New firmware for scopes. Open or otherwise.

[Fungus]

Me, I'd start with something like this:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000861098295.html

Cheap, simple hardware. Existing firmware is very basic and lacking in many areas. Easy to improve upon.

I don't know. It's why I'm asking. 

I'm looking for the silver bullet. What is missing from the software? When you move around your scope or even from scope to scope, what is the biggest thing that futzes with your productivity?

The single biggest problem is that to be able to add anything at all you first have to reproduce all the existing functions.

There's a lot of them, they involve an awful lot of advanced math and signal theory. This isn't something you can knock together in a couple of weekends.

[2N3055]

I don't understand the hostility here though. ..........................

There is no hostility... Simple facts..
You are THE example of how it is waste of time.... After all the effort, you achieved nothing that would even resemble the scope.
That is not to tell that you don't have impressive technical skills, or that it is in any way some kind of failure on your side.
Quite the opposite, you have my respect for demonstrated skills.

It is just  a testament, that despite your high skill level, you would need 3,4,5 more years to achieve something that would be similar to what you started with, the DS1054Z... Because it is so hard...

And even if by some miracle you could get 10 open source people that share common vision and are extremely efficient in pumpin out code
and after few years of hard work, they create new scope app that transforms lowly DS1054Z into mini LeCroy, with advanced math and histograming, Rigol might (or any other manufacturer you chose to build upon) can simply discontinue it.... And all the work is without future..

There is a huge amount of confusion between making open source oscilloscope and using one. If you want to make one for the sake of learning how scopes are made, go for it.  But most of people talking about it are people who have limited knowledge and money, hoping that they could buy cheap scope and magically transform it something more powerful if only someone would write open source software for it...

That is just waste of time.... Because it's not realistic, as evidenced by many examples so far...

[Rerouter]

Take for instance a siglent, the firmware has been offloaded, and I've even patched some SCPI stuff on occasion, its just linux with some locked file system areas,

To a more experienced firmware guy, it would not be anything left field to start replacing chunks of that code base to open up, overall the total complexity of the program is not high, its the FPGA stuff that you would not want to poke at, but the UI and linux side, go ahead, Its not particularly complex, its not obfuscated, and they where really helpful with there naming scemes.

This is how I would approach it to add new functionality / decoders, the decoding seems to run on the linux side, but was a little beyond my experience to reverse out.

[2N3055]

I'm glad that you can explain that it is hard instead of just saying it's impossible.

I never said it was impossible at any cost, just that it is impossible for some code jockey that have no clue what  is really needed.
Whatever you do, it is going to be much more expensive than just buying scope that is ready made and works well for your use.

My main point was that it was WASTE OF time, including explaining it again. It was done in detail before and I just summarized it for you. If you don't trust me, fine. Go verify. Waste your time, not  mine...

[Rerouter]

Ed, Here is the main system app for the siglent, 99% of the UI stuff, decoding, etc all happen in this process, have a play, see if you like what you see, and from there see if its something you want to go through

I should add parts of the app literally run hard coded SCPI scripts, so adding stuff does not need much rewriting, it would involve working out where to hook for say displaying the data however.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Ed, Here is the main system app for the siglent, 99% of the UI stuff, decoding, etc all happen in this process, have a play, see if you like what you see, and from there see if its something you want to go through

I should add parts of the app literally run hard coded SCPI scripts, so adding stuff does not need much rewriting, it would involve working out where to hook for say displaying the data however.

Thanks. That will be interesting to have a look at. 

Little use to me though since I can't even be bothered to change the blinking flouro above me let alone hack someone's scope.

Seems hacking the rigol is a no-go. A kid expressed a bit of interest and I thought I'd ask some the curmudgeonly experts on here what the chance is. And boy, did I get told. 

If it comes up again I might spring for a cheap siglent.

[tunk]

There's been some work on an alternative firmware for the Fnirsi 5012H.
Maybe that could be used as a starting point?
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/reverse-engineering-fnirsi-5012h/

[rhb]

I was actively working on doing just  this using an Instek GDS-2072E as the base HW when I destroyed the HW in an accident.  Much of what needed to be done  on the FW side had already been worked out.  IIRC the only remaining issue was generating the correct checksum for a FW update file. Once that was worked out one would be able to login and develop new FW on the DSO using the Zynq ARM cores.

I got the GDS-2027E for very cheap from Amazon by luck.  I've not felt inclined to pay full price for a replacement and another project appeared.

So since then I have focused all my attention on the AFE design and DSP.  In particular, for the last week I have been working on how to create the correct minimum phase interpolation operator so that there is no precursor artifact as is commonly seen with the sinc(t) zero phase interpolators.  I finally have that sorted and will be posting an explanation shortly.

Have Fun!
Reg

[2N3055]

.. A kid expressed a bit of interest and I thought I'd ask some the curmudgeonly experts on here what the chance is. And boy, did I get told. 
.

Sorry for grumpiness... Not the intention, just had enough of repeating for my own children, I guess i ran out of it.... :-)

Point being, simply, 1 year of minimum wage buys more scope than crappy scope + 1 year of coding, even if you know what you're doing.
Simply wanted to stop you from going down that rabbit hole. Energy can be spent better by getting functional instrument and than doing fun projects, for all age brackets.. Of course if making a scope is what tickles your fancy, then, by all means, you should do exactly that... But in that case it's the journey that counts, not destination..

And quite frankly, for a beginner, even DS1054Z is amazing. It is infinitely better from what generation that sent human race to the space had as kids. I still remember the day when at age of 14 I was allowed to use 20 MHz analog Tek for the first time... And the glory of Lissajous curves...
And I was privileged to have limited access to it then.

Whining about how you don't like font on scope and how it is crap because you don't like the look if it just bothers me...
Stop whining, be happy you have it and start making projects with it. That is what counts..

[Rerouter]

I should say I was kind of playing it fast and loose, just renaming and replacing the system app via telnet. the firmware packaging might care, but it does not care about a checksum when it runs.

[tggzzz]

I had a chat today with a code rat that flashes consumer hardware for poops and giggles. And for beer if a willing customer is willing. 

Turns out many of these cheap DSOs are prime for some full-tilt firmware tweaks like the common router or even the android phones.

What I am interested to know is the implication of any major firmware tweaks.

We are talking stepping away from the manufactures' code in the way that you can flash a router with dd-wrt or tomato.

My questions.

Would you use it?
What features would you like to see?
1054z looks like the perfect initial target.

Bottom line, I am trying to gauge the investment value of this idea.

Your research should include "Red Pitaya".

[tmbinc]

There is no hostility... Simple facts..
You are THE example of how it is waste of time.... After all the effort, you achieved nothing that would even resemble the scope.
That is not to tell that you don't have impressive technical skills, or that it is in any way some kind of failure on your side.
Quite the opposite, you have my respect for demonstrated skills.
It is just  a testament, that despite your high skill level, you would need 3,4,5 more years to achieve something that would be similar to what you started with, the DS1054Z... Because it is so hard...

[...]

That is just waste of time.... Because it's not realistic, as evidenced by many examples so far...

I don't necessarily disagree with you. However, I've seen projects start like that (for example d-Box 2 linux), and they turned out to be really good. For d-box 2, a group of enthusiasts started to take apart a satellite receiver that was "cheaply available" (for some definition of cheap), removed all software other than the bootloader, and proceeded to build all software from scratch. It took over a year or so until you could watch TV on the thing again. It took multiple years to have a UI that was worth the name "_User_ Interface". Said UI (or derivatives of it) has been the "industry standard" (in a certain - but really relevant subset - of the market, i.e. that part of the market where you could have a decent profit margin). Dozens of companies eventually built commercial hardware (some of them clones, but most of them own developments with significant improvements) that was powered by this ecosystem. It didn't come without drama of course, and due to satellite TV losing versus online streaming, it's not highly relevant anymore, but I consider it a 15y+ success story.

Some projects take their time and need the right alignment of stars to happen and to properly scale. We're taking open-source projects for granted that were seen as "impossible", "too complex", "not viable" for years. Just take a look at what happens with open-source FPGA toolchains right now. And at the same time we're seeing many projects failing for exactly the reasons you've mentioned. But even "Linux Desktop" isn't the counter-example anymore that it used to be...

[Fungus]

I was actively working on doing just  this using an Instek GDS-2072E

I was just about to mention the Insteks. They allow "apps" to run on them to expand their functions.

[rhb]

They are written in Lua.  @nctnico and I were beating on it until I killed my test bed :-(

The reason for wanting to generate the checksum correctly was so that one could reopen a locked down scope.  Good Will turned off the telnet port.  So the idea was to be able to take the current FW update, unpack it, modify the startup scripts and repack it.

Bothe the Instek and Siglent scopes are Zynq based.  So one should be able to support a common code base on both with some conditionals for model variations.

Have fun!
Reg

[2N3055]

There is no hostility... Simple facts..
You are THE example of how it is waste of time.... After all the effort, you achieved nothing that would even resemble the scope.
That is not to tell that you don't have impressive technical skills, or that it is in any way some kind of failure on your side.
Quite the opposite, you have my respect for demonstrated skills.
It is just  a testament, that despite your high skill level, you would need 3,4,5 more years to achieve something that would be similar to what you started with, the DS1054Z... Because it is so hard...

[...]

That is just waste of time.... Because it's not realistic, as evidenced by many examples so far...

I don't necessarily disagree with you. However, I've seen projects start like that (for example d-Box 2 linux), and they turned out to be really good. For d-box 2, a group of enthusiasts started to take apart a satellite receiver that was "cheaply available" (for some definition of cheap), removed all software other than the bootloader, and proceeded to build all software from scratch. It took over a year or so until you could watch TV on the thing again. It took multiple years to have a UI that was worth the name "_User_ Interface". Said UI (or derivatives of it) has been the "industry standard" (in a certain - but really relevant subset - of the market, i.e. that part of the market where you could have a decent profit margin). Dozens of companies eventually built commercial hardware (some of them clones, but most of them own developments with significant improvements) that was powered by this ecosystem. It didn't come without drama of course, and due to satellite TV losing versus online streaming, it's not highly relevant anymore, but I consider it a 15y+ success story.

Some projects take their time and need the right alignment of stars to happen and to properly scale. We're taking open-source projects for granted that were seen as "impossible", "too complex", "not viable" for years. Just take a look at what happens with open-source FPGA toolchains right now. And at the same time we're seeing many projects failing for exactly the reasons you've mentioned. But even "Linux Desktop" isn't the counter-example anymore that it used to be...

Thank you for response. I must distress that I don't "root" against it.  Quite the opposite, I'm saddened that Open Source anything is not more successful.. Those ideas were conceived by my generation, many moons ago, and I still remember the promise it held...
Some things happened, but frankly, compared to expectations back then, not much. We really thought it will change the world. It didn't, but it did make a world a slightly better place...  Still a good thing...

Now a not why I think this way specifically about scopes. Scopes are highly custom, proprietary and highly non standardized platforms.
If some manufacturer would really make a scope and make it Open platform, without royalties, and fully documented, that would stand a chance of maybe be a successful Open Source scope.

It was much easier making operating system for highly standardized and very inexpensive PC platform, because, as the time passed by, brand new PC still had to be backwards compatible and had to run 7 years old code perfectly.
That was very important factor that gave Linux community 25 years of continuity to develop evolutionary, as code and as a community. Same goes for other PC targeted software, to some extent.

Scopes are more like big bang event, there is hectic hardware /software effort at one very concentrated and short  time period, and then some period of debug, then team dilution and just long term support for minor bugs.
All new development happens on next model cycle...

Fact that many of these scopes run ARM/linux is not important. That doesn't make it standardized platform. On a scope platform is the data acquisition engine and connected parts, and different manufacturers make it a point to be as different as possible. So every effort will probably be isolated for specific manufacturers model and will have very limited reuse for something else.

All of that makes it very much harder than PC based software.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I had a chat today with a code rat that flashes consumer hardware for poops and giggles. And for beer if a willing customer is willing. 

Turns out many of these cheap DSOs are prime for some full-tilt firmware tweaks like the common router or even the android phones.

What I am interested to know is the implication of any major firmware tweaks.

We are talking stepping away from the manufactures' code in the way that you can flash a router with dd-wrt or tomato.

My questions.

Would you use it?
What features would you like to see?
1054z looks like the perfect initial target.

Bottom line, I am trying to gauge the investment value of this idea.

Your research should include "Red Pitaya".

I forgot about that thing. Looked it up. Software is open, but hardware is not. It would be a bit of a worry if you're heavy-handed on the inputs.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Sorry for grumpiness... Not the intention, just had enough of repeating for my own children, I guess i ran out of it.... :-)

No problem. Takes a lot more lively conversation to upset this little **** duck.

When I get frustrated, I find something laying around the house and take my frustrations out on it. Like the wife.

[rhb]

Actually, Linux was very quickly ported to the DEC Alpha and IBM Power systems by Linus long before most people had even heard of Linux.  And it now runs on a huge range of stuff as does *BSD.

So the argument about standardized platform is specious.  DSOs are different, but rather less different than x86, Alpha, Power, ARM, etc.

Reg

[Ed.Kloonk]

Actually, Linux was very quickly ported to the DEC Alpha and IBM Power systems by Linus long before most people had even heard of Linux.  And it now runs on a huge range of stuff as does *BSD.

I suppose anything that didn't have that stupid byte order would be refreshing to hack on.

So the argument about standardized platform is specious.  DSOs are different, but rather less different than x86, Alpha, Power, ARM, etc.

Reg

Someone I know hacked a GoPro. Not to add or unlock any features, no just to have the thing display his ugly face when it booted.

[2N3055]

Actually, Linux was very quickly ported to the DEC Alpha and IBM Power systems by Linus long before most people had even heard of Linux.  And it now runs on a huge range of stuff as does *BSD.

So the argument about standardized platform is specious.  DSOs are different, but rather less different than x86, Alpha, Power, ARM, etc.

Reg

You have propensity to take theoretical concept and present it as a fact that is easy to accomplish. Like it doesn't take additional work.

OS is useless without applications. Linux was obscure little toy, until it took off on x86 as application support grew.
You need to recompile every single piece of crap on every platform. Including applications..
So when Linux core was ported to DEC Alpha, that was initially more development system than OS usable by end users.

And scopes are vastly more different than computers that are nowadays wery architecturally similar. Unlike LeCroy scopes and Keysight Infiniivision for instance...

[eutectique]

What is missing from the software?

I am missing the ability to trigger on CAN FD frame with ID 0x18FDxx32 and byte 59 containing the pattern x11x111x. Two beers are on me, trappist or otherwise.

[marcus h]

I - as an electronics novice/hobbyist & owner of a 1054Z - have read the entire thread and I agree that the functionality is plenty enough for me.

However, if I could wish for something I'd like to have custom color settings for the four channels -> *especially* to change the dark blue color of channel 4.

I've searched the forum but haven't seen anything like this. Is there already a hack for this or would it indeed be something new?

[Fungus]

I've searched the forum but haven't seen anything like this. Is there already a hack for this or would it indeed be something new?

That wouldn't need a firmware rewrite, just a hack.

There's a Rigol hacking thread somewhere. All you need to do is search for 0x00ff0000 (or is it 0x000000ff) and replace it with something and see if you found the right one. If not, try the next one.

(maybe  )

It's not actually "dark blue", it's just "blue". It looks dim compared to cyan, magenta and yellow (the other channels) because the human eye isn't very sensitive to blue and the other colors have two colors enabled, not just one.

[rhb]

OS is useless without applications. Linux was obscure little toy, until it took off on x86 as application support grew.
You need to recompile every single piece of crap on every platform. Including applications..
So when Linux core was ported to DEC Alpha, that was initially more development system than OS usable by end users.

And scopes are vastly more different than computers that are nowadays wery architecturally similar. Unlike LeCroy scopes and Keysight Infiniivision for instance...

There is this minor detail you have overlooked. There were all the Minix utilities and a lot of Gnu utilities already available in source format as well as a pretty staggering amount of other stuff available as source.  Of course, you did have to know how to edit Makefiles and resolve library dependencies, *nix version quirks and such.

I missed the Linux announcement on comp.os.minix because I got laid off and lost Usenet access.  No matter.  I'd bought a Sun 3/60 and spent days compiling the Gnu utilities and a lot of other stuff like Octave and gnuplot.  So there is nothing theoretical about it.  On my first contract job I maintained a huge suite of Gnu and other utilities on 6 different platforms, SunOS, IRIX, CLIX, AIX, Ultrix and HP-UX which were NFS automounted everywhere.  This was just a Swiss Navy project I started on my own.  I got a nice email from an admin about a year after I left.

He had to do this massive update of admin tables across all these different systems and was dreading the task.  "But Reg had been here and expect was everywhere".  Instead of spending half the night he was done in an hour or less.

I wore out that T shirt 20 years ago.  I was the guy everyone went to when their code would not compile on their new computer during the workstation wars of the late 80's and early 90's.

Have Fun!
Reg

[JohanH]

Creating your own oscilloscope software is definitely not on the table, unless scopes become more standardized like the PC platform. Booting linux on the scope achieves nothing. It is just another embedded device doing nothing. The big work is creating drivers to the FPGA and other interfaces, signal processing etc. You need a team of specialized developers and several years.

Here is a series of blog posts of reverse engineering an Owon oscilloscope:

http://blog.weinigel.se/2016/05/01/sds7102-hacking.html

There are some surprises, for instance they are using the second DDR memory bus as an interface between the SoC and the FPGA.

Here is the source he created:

https://github.com/wingel/sds7102

I didn't count the blog posts, but it looks like he put an enormous amount of work in it. It is still not usable other than for academic interest.