Picoscope- yay or nay?

[David Aurora]

I threw one of these in my element 14 order the other day as a bit of an experiment (long story short- I just bought a Tektronix 576 and it arrived with a smashed CRT, so I've been using various scopes to probe the CRT driver section and test the unit without the CRT. Then I saw that Picoscope lets you do custom probe scaling and has a 10x10 grid like the original CRT and figured this may be a decent temporary solution to get a roughly calibrated approximation of the 576 display)

And yeah, it's been a goddamn train wreck. I'm using an M1 MacBook Pro and it works fine on that side as far as hardware connection, but only with beta software. The catch of course is that it seems like ALL the Mac software they've ever released has been labelled beta, so I suspect there's no proper version coming. And the beta version doesn't do XY, amongst other quirks, so it's useless to me.

Fired up Parallels, no go there (from what I gather the issue is x86 emulation stuff so probably not Picos fault? I don't know, I use a Mac so I'm used to things just working without having to screw around under the hood).

Checked their forum and it's basically just tumbleweeds, lot's of similar questions but no answers.

So yeah, I'm just wondering if people are actually successfully using their stuff without having to write their own software, or if these boxes are more gimmicks for kids that enjoy writing code?

[Marco]

or if these boxes are more gimmicks for kids that enjoy writing code?

That's being a bit harsh on M1 Macbooks.

[moore]

We had a couple that worked fine at my last workplace, 10 years ago.  They are pretty good if you are going to transfer the waveforms anyway in my opinion, or if you have to do something with a laptop for whatever reason.  Software worked fine on PCs.  Macs are frankly always doomed and have been since about 1993 for interfacing to engineering type hardware.  They kept changing the processor, buses interface and OS abstraction layers and all the hardware companies (like NI - LabVIEW started on Mac for pete's sake) just gave up.   Wasn't worth it for 10% market share.  I can get a PC today with RS232 still, piece of cake....

Anyway, point being a new Pico plugged into a Windows laptop I'm sure would work fine out of the box.  We also traded emails with Pico's people and they were helpful, but took a couple of days typically (UK, so overnight from Americas/Asia at least).

[jasonRF]

I’ve used one under Windows for a half dozen years, with several different computers, and the picoscope 6 software works great.  The new picoscope 7 software that is under development works okay too, but I don’t like it as much so haven’t used much at all.

Perhaps they don’t support other operating systems very well?

[David Aurora]

Set it up on another machine (an Intel Mac Mini running boot camp).

Can confirm this thing is hot garbage. Ugh. The clunkiness is straight out of 2003.

Like, OK, sure, you could probably probe an Arduino blink program and see a pulse, cool. Dunno what else you could do with this without wanting to stab someone though.

[boB]

We have something like 3 of the 8 channel 20 MHz Picoscopes for analyzing power electronics.

Not the fastest scopes but we just needed at least 8 channels and could often use more than 8.

Couldn't find anything this inexpensive that did that number of channels.  They work for most things especially where we need to look at lots of gate drive signals etc.  Also has communications decoding that comes in handy some times along with the switching signal displays.

For higher speed, we use regular 4 channel scopes.

Yes, there are features that are desired like being able to annotate the scope screen and name the channels.  If you are color blind, you probably would not want to use one of these scopes.

Just tried to buy another one but looks like Pico Tech is out of parts.

boB

[David Aurora]

...

Yes, there are features that are desired like being able to annotate the scope screen and name the channels.  If you are color blind, you probably would not want to use one of these scopes.

...

"Picoscope- all the hassle of computers, with none of the convenience! Get yours today!"

[edtyler]

I've had a MSO 3206 since 2013. It works quite well and has decent bandwidth plus the ability to capture *very* long record lengths on the digital channels.

At the time 200 MHz, 512 Million sample memory, 1Gs/S sampling, 2 analog, 16 digital channels and an ARB waveform generator was a good deal. It decoded lots of bus protocols.

I still have it and use it occasionally because it is far less bulky than a dedicated scope. I wanted to run it on Linux, and it kind of worked, but the latest code and features were always Windows based (and I hate using Windows). The Linux software worked well enough for what I needed, most of the time.

Overall, I'd recommend their products. As with every tool, you need to understand what you want. This is one of the better PC based scopes. I have other scopes, including a 1GHz Tek 7014 and a 500 Mhz digital scope. Each has a use that it excels at and each has disadvantages in some situations.

[David Aurora]

...

As with every tool, you need to understand what you want.

...

Literally all I wanted to do was plug it into a modern computer and look at signals in XY mode, I didn't think that was a huge ask 

[_Wim_]

I have been using Pico-scopes since more than 20 years (started with an ADC-212 with a parallel port interface). In those early days they were very powerful for their cost and had lots of features vs regular scopes in similar price categories.

Nowadays I do find their software more & more lacking features. If only they had spent there effort on Pico7 to develop new features on Pico6... In my opinion their software should be more like the "Waveforms" software from analog discovery, a bit like a swiss army knive where you know their must be a feature for it, you just have to find it.

Picoscopes are for sure not bad (still like em), but regular scopes of similar price have catched up (and exceeded) in features and don't need a laptop. Like said above, there good if you need a compact portable system or do a lot of postprocessing on the PC. They also have niche products like very high resolution scopes or fully differential inputs scopes which are much harder to find in the regular form factor. Upgrades in software are free, so hopefully when they are finished with porting to Pico7, new features will start to reappear again.

[RoGeorge]

I don't know about Picoscope, but if the beta software for Mac is the only problem, then install Ubuntu, or openSUSE, or maybe Windows, whatever you prefer, as a virtual machine (created with VirtualBox, or maybe with WMware, both free and both doing the same thing, don't know which one would be better for Mac).

Then, install and run the Picoscope software inside the Linux virtual machine you have just created.

Another advantage for using a virtual machine is that you can isolate the VM from Internet, so no risk for broken software caused by unwanted updates.  Virtual machines can also be moved or duplicated on a different computer even with a different OS, offers snapshots for the case you want to mess with the VM OS, etc.

VMs are the best choice for something that is needed to just run, today or in 10 years from now, without messing with updates and without messing your current Mac install.  Unless you run them, VMs are just files.  When you run a VM, you have simultaneously your Mac and the VM running in the same time, as you would have two totally different PCs connected at the same display.  And you can make as many VMs as you need.

You can try virtual machine before ordering the hardware, and see if it feats your needs.

Later Edit:
I was told neither VMware or VirtualBox work on M1 Mac.

