing service and costs $54.95 for 10,000 names (it gets cheaper for more names, 1 million names costs only $1,149.95).

Would be an interesting EEVblog video how to generate good random numbers. It is more complicated than most people expect. There are some tests like the diehard tests to check that it is really random. Interestingly some very simple algorithms, like a counter and then a SHA256 hash function, passes this test. But the disadvantage is that they are predictable, if you know the implementation. On the other hand if you use a hardware noise generator, it is not predictable, but might not be truely random (e.g. some 50/60 Hz hum). I was thinking for some time now to build a good hardware random number generator by combining the non-predictable, but not perfect, output of a random noise generator with a SHA256 hash function, which should result in a non-predictable, perfect random number generator. I could sell it in two years when this patent expires, which uses a Lava lamp to generate random numbers.

[MK14]

Yes, I am just inventing a little black box which accepts up to 10,000 names in a comma separated list via a serial port. It then randomly selects one using a state of the art entropy collection system from a noise diode.   However, as part of my cunning plan I am also going to register the forum name "This is not a genuine FTDI chip".

You could make a fortune selling this box. random.org provides a drawing service and costs $54.95 for 10,000 names (it gets cheaper for more names, 1 million names costs only $1,149.95).

Would be an interesting EEVblog video how to generate good random numbers. It is more complicated than most people expect. There are some tests like the diehard tests to check that it is really random. Interestingly some very simple algorithms, like a counter and then a SHA256 hash function, passes this test. But the disadvantage is that they are predictable, if you know the implementation. On the other hand if you use a hardware noise generator, it is not predictable, but might not be truely random (e.g. some 50/60 Hz hum). I was thinking for some time now to build a good hardware random number generator by combining the non-predictable, but not perfect, output of a random noise generator with a SHA256 hash function, which should result in a non-predictable, perfect random number generator. I could sell it in two years when this patent expires, which uses a Lava lamp to generate random numbers.

But with the wide availability of later Intel (and eventually AMD) cpus, with built in hardware random number generators (RDSEED etc). Along with many modern microcontrollers having hardware random number generators, built in. That surely would limit the market for a separate hardware random number generator ?

[FrankBuss]

You never know how Intel implemented it. They write that they are using a hardware entropy source, but you can't be sure how good it is, because they don't publish the details. My implementation would be open source hardware/software, so everyone could check how it works and that there is no hidden backdoor.