Tektronix TDS500/600/700 NVRAM floppy backup and restore tool

[MattM]

Hi guys,

intially I wanted to ask for a help trying to backup the NVSRAM but then my priorities changed as a certain song from The Antwoord came to mind and nose.

Before the baby was on fire I was able to try the procedure for the floppy backup but it was unsuccessful. The issue might now be mute but I will post details anyway, maybe I will be able to fix the scobe, maybe someone else will benefit.

Also for anyone having the same scope, maybe change the elyt caps in your PS. If anyone has schematic diagrams for 640A, please, reach out. I found some schematic diagrams online but they are not corresponding to my power supply.

TDS640A
FW: v3.8.8e
NVSRAM DS1650Y
Tried two different floppy discs, both formated in the scope. When the scope is turned on, it interacts with the floppy drive when the disc in inserted so I assume the drive is fine. I left the switch in the "protected" mode.


a) tdsAcqEEPROMFloppyDumper
   - not working (assuming it shouldn't as this is an "A" scope)

b) tdsAcqEEPROMMinimalFloppyDumper
   - not working, i.e. no file created on the disc
   - I didn't make any mods to the script, was I supposed to?
   Change _gtlX24c02Bcopy(0x10A00000,tempBuf,acqEEPROMSize) to _gtlX24c02Bcopy(0x10800000,tempBuf,acqEEPROMSize)?

Thanks!

PS: I created a separate blog post for the HW fail in case you want react to that in particular.
TDS640A Power supply fail and warning https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/tds640a-power-supply-fail-and-warning/

[kairotronix]

Thanks for the tool! I went ahead and dumped my 744A-v4.0e, attached are the eeprom and nvram if that's wanted since I noticed there was no firmware for NVRAM-TDS744A* in the interpretation of dump data.

If you have a GPIB adapter to your PC, could you have a go at extracting the firmware? I haven't got V4.0 in my library of firmwares yet.
The process is easy as shown in this thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/unified-tektool-released-!-(firmware-flash-tools-for-old-tds-series)/msg3758918/#msg3758918

Just go to step 9, unless you want to go ahead and update your firmware to 4.2.1e
https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/TDS744A

A bit of a necro-reply here, but I got a USB GPIB adapter. After some fiddling around and enabling legacy support for 488 devices I was able to dump the firmware.

Attached is the dump of my firmware in a zip with the NVSRAM save as well. SRAM save probs not needed for archive, though.

Edit: lol just checked the wiki, looks like someone beat me to the punch for the 4.0e fw.

Second edit: apparently at some point I upgraded the firmware version anyways. So I removed the attached file.

[TERRA Operative]

You can unlock any missing options via GPIB too. What options are shown on boot?