[adam4521]

I recently bought a used picoscope, mainly for extra protocol decoding and portability, and screen share scenarios, but also because the one on sale happened to be an MSO version. I think the v7 software when it is finished will work better across platform — I think they’ve built using .net, the Linux package downloaded some mono libraries and seems to work the same as the windows version. I find it comparatively clunky on the regular oscilloscope controls, but the ability to drag around the trigger position on the screen and zoom with the mouse wheel or drawing a box is actually quite nice. Also found nice options to choose linear or log axes on the FFT, and ‘window’ the protocol decode with the cursors (or rulers as picoscope call it). I discovered it was convenient to load up a test serial stream into the AWG, just by pasting 1s and 0s into the editor that I copied from the output of a python generator program.

In all, I agree there are pros and cons, not best for general purpose scope but ‘it can do stuff’.

Picoscope V7 can’t do XY mode yet. But for this to work at all well I imagine the scope has to be in ‘streaming mode’, which means comparatively slow sample speeds (mine maxes at 8.9MSa/s — edit, that’s for one channel, it will be slower for two). Can it keep the display going while streaming? Sounds difficult, maybe that’s why it’s not working yet!

Clever idea to use XY oscilloscope to overcome the broken display. But won’t you need to use an oscilloscope with ‘Z’ axis for blanking? Might be job for analogue oscilloscope.

[Fungus]

I find it comparatively clunky on the regular oscilloscope controls, but the ability to drag around the trigger position on the screen and zoom with the mouse wheel is actually quite nice.

Somebody needs to try a Micsig. 

[2N3055]

Yeah, Picos are controversial theme...

Instead of replying to individual things said, just a few answers in no particular order ..

1. Version 7 is on the way... It is missing X-Y mode and fast persistence mode at this time. Most of the other stuff is already at the level of old v6 software..
2. Many manufacturers simply ignore Mac, and some ignore Linux... It is not a political statement but a fact that those users are not the majority of buyers. Up until some years ago, there was no simple way to make cross compiled app with high performance graphics that is not a game.... That being said, Pico underwent huge project to rewrite their software from the scratch to make it that they have functional software for all 3 platforms, that will have full functional parity on all of them..
3. None of the digital scopes I ever tried had X-Y mode that was as fast and could completely replace CRT scope X-Y mode. For curve tracer stuff they are excellent, but for watching live video not really.. I also guess not many people use it for that nowadays..
4. Picoscopes are used a lot in an industry with custom code. Their API is well defined and well documented. Throughputs are orders of magnitude faster than usual SCPI transfers on any other standalone scope. 
5. They support 30+ protocols decoders at this time..
6. Products are good quality and software upgrades are free.. I still have 12 bit parallel port ADC212. It still works and it was supported by software for 15+years. When I bought it there was not protocols decoding any many other functions..
With years it gained all these functions it didn't have at the purchase time...
7. Like somebody said, if you need 8 ch scope for power applications, there is nothing out there with as good a price..
etc..

Picoscopes are specific product. Some of them are not cheapest and some of them are very good price for the specific functionality. They are good, quality, product with great support. But they might not be what some people need..

[voltsandjolts]

Portable USB scopes are the marmite (love it or hate it) of test equipment, and the picoscopes are the best of the bunch IMO.
I have the variable resolution 5000 series mso and find it to be a very versatile tool. I only use it on Windows.

I've tried V7 but went back to V6. The V7 interface is very washed out, like everything is baby blue or white. Looks like their programmer did the UI and I think it would benefit from a pro UI designer.

[jasonRF]

Set it up on another machine (an Intel Mac Mini running boot camp).

Can confirm this thing is hot garbage. Ugh. The clunkiness is straight out of 2003.

Like, OK, sure, you could probably probe an Arduino blink program and see a pulse, cool. Dunno what else you could do with this without wanting to stab someone though.

It seems that a picoscope is the wrong tool for you. 

Are you able to return it?   If not, it shouldn’t be too hard to sell it and recoup most of your investment.

Jason

[bdunham7]

Literally all I wanted to do was plug it into a modern computer and look at signals in XY mode, I didn't think that was a huge ask 

"I've never done it before and I don't know how, but it should be easy, right?" 

Having done this (extracted and viewed vector video signals from devices with broken CRTs) I can tell you that it is never quite that simple and the results are 'good enough' at best.

Doing it with an analog CRT scope, you need X,Y and Z inputs, otherwise you'll have garbage all over the screen.  For whatever reason, the best instrument I've found for this is a Tek 22xx series scope, using a second scope with an output to monitor and scale the Z input.

Doing it with any DSO is an order of magnitude harder.  First off, if you don't have a Z input, your results will be terrible at best--and Z inputs are not common.  And then when you have mixed vector displays--traces combined with character generators, getting the optimum record length is, well, impossible.  Too long and your display update rate is useless.  Too short and you lose part of the display during the blind time.  And as far as I've ever been able to determine, there's no sweet spot in the middle.  Ugh.

Don't blame your Picoscope.  There's lots of happy Picoscope users out there, but I guarantee you they aren't doing vector graphics on an M1 MacBook.  A netbook with Wndows XP SP3 is more like it.

[boyddotee]

Have to say Yay, they have saved my toot on many occasions out in the field. Wouldn't use them in the office so to speak as the software has always been a bit jank. Mac support is another matter I've no familiarity with, but up win10 it's worked for me.

[BeBuLamar]

I only have the cheapest one they made a 2 channel 10Mhz one. The software works well enough. One thing I don't like about it is that I can set the 0 off center on the vertical axis.

[pigrew]

The PicoScope 6 GUI works pretty well for me on Windows, so yay. That said, their software API  (PicoSDK) feels like it's straight out of the 90s and was a fair pain to use.

The scopes are great for portable debugging (e.g., automotive tech), and to some extent automated testing. However, I still like the physical knobs of a bench oscilloscope.

The only other comparable product I've used is the Digilent Analog Discovery 2. The PicoScope has better hardware, but the AD2's GUI is more comfortable to use.

[David Aurora]

I don't know about Picoscope, but if the beta software for Mac is the only problem, then install Ubuntu, or openSUSE, or maybe Windows, whatever you prefer, as a virtual machine (created with VirtualBox, or maybe with WMware, both free and both doing the same thing, don't know which one would be better for Mac).

Then, install and run the Picoscope software inside the Linux virtual machine you have just created.

Another advantage for using a virtual machine is that you can isolate the VM from Internet, so no risk for broken software caused by unwanted updates.  Virtual machines can also be moved or duplicated on a different computer even with a different OS, offers snapshots for the case you want to mess with the VM OS, etc.

VMs are the best choice for something that is needed to just run, today or in 10 years from now, without messing with updates and without messing your current Mac install.  Unless you run them, VMs are just files.  When you run a VM, you have simultaneously your Mac and the VM running in the same time, as you would have two totally different PCs connected at the same display.  And you can make as many VMs as you need.

You can try virtual machine before ordering the hardware, and see if it feats your needs.

I literally said in my post that I did that, it doesn't work in Windows on an M1 Mac, full stop 

[David Aurora]

I recently bought a used picoscope, mainly for extra protocol decoding and portability, and screen share scenarios, but also because the one on sale happened to be an MSO version. I think the v7 software when it is finished will work better across platform — I think they’ve built using .net, the Linux package downloaded some mono libraries and seems to work the same as the windows version. I find it comparatively clunky on the regular oscilloscope controls, but the ability to drag around the trigger position on the screen and zoom with the mouse wheel or drawing a box is actually quite nice. Also found nice options to choose linear or log axes on the FFT, and ‘window’ the protocol decode with the cursors (or rulers as picoscope call it). I discovered it was convenient to load up a test serial stream into the AWG, just by pasting 1s and 0s into the editor that I copied from the output of a python generator program.

In all, I agree there are pros and cons, not best for general purpose scope but ‘it can do stuff’.

Picoscope V7 can’t do XY mode yet. But for this to work at all well I imagine the scope has to be in ‘streaming mode’, which means comparatively slow sample speeds (mine maxes at 8.9MSa/s — edit, that’s for one channel, it will be slower for two). Can it keep the display going while streaming? Sounds difficult, maybe that’s why it’s not working yet!

Clever idea to use XY oscilloscope to overcome the broken display. But won’t you need to use an oscilloscope with ‘Z’ axis for blanking? Might be job for analogue oscilloscope.

Nope. I've successfully gotten perfectly clear traces off a few analog scopes here as well as my ancient Siglent DSO. I figured if the Siglent can do it the Pico should be able to (and it probably can, it just doesn't have a working version for current Macs)

[David Aurora]

Set it up on another machine (an Intel Mac Mini running boot camp).

Can confirm this thing is hot garbage. Ugh. The clunkiness is straight out of 2003.

Like, OK, sure, you could probably probe an Arduino blink program and see a pulse, cool. Dunno what else you could do with this without wanting to stab someone though.

It seems that a picoscope is the wrong tool for you. 

Are you able to return it?   If not, it shouldn’t be too hard to sell it and recoup most of your investment.

Jason

Yeah, to their credit I've been speaking to them via email and apparently they have a solid returns policy. And given a stable release of 7 is 6+ months away, it feels kind of pointless keeping it sitting in the box that long.

[David Aurora]

Literally all I wanted to do was plug it into a modern computer and look at signals in XY mode, I didn't think that was a huge ask 

"I've never done it before and I don't know how, but it should be easy, right?" 

Having done this (extracted and viewed vector video signals from devices with broken CRTs) I can tell you that it is never quite that simple and the results are 'good enough' at best.

Doing it with an analog CRT scope, you need X,Y and Z inputs, otherwise you'll have garbage all over the screen.  For whatever reason, the best instrument I've found for this is a Tek 22xx series scope, using a second scope with an output to monitor and scale the Z input.

Doing it with any DSO is an order of magnitude harder.  First off, if you don't have a Z input, your results will be terrible at best--and Z inputs are not common.  And then when you have mixed vector displays--traces combined with character generators, getting the optimum record length is, well, impossible.  Too long and your display update rate is useless.  Too short and you lose part of the display during the blind time.  And as far as I've ever been able to determine, there's no sweet spot in the middle.  Ugh.

Don't blame your Picoscope.  There's lots of happy Picoscope users out there, but I guarantee you they aren't doing vector graphics on an M1 MacBook.  A netbook with Wndows XP SP3 is more like it.

Nope, not even close buddy. Pulling clean traces off a curve tracer is a piece of cake, I do it all the time with a standalone curve tracer I already had as well as various octopus testers I've had/made over the years. The issue isn't that it isn't displaying correctly or something, the issue is that XY mode is greyed out on Macs, and the Windows version doesn't work on modern Macs in apps like Parallels. None of this stuff is mentioned on their compatibility page, so unless you do a deep dive before purchase you find out the hard way.

[David Aurora]

The PicoScope 6 GUI works pretty well for me on Windows, so yay. That said, their software API  (PicoSDK) feels like it's straight out of the 90s and was a fair pain to use.

The scopes are great for portable debugging (e.g., automotive tech), and to some extent automated testing. However, I still like the physical knobs of a bench oscilloscope.

The only other comparable product I've used is the Digilent Analog Discovery 2. The PicoScope has better hardware, but the AD2's GUI is more comfortable to use.

Yeah I'm real tempted to try the AD2 instead, it seems a whole lot more professional overall

[Shock]

Really what you need is a working CRT. In low light conditions the Tek 576 takes amazing photos (better than this). The Picoscope is just adding more complexity, and I feel you're making compromises in the wrong direction.



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[David Aurora]

Really what you need is a working CRT. In low light conditions the Tek 576 takes amazing photos (better than this). The Picoscope is just adding more complexity, and I feel you're making compromises in the wrong direction.



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No shit 

I'm not doing this because I'd prefer it to having a working 576, I'm doing this because right now I have one with no display and fuck all chance of finding a replacement any time soon. That said, I'd like to be able to digitise the plots, but right now the priority is just to be able to use the curve tracer at all. The Picoscope appeared to fit the bill in that it's small, cheap, has a 10x10 grid and lets you create custom probes which would help with scaling. It should have been a no brainer.

[bdunham7]

Nope, not even close buddy. Pulling clean traces off a curve tracer is a piece of cake, I do it all the time with a standalone curve tracer I already had as well as various octopus testers I've had/made over the years. The issue isn't that it isn't displaying correctly or something, the issue is that XY mode is greyed out on Macs, and the Windows version doesn't work on modern Macs in apps like Parallels. None of this stuff is mentioned on their compatibility page, so unless you do a deep dive before purchase you find out the hard way.

OK, I've not tried this with that specific device.  If the Tek 576 doesn't use blanking or for whatever reason the capture works well without any Z-axis input and the record length and speed is manageable--as in it works with most other DSOs--then your Picoscope may do just fine with an actual Windows PC.  Perhaps it is sloppy or worse of them to claim Mac compatibility, but they're probably still trying to recover from the Motorola to Intel switch.  But you don't need a 'deep dive' to realize this is a possibility--there's a LOT of stuff out there the just doesn't work with Macs.  If you absolutely insist on not polluting your existence with the presence of Wintel, then the Analog Discovery might be for you--it does work on Mac, at least on a MacBook Pro old enough to have actual Type A USB ports--so it should at least work on your Mac Mini.  Not sure about M1 yet, probably still emulation.

It should have been a no brainer.

Well, IMO, it is! 

[RoGeorge]

I literally said in my post that I did that, it doesn't work in Windows on an M1 Mac, full stop 

You literally said?  Where?
So which one you did you tried, VirtualBox or VMware?  And what exactly didn't work?

[tv84]

You literally said?  Where?

Here: 

So which one you did you tried, VirtualBox or VMware?  And what exactly didn't work?

Probably he also literally said that VirtualBox and/or VMware don't work in a M1 Mac.

[RoGeorge]

OK, my bad for recommending something not possible, sorry.

Later Edit:
Googled out of curiosity (I don't have an M1 Mac) and found this:
https://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2021/09/fusion-for-m1-public-tech-preview-now-available.html
Looks like it might be a chance for VMware to run, though not clear to me if it does x86 emulation or not.  Anyway, says free to try/use until the end of 2022.

[2N3055]

The PicoScope 6 GUI works pretty well for me on Windows, so yay. That said, their software API  (PicoSDK) feels like it's straight out of the 90s and was a fair pain to use.

The scopes are great for portable debugging (e.g., automotive tech), and to some extent automated testing. However, I still like the physical knobs of a bench oscilloscope.

The only other comparable product I've used is the Digilent Analog Discovery 2. The PicoScope has better hardware, but the AD2's GUI is more comfortable to use.

Yeah I'm real tempted to try the AD2 instead, it seems a whole lot more professional overall

AD2 has more features built in software... But it is not more professional.
Picoscopes have proper scope front ends and construction and are used professionally by many thousands of professionals in industry.

AD2 is educational tool, it doesn't even have BNC connectors built in, you have to buy a breakout board.
Also it has only 2 input attenuation ranges. It has 16K SMps buffer which is very small that limits what it can do.
OTOH, it has 14 bit ADC/DACs and nice integration between the tools.
It is very useful tool nevertheless, if limitations don't bother you.
Fact that signals are connected to pin row connector might even be advantage if you want to integrate it into some "contraption" where you need more permanent connection, can assure signal levels are in optimum range and such..

I own Digital Discovery and use it all the time when I need pattern generation and logic analyser capability at the same time, for instance.. Unique tool for that. From specs:
Algorithmic pattern generator (no buffers used)
Counter and custom bus outputs
ROM logic for implementing user-defined Boolean functions and State Machines
Cross-triggering between Logic Analyzer, Pattern Generator, or external trigger

But limited too. To interface it to anything other than 3.3V logic you need to make voltage translators for instance...  So useful but far from pro grade logic analyser/pattern gen with all kinds of interface options etc.

I would call Picoscope (both products and company) VERY professional. What they specify works as promised and better (longevity of support and products that last for decades). If you call them they WILL tell you up straight that MAC software is limited and that in order to use Pico you need to use Windows. You may not like it but they will tell you the truth. In 20 years of being their customer they never, ever, were anything but honest about what they products can and what they cannot do.
I call that professional above all.

[David Aurora]

Nope, not even close buddy. Pulling clean traces off a curve tracer is a piece of cake, I do it all the time with a standalone curve tracer I already had as well as various octopus testers I've had/made over the years. The issue isn't that it isn't displaying correctly or something, the issue is that XY mode is greyed out on Macs, and the Windows version doesn't work on modern Macs in apps like Parallels. None of this stuff is mentioned on their compatibility page, so unless you do a deep dive before purchase you find out the hard way.

OK, I've not tried this with that specific device.  If the Tek 576 doesn't use blanking or for whatever reason the capture works well without any Z-axis input and the record length and speed is manageable--as in it works with most other DSOs--then your Picoscope may do just fine with an actual Windows PC.  Perhaps it is sloppy or worse of them to claim Mac compatibility, but they're probably still trying to recover from the Motorola to Intel switch.  But you don't need a 'deep dive' to realize this is a possibility--there's a LOT of stuff out there the just doesn't work with Macs.  If you absolutely insist on not polluting your existence with the presence of Wintel, then the Analog Discovery might be for you--it does work on Mac, at least on a MacBook Pro old enough to have actual Type A USB ports--so it should at least work on your Mac Mini.  Not sure about M1 yet, probably still emulation.

It should have been a no brainer.

Well, IMO, it is! 

Huh? They haven't caught up with the switch that happened 15 years ago? Are you joking?

Yes, correct, there's a lot of stuff that doesn't work with Macs, you nailed it. Except for the fact that I bought it based on a claim that it works on Mac, hence the deep dive through their forum to find the zillions of complaints about bugs and compatibility issues. But sure, go off.

[bdunham7]

Huh? They haven't caught up with the switch that happened 15 years ago? Are you joking?

Sadly, I'm not.  Does their interface look like 2022 or 2002?  I don't know whether their software actually did work with PowerPC Macs, but if it did, throwing away and redoing the whole package for a very small segment of their market probably wasn't a priority.  I recently sold my G4, which was still in demand just because there still is software out there that people want to run that didn't get redone (or redone properly) for the Intel Macs.

Yes, correct, there's a lot of stuff that doesn't work with Macs, you nailed it. Except for the fact that I bought it based on a claim that it works on Mac, hence the deep dive through their forum to find the zillions of complaints about bugs and compatibility issues. But sure, go off.

Well I really am trying to be helpful, not just grind your gears.  But I'm telling you what I think and that is that you need a Windows machine.  I've needed to maintain hardware and software compatibility with lots of things over the years and I've learned that the only truly reliable way to do that is to keep native machines around.  Virtual machines and cross-platform software are great when they work and are supported, but sometimes they just don't work properly, or if they do they require a lot of work to set up and then they are 'fragile', as in you can never update the software or the machine at all--the computer has to be dedicated and locked down.

So yeah, shame on Picoscope for their marketing wankers listing them as Mac compatible.  But you should know better than to believe them. 

You mentioned that it was easy to digitize the traces from a curve tracer--how were you doing that before?  Is that workable with the 576?  I saw this video on a method that looks quite useful, but there's not so much explanation as to exactly how and he has part of the screen blocked off so you can't see some information.

[David Aurora]

Update- sent the piece of shit back and got an Analog Discovery 2. Absolutely no comparison software wise, it works as expected first go. No weird hidden features or mislabelled functions etc, you can jump straight from a real workbench onto it without wanting to launch it into the sun. Having probes on an exposed breakout board kind of sucks, but with that said this probably won't get used as a plain oscilloscope often anyway so I can live with that.

[derree]

Update- sent the piece of shit back and got an Analog Discovery 2. Absolutely no comparison software wise, it works as expected first go. No weird hidden features or mislabelled functions etc, you can jump straight from a real workbench onto it without wanting to launch it into the sun. Having probes on an exposed breakout board kind of sucks, but with that said this probably won't get used as a plain oscilloscope often anyway so I can live with that.

Hi, I am using the AD2 regularly as a portable scope, and think about getting one of the community-designed cases printed out:

https://www.printables.com/model/104931-digilent-analog-discovery-2-bnc-adapter-case

The exposed bnc-board is not a sturdy construction, and an AD2 equipped with a proper case at least looks much more robust.

[David Aurora]

Update- sent the piece of shit back and got an Analog Discovery 2. Absolutely no comparison software wise, it works as expected first go. No weird hidden features or mislabelled functions etc, you can jump straight from a real workbench onto it without wanting to launch it into the sun. Having probes on an exposed breakout board kind of sucks, but with that said this probably won't get used as a plain oscilloscope often anyway so I can live with that.

Hi, I am using the AD2 regularly as a portable scope, and think about getting one of the community-designed cases printed out:

https://www.printables.com/model/104931-digilent-analog-discovery-2-bnc-adapter-case

The exposed bnc-board is not a sturdy construction, and an AD2 equipped with a proper case at least looks much more rubust.

These things are looking pretty good to me- http://softone.a.la9.jp/english/FrontBox/FrontBox1.htm

[derree]

Update- sent the piece of shit back and got an Analog Discovery 2. Absolutely no comparison software wise, it works as expected first go. No weird hidden features or mislabelled functions etc, you can jump straight from a real workbench onto it without wanting to launch it into the sun. Having probes on an exposed breakout board kind of sucks, but with that said this probably won't get used as a plain oscilloscope often anyway so I can live with that.

Hi, I am using the AD2 regularly as a portable scope, and think about getting one of the community-designed cases printed out:

https://www.printables.com/model/104931-digilent-analog-discovery-2-bnc-adapter-case

The exposed bnc-board is not a sturdy construction, and an AD2 equipped with a proper case at least looks much more rubust.

These things are looking pretty good to me- http://softone.a.la9.jp/english/FrontBox/FrontBox1.htm

Yes, this kit looks very good, and it is reasonably priced at 70 Euros without shipping. I will definetely consider this kit. Thank you very much! 

[jasonRF]

Hi, I am using the AD2 regularly as a portable scope, and think about getting one of the community-designed cases printed out:

https://www.printables.com/model/104931-digilent-analog-discovery-2-bnc-adapter-case

The exposed bnc-board is not a sturdy construction, and an AD2 equipped with a proper case at least looks much more robust.

That does look nice, but under the “performance” section at the bottom of the page they show that not all x10 probes can be properly compensated with the frontbox attached.  Whether that matters to someone of course depends on the probes they are using, what they are trying to measure and why. 

EDIT: I quoted the wrong link.  Oops!  The performance info is at

http://softone.a.la9.jp/english/FrontBox/FrontBox1.htm


Jason

[David Aurora]

Hi, I am using the AD2 regularly as a portable scope, and think about getting one of the community-designed cases printed out:

https://www.printables.com/model/104931-digilent-analog-discovery-2-bnc-adapter-case

The exposed bnc-board is not a sturdy construction, and an AD2 equipped with a proper case at least looks much more robust.

That does look nice, but under the “performance” section at the bottom of the page they show that not all x10 probes can be properly compensated with the frontbox attached.  Whether that matters to someone of course depends on the probes they are using, what they are trying to measure and why. 

EDIT: I quoted the wrong link.  Oops!  The performance info is at

http://softone.a.la9.jp/english/FrontBox/FrontBox1.htm


Jason

Good catch! Definitely something to keep in mind, I can't really imagine NOT attenuating going into a USB scope for the work I do

[JPortici]

 
I've been using a picoscope for years (at least six)
I am not using PICO 7 as when i tried the beta it looked to me a huge step backwards since 6 (Sure, some things were fixed but on the whole it was a pretty but useless interface. The TWO color schemes available were... oof)
I like the really complex math (though it doesn't like when your locale isn't UK English, making confusion with dot and comma, last i checked it WASN'T fixed in 7 beta) the fact that i can overlay traces over traces and have multiple views, tons of protocols and i could probably write my own decoder with the SDK, all things i can do on much much much much more expensive bench scopes.

Sure, what i miss from the bench scope is the wfm/s, sample memory and triggering from decoders but when i need i reach out to the bench scope.
Most of my work is in front of a PC, board i'm writing firmware for or debugging is in front of me or just on the side, picoscope is usually more convenient to use
My pico has been abused several times, i had to change the BNC and a couple of components but it was due to mechanical stress, i haven't managed to destroy the front end yet

[Lomax]

I know this is a pretty old thread, but want to add my $0.02 for the benefit of anyone considering a PicoScope. I've used a PicoScope 2206B MSO (2+16 50MHz, 500MS/s) since 2017, which I bought mainly for its portability. I build interactive exhibits for public exhibitions, and travel a lot between different museums, mostly by public transport and often by air, so size & weight are critical parameters. I also sideline in marine electronics and electrical installations, which again is usually done "on site". So it doesn't matter what fancy kit I have in my workshop, all that matters is what I have with me. I used to have an HP 54645D MSO in my workshop which I loved, but was forced to sell it (along with most of my other T&M gear) as I lost my income during the pandemic - but I kept the PicoScope. That it's a PC based scope is not much of an issue since I always have to bring my laptop (Thinkpad X230 i7 w. 16Gb RAM) anyway. I'm exclusively on Linux, so the fact that their software runs natively on Linux weighed heavily in favour of the PicoScope compared to the competition, though to be honest I find the performance to be better in a Windows virtual machine. I probably use the digital inputs more than the two analogue channels, though being able to look at signals in 12-bit resolution has been a real life saver more than once. The built in signal generator is also incredibly useful sometimes. Being able to record arbitrarily long captures is brilliant when working with software that interacts with the outside world - I often hook it up to the GPIO lines I'm using while I'm working on the software for more complicated exhibits and just let it run, which lets me go back and check timing and functionality without having to breadboard anything. Being able to capture serial comms and exporting it for processing and analysis has solved many tricky situations; I often use second-hand industrial gear in my exhibits for which documentation can be poor or non existent - reverse engineering becomes so much easier when you have a reliable way to capture and look at the actual data and signals. The same goes for marine electronics which often uses RS-232/422/485 or CAN-bus. The ability to work "floating" (w. laptop on battery) is great when you're worried about damaging voltages.

Pros:

• Portable
• Linux compatible
• 16 digital channels
• Signal generator
• Floating operation
• Data capture & decoding
• Arbitrary sample length
• Not made in China

Cons:

• Poor Linux performance
• Less responsive than traditional scope
• No warm fuzzy feeling
• Relatively expensive

[SiliconWizard]

As I get it, the OP's question is not with Picoscope gear per se - I think many of us can confirm that these work fine - but with Picoscope gear on MacOS. The OP may have wanted to add this in the thread title to avoid useless posts. I personally have no experience with Pico on MacOS, but have used their products on various Windows versions and Linux with little pain. I can second the performance issues on Linux though. Compared to Windows, on Linux their software has very high CPU usage.

As to their new v7 software, I have tried it a while ago, and I personally think the new UI is pure garbage.

[Lomax]

Ah

[JPortici]

As to their new v7 software, I have tried it a while ago, and I personally think the new UI is pure garbage.

complete and utter garbage.
It's no wonder they're still updating 6
and i think none of the bugs i submitted since the first betas were solved

[mendip_discovery]

I like pico as the temp logger just works.

I quite like the form factor of a 56k modem and it's very light, small and robust. Of the service engineers I talk to it is the one thing they all keep in the laptop bag as it saves them time when they are trouble shooting onsite with a customer looking about.

Going back to the issue the OP had, the Mac support is crap, but it is supported which is better than most.

[David Aurora]

As I get it, the OP's question is not with Picoscope gear per se - I think many of us can confirm that these work fine - but with Picoscope gear on MacOS. The OP may have wanted to add this in the thread title to avoid useless posts. I personally have no experience with Pico on MacOS, but have used their products on various Windows versions and Linux with little pain. I can second the performance issues on Linux though. Compared to Windows, on Linux their software has very high CPU usage.

As to their new v7 software, I have tried it a while ago, and I personally think the new UI is pure garbage.

Yes and no. The OS question was part of it, but it was what it said on the box- a yay or nay question about Picoscope. And after briefly owning one, it's a hard nay from me. OS issues aside (although they are important given that the sales pitch is that it's cross platform, it's not like I was trying to hack the damn thing to work on Mac), they seem like a pretty shitty operation overall. V6 is clunky and half baked at best IMO, and V7 appears to be vapourware. It's apparently been coming forever based on threads I found at the time (plus I've got an email from May last year when I owned one claiming "... we're confident that we'll release the PicoScope 7 T&M stable version in the September / October timeframe."), but I'm guessing by the time it arrives it'll feel about 20 years old like like V6 does.

On top of that, their attitude to tonnes of legitimate bug reports/feature requests/suggestions I read on their forum at the time was very much the classic Principal Skinner "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong". Oh, and they even said in the same email I quoted above "I'm sorry if that sounds like we're asking you to act as a beta tester. (In a way, we are!)".

Fuck that. This isn't a Kickstarter campaign or a friends startup, it's supposed to be a finished T&M product.

I really, reeeeeeeally wanted to like the thing. It would have been so handy if it was properly developed, but it isn't. As mentioned in other posts on this thread I ended up getting an AD2 for the task and there's absolutely no comparison in either the software or support. The Picoscope obviously wins as far as form factor (the header without any BNC thing on the AD2 is just plain weird, and the adaptor is a pain), but at the end of the day for a computer based scope the software is the most crucial bit.

If pigs fly and they ever actually get their shit together I'd love to chuck one in my callout bag. But based on what I saw of both V6 and V7 I suspect that as convenient as the hardware is the software is always going to suck compared to other options.

[2N3055]

David, you are just bitter that it doesn't support Mac.   

Software works just fine, and has many capabilities no other scope has.
It is a specific product though. Not a good match to people that expect digital CRT emulation.
It is very good for decoding, and for those writing their own software or pulling data for analysis.
And prices are a mixed bag. Pico has 16bit scope that is unique, and their 8ch 12 bit scope is very good price for the capabilities.
But their product are not for everybody.

AD2 is really a toy, although I like some features of software.

[David Aurora]

David, you are just bitter that it doesn't support Mac.   

Software works just fine, and has many capabilities no other scope has.
It is a specific product though. Not a good match to people that expect digital CRT emulation.
It is very good for decoding, and for those writing their own software or pulling data for analysis.
And prices are a mixed bag. Pico has 16bit scope that is unique, and their 8ch 12 bit scope is very good price for the capabilities.
But their product are not for everybody.

AD2 is really a toy, although I like some features of software.

Have you read even a single word I have said in this thread?

Rhetorical question, clearly not, but lets pick through these points anyway:

- Yeah, I was pissed off that it doesn't support Mac given that the manufacturer claims it works on Mac. Again, I wasn't trying to do anything special, just wanted to use a tool I bought that was supposedly Mac compatible.
- No, the software does NOT work fine, that's the whole point here. It apparently works fine on some Windows setups, fantastic news for those users. But it's marketed to work on a wider range of OS than that and it fails miserably there. Lockups, missing features and all sorts of quirks. This isn't just my opinion, it's backed up by the many complaints on their forum.
- It's not even remotely a "specific product", it's a USB scope/AWG. You call it expecting "digital CRT emulation", I call it "working XY functionality". My other digital scopes handle it just fine, the Picoscope was the only one that didn't.
- OK cool, if I need it for decoding I'll keep that in mind. But the decoder is a bonus feature on that, the core of it is supposed to be a scope/AWG.
- I don't care about its price or the 8 channel thing you keep bringing up, neither of these points are relevant. The price of the Picoscopes would be absolutely fine if it worked as advertised. Any price is too much when it doesn't.
- No, they're not for everybody. They're mainly supposed to be for people who want a cross platform USB scope with AWG, and I was one of those people.

Fanboy as much as you want over Picoscope gear, but at the end of the day all I care about is whether a tool works properly or not. This isn't a hobby for me, I use test gear to make my living. The AD2 worked great from day 1, met its marketing claims and has well and truly earned its place amongst the rest of my test gear. Given that the AD2 has remained in my setup alongside stacks of Tektronix/HP/Fluke/etc gear and the Picoscope got shitcanned in less than a week I definitely can't agree with your premise that the AD2 is a toy and the Picoscope is a professional tool. Maybe all you do is decode data on a Windows box and it works great for you, but over here in the real world it doesn't meet the manufacturers claims of being a usable cross platform USB scope. End of story.

[2N3055]

I'm not a fanboy of anything.
Emulations and virtual machines are not supported on many a device that need windows.
They don't advertise that Linux and Mac version have parity.
X-Y mode not only works fine, but works even with math channels which no other scope (in normal price range) supports.
It works perfectly as advertised. You wanted to use it way you expect it to be. Your problem.
They are not primarily used as "cross platform USB scopes" but way I explained..

Fact that AD2 that is literally a didactic toy, works great for you is great. I'm glad for you.
You seem to have very specific requirements you happen to address with AD2. Great.
That doesn't make Pico bad in any way. Just not for you...
No need to use rude and abrasive language if you don't like something.

I, on the other hand, have no use for AD2 (too limited in every single aspect of it's capabilities), but have and use 3 Picos in everyday work for many years. And they are worth every penny..

[David Aurora]

I'm not a fanboy of anything.
Emulations and virtual machines are not supported on many a device that need windows.
They don't advertise that Linux and Mac version have parity.
X-Y mode not only works fine, but works even with math channels which no other scope (in normal price range) supports.
It works perfectly as advertised. You wanted to use it way you expect it to be. Your problem.
They are not primarily used as "cross platform USB scopes" but way I explained..

Fact that AD2 that is literally a didactic toy, works great for you is great. I'm glad for you.
You seem to have very specific requirements you happen to address with AD2. Great.
That doesn't make Pico bad in any way. Just not for you...
No need to use rude and abrasive language if you don't like something.

I, on the other hand, have no use for AD2 (too limited in every single aspect of it's capabilities), but have and use 3 Picos in everyday work for many years. And they are worth every penny..

"I'm not a fanboy"

*literally ignores every valid criticism of the product, twists my use case and then brags about owning 3 of them*

Cool story bro.

For the millionth time, I didn't buy one and try to force it to work on an unsupported system. I'm not running emulations, it's supposed to have native compatibility (I only mentioned Parallels as I briefly tried it on that to compare the Windows/Mac versions without having to reboot the second computer into Windows). They claim cross platform compatibility, which is why I bought one. They're not at all up front about how the non-Windows versions are either crippled, incompatible with modern systems or in perpetual beta, that's something you find out either the hard way or by deep diving the web to see how many years they've been banging on about the new version coming to solve all the problems.

You can't sit there and say things work fine when they demonstrably don't. They work fine ON YOUR OS AND HARDWARE, that's it. Despite marketing blurbs, data sheets etc claiming Mac compatibility it's a no go in any usable sense. You're welcome to prove me wrong and show me a stable, fully functional version running on a current Mac. If you can I'll place an order for one today. But you can't, because your entire, painfully repetitive input into this thread so far is "It works great as a decoder on Windows, therefore all other complaints are void".

Yet again- my "specific requirements" were a working USB oscilloscope. The AD2 delivered, the Pico did not. As in I can launch the Waveforms software and probe things like on any of my other scopes, whereas IF I could get the Picoscope software to launch (which it often didn't) I had constant hangs, glitches, triggering issues and missing basic oscilloscope features. I don't understand why you keep claiming using a USB oscilloscope as a USB oscilloscope is a niche thing, it's bizarre.

As far as whether you have any use for an AD2- I don't care and didn't ask. The thread was essentially me going "This thing sucks for me, am I alone" and the response was essentially it's pretty handy IF you run Windows and generally it's strength is more for decoding use rather than as an actual scope.

[jasonRF]

As much as I like my Picoscopes (on Windows), if I were David Aurora I would be pretty pissed, too.   The company has no excuse for claiming their software works on Macs when it doesn't.  At least it sounds like they were good about the return. 

I am finally starting to like Picoscope 7, but it still has serious flaws.  It does seem like the development is pretty slow.  To be generous, perhaps they are having problems hiring and keeping good technical staff, just like many employers right now (at least in the US).  But who knows?

jason

[David Aurora]

As much as I like my Picoscopes (on Windows), if I were David Aurora I would be pretty pissed, too.   The company has no excuse for claiming their software works on Macs when it doesn't.  At least it sounds like they were good about the return. 

I am finally starting to like Picoscope 7, but it still has serious flaws.  It does seem like the development is pretty slow.  To be generous, perhaps they are having problems hiring and keeping good technical staff, just like many employers right now (at least in the US).  But who knows?

jason

Yep, that's all I'm saying here. If they don't want the Mac/Linux/whatever hassle that's 100% fine and they don't owe it to anyone to cater to us. Just stop saying it works on the other systems when it doesn't, because it's a waste of peoples time AND they're trashing their own reputation with it. It's so much better to be known as a rock solid Windows only product than a flakey universal thing.

I've actually just downloaded the most recent beta release out of morbid curiosity (plus, part of me really wants them to pull it together as it really could be a handy product in the toolbag), I'll be curious to see how far it's come since May.

[David Aurora]

As much as I like my Picoscopes (on Windows), if I were David Aurora I would be pretty pissed, too.   The company has no excuse for claiming their software works on Macs when it doesn't.  At least it sounds like they were good about the return. 

I am finally starting to like Picoscope 7, but it still has serious flaws.  It does seem like the development is pretty slow.  To be generous, perhaps they are having problems hiring and keeping good technical staff, just like many employers right now (at least in the US).  But who knows?

jason

Yep, that's all I'm saying here. If they don't want the Mac/Linux/whatever hassle that's 100% fine and they don't owe it to anyone to cater to us. Just stop saying it works on the other systems when it doesn't, because it's a waste of peoples time AND they're trashing their own reputation with it. It's so much better to be known as a rock solid Windows only product than a flakey universal thing.

I've actually just downloaded the most recent beta release out of morbid curiosity (plus, part of me really wants them to pull it together as it really could be a handy product in the toolbag), I'll be curious to see how far it's come since May.

OK, mixed bag running the latest release on an M1 Mac.

Painfully slow to open menus, switch views etc. Chokes for half a second any time I click anything basically.

Crashed within first 30 seconds just from entering/exiting full screen mode.

XY is no longer greyed out, though I can't properly test it given I'm just running in demo mode and don't have the hardware anymore. I'll trust that it should work now though.

Some measurements don't work at all and just sit on 0.

Channels seem to come and go as they please. Like you're looking at two signals and then suddenly you're looking at one, you double check that both are turned on and they are, then you click some other random thing and you've got two channels again.

Offsets are done as percentages rather than divisions(?). I forgot how weird that was. Not the end of the world, but just why?

I still have mixed feelings about that linear equations page for scaling. I guess it's pretty flexible and I could maybe end up loving it, but something about it just irks me from a user interface point of view. Needless complication of setup.

Zoom extremely hit and miss.

Can't really be bothered digging any further for now.

So yeah, overall it's probably about the same? Some new features, some old features now broken, still very clunky. This supposedly just came out, so it doesn't seem like they're anywhere close to stable release based on this

[2N3055]

On Win it works perfectly, even with old i5-4k series..
I guess Win is what Pico users traditionally use so don't see problems
I have no idea how it works on Macs with v7, true.. What you say is not really usable , I agree.
It would be better to just say that they don't have Mac version...

[David Aurora]

On Win it works perfectly, even with old i5-4k series..
I guess Win is what Pico users traditionally use so don't see problems
I have no idea how it works on Macs with v7, true.. What you say is not really usable , I agree.
It would be better to just say that they don't have Mac version...

Exactly. Nobody would have any reason to be pissed off if they just flat out didn't offer a Mac version, it's getting jerked around being told it does/should/will/might eventually work when it doesn't that rubbed me the wrong way. At the end of the day no matter which platform you use you're paying them the same amount, so you should get the same product quality.

[boB]

I would just like to be able to annotate the traces on the screen because I can't tell which color is which !  Especially on the 8 channel Picoscope.

I do not think they have the engineering resources to work on their older product software.   

A lot of companies have trouble getting good help these days.

boB

[Zucca]

It pisses me off immensely they did not respond to my post about FreeBSD
https://www.picotech.com/support/topic42140.html?&p=148720&hilit=freebsd#p148720

it would be so cool to get some traction in [ur=https://ghostbsd.org/l]GhostBSD[/url]...

The new Picoscope 7 crashes every 3-4 hours on Hubuntu for me.

Picoscope 6 rock solid...

I bought it because of protocols support and it does not take too much real estate on the bench (since I have a PC anyway).
I also did not tested the Picoscope scope "memory", normal scope does offer only limited memory, with the PC memory for signals you should be much more....

[David Aurora]

So my demo unit arrived, and for about 3 minutes I thought things had turned around. Install went smooth, plugging the AWG into a channel basically worked, then I got super busy for a week doing some major workshop rearranging and put it aside.

Yesterday I tried to actually use it for a job and yeah, nah, this is still not a product I can see myself using for actual work. I couldn't really sum it up in text easily so I went back after hours, flicked on my phone camera and did a quick rundown of some (not all) of the issues that were immediately obvious in the first 45 minutes or whatever of use. I think at this point it's going back in the box until the first bug release arrives.

https://youtu.be/k76kXrhbVtA

[oz2cpu]

SEE this thread :

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/please-dont-purchase-pc-controlled-test-equipment/

a HUGE NAY from me to any stuff, that is ONLY control able from a PC !!
it will become trash sooner than you think, sadly..

picoscopes are very expensive, you can get a real scope, that is ALSO remote accessable,
but can still be used without a PC, the day the PC and opperating systems are out of service / compatibilities or what ever the future brings of cool computer stuff.

[David Aurora]

SEE this thread :

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/please-dont-purchase-pc-controlled-test-equipment/

a HUGE NAY from me to any stuff, that is ONLY control able from a PC !!
it will become trash sooner than you think, sadly..

picoscopes are very expensive, you can get a real scope, that is ALSO remote accessable,
but can still be used without a PC, the day the PC and opperating systems are out of service / compatibilities or what ever the future brings of cool computer stuff.

For the millionth time- for people like myself, this isn't a decision between a real scope or a USB scope. It's about ADDING a USB scope to the toolkit for portability/datalogging etc.

[egonotto]

Hello,

PicoScope 6 is far more stable.

Best regards
egonotto


PS. For audio work perhaps the PicoScope® 4262 is a good choice

[David Aurora]

Hello,

PicoScope 6 is far more stable.

Best regards
egonotto


PS. For audio work perhaps the PicoScope® 4262 is a good choice

Try using 6 on Mac 

And nah, I couldn't see myself paying any real money for a higher end model when the software is the same, because that's the whole issue. Resolution doesn't matter if the program can't run more than 10 minutes without a crash

[oz2cpu]

>For the millionth time- for people like myself, this isn't a decision between a real scope or a USB scope.
>It's about ADDING a USB scope to the toolkit for portability/datalogging etc.

for the 10k time.. i dont get it..
a real scope cost the same or less
a real scope can also provide realtime datalogging and remote access
a pico scope is not that partable, since you need a pc and all the stuff that is needed to run a pc,
so that total solution is bigger, more bulky and much more expensive, over a real stand alone scope, that will just log using its internal memory or a usb stick

[Gyro]

@oz2cpu: Do you really have to keep ramming your personal (and completely non-specific) opinion on USB test gear down peoples' throats? We get that you don't like them, we don't need constant reminders.


Edit: Emoticon removed.

[oz2cpu]

Hi gyro.. I be happy to be a little bit more specific

see this picture..  did I mention the real scope to the left, can do all the pico can, all by it self
another very important point, the scope to the left is still worth something in 10-20 years.
while the one to the right is only worth the 4 cool reuseable bnc connectors in 10-20 years.

[Gyro]

I'd call https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/please-dont-purchase-pc-controlled-test-equipment/ pretty non-specific.

[2N3055]

Hi gyro.. I be happy to be a little bit more specific

see this picture..  did I mention the real scope to the left, can do all the pico can, all by it self
another very important point, the scope to the left is still worth something in 10-20 years.
while the one to the right is only worth the 4 cool reuseable bnc connectors in 10-20 years.

No it cannot do the same thing. That IS THE POINT.

And as I said, Picsocope supported my old 212-100 with 3 consecutive software versions (4-5-6) on brand new PC of the time. So you could use 15 year old scope with new software and new PC at the time.
And in meantime, in 15 years it gained so much new functionality. For instance, it decodes 32+ protocols... And new are being added all the time..

If anything it gained value with years....

[David Aurora]

>For the millionth time- for people like myself, this isn't a decision between a real scope or a USB scope.
>It's about ADDING a USB scope to the toolkit for portability/datalogging etc.

for the 10k time.. i dont get it..
a real scope cost the same or less
a real scope can also provide realtime datalogging and remote access
a pico scope is not that partable, since you need a pc and all the stuff that is needed to run a pc,
so that total solution is bigger, more bulky and much more expensive, over a real stand alone scope, that will just log using its internal memory or a usb stick

Serious question- are you literate?

[coromonadalix]

we use one with a tablet pc, practical and fast, protocol decoding  ....  but i have some hard time managing it, i'm an oldie   

i have to combine 2 or 3 separate tools to do the same  loll

but the younger people(s) i know use it very frequently

but man they are expensives ...

It's a YAY  loll

[slugrustle]

Serious question- are you literate?

Asking this in written form must make it a trick question.

[voltsandjolts]

I'm often out on-the-go. I always carry a laptop, so choice for me is
(1) Laptop + standalone scope
(2) Laptop + USB scope
I prefer option (2) and PicoScope 5K + Picoscope 6 Win works great for me.

I tried Picoscope 7 about a year ago, but quickly decided it wasn't for me.
It's so baby blue and white - it just looks washed out to my eye.
Looking at it now on David's YT video, I'm a bit disappointed it's not more polished, it's been years in development.
Maybe Win version is more stable, IDK. But I'm sticking with 6, even if 7 gets the bugs fixed.
I don't think software engineers make the best GUI designers, looks like it needs the input of a UI designer with electronics experience.
Or just copy LeCroy (please).

I want to see Pico do well, they are quite innovative and well known for a relatively small company with just 20M turnover, 0.5M R&D expenditure. Punching above their weight really.

Edit Dec2023: Now changed my mind about Picoscope 7 software, it's actually become very good in the last few months...and dark mode, yeh!

[David Aurora]

I'm often out on-the-go. I always carry a laptop, so choice for me is
(1) Laptop + standalