Looking for Tekmate software

[PaulAm]

Bit of a long shot, but you never know.

First, some background.  The  Tektronix 2402 Tekmate was essentially a single board 287 based AT computer with a GPIB card that served as an external processor for some of the 24xx series scopes.  When connected, the box could be access through the scope's screen and menu keys; it did not require a monitor or keyboard.  For the day, it was fairly advanced and even had an onboard SCSI controller that allowed you to hook up a hard drive that could be as big as 128MB (gasp!)  The CPU boards were made by a 3rd party and repackaged by Tek in an appropriately colored box.

It is not too difficult to find the hardware and even the generic software load.  However, I have been unable to track down the software that allows the box to interface with a 2430/2432 scope.  I think these programs are called DSO-APP.exe and DSO-SHELL.exe, but there may be additional ones as well.

I'm interested in tricking out my 2432a with a working one of these.  If anyone has a pointer to the software, I would like to hear from you.  Without the software the box is pretty useless.

[alm]

You could try the TekScopes Yahoo! group.

[nctnico]

I've seen these boxes as well but always wondered what the added value is. Maybe you could add a ISA LAN card and make the screendumps/setups available over a network?  I know it is possible to use Microsoft networking from plain DOS.

[PaulAm]

Tekscopes has been silent on this one, so I'm looking in less likely places.

From what I can gather, there's firmware in the 24xx scopes that allow it to be controlled by the GPIB bus.  I haven't found any documentation yet, but the hints I've run across indicate that the software in the Tekmate added capability otherwise missing from the scope, beyond being able to save and restore waveforms.  There's one program on Tek's site, for example, that allows you to zoom  and expand items in memory.

If you can find an ISA network card it should be possible to put it on the net.  This is around DOS 3.3 time though, and it's been so long that I forget when support for the 286 was dropped.

Developing any software for that environment at this point would be very painful.

[david77]

DOS networking is a bit tricky especially with a 286's limited memory capabilities (EMS and XMS anyone?). It can be done but the remaining memory for other applications will be very little. Mind you, I've never been able to use MS Client for DOS on any DOS version below 5.01, best results can be achieved using 6.22. IIRC earlier versions do not support EMS memory to free up application space... details are a bit blurry these days. But, as we all know nobody would ever need more than 640K of memory  .
There's one XT class PC somwhere around here that's got a 8 bit ISA LAN card in it. It can either run DOS with network or anything else with no network.

[PaulAm]

I ran across another tantalizing hint that the software adds FFT capabilities.

[alm]

If you can download the waveform data (I assume these commands are in the manual), then you can also do FFT in a more modern program. Something along the lines of NI SignalExpress, for example. Not sure if the free version does FFT, though. If you're very lucky then you might even find an instrument driver for these scopes.

Depending on how the software was written, you might also be able to get it to work on more modern DOS versions and a 386+ processor. That would make things like networking substantially easier.

[PaulAm]

Thanks to an ex-Tek field engineer, I managed to get a copy of the software.

When you get down to it, you can use an GPIB card in a modern system and use it to scarf the data down for analysis.  However, this is a nice self-contained system that uses the scope screen for the display and doesn't need a keyboard to boot.

The software does indeed add FFT to the scope, along with waveform math and and trigger capability that lets you create a waveform template and log any events that fall outside of it.  It doesn't mesh seamlessly with the scope UI, but it's not too bad.

I've added a SCSI disk to the Tekmate since it's BIOS supports it, once an Adaptec controller chip is plugged in.  Freedos doesn't have the partition limitation that the old DOS versions did.

Haven't had any success getting it on a network yet.  I have a version of XFS which is an NFS client that allows DOS to mount an exported directory as a drive, but it's not working yet.  It appears to mount the NFS export, but Freedos doesn't see it.

If you have the right GPIB card and an old ISA motherboard, you could use this software with any of the Tek 24XX DSO scopes.

[alm]

I have no interest in the software, but did you make it available on a public site like BitSavers, assuming you're allowed to?

[PaulAm]

I'm working on a Tekmate page to pull all this stuff together.

[VintageTekFan]

I recently got a Tekmate with my 2440 off of eBay, and have been dying to find the software for it.  I'm really looking forward to your page.

[PaulAm]

I'm pretty slammed at the moment, but it should be up Pretty Soon Now

[srwalter]

I'm pretty slammed at the moment, but it should be up Pretty Soon Now

I'm now in the same boat you are, looking for the original software for a TekMate 2402.  Any chance that "pretty soon now" rolled around in the last couple of years?   

[picburner]

maybe here you can find something useful:
http://www.auroragrp.com/agi/other/tekmate/tekmate.html

[PaulAm]

That's my site.  If it gets unresponsive send me a message and I'll give it a kick.

I forgot about this thread, I would have posted a link myself if I remembered.

edit:
If you google "tekmate software" that link shows up as #9 in the list, so I guess that isn't too bad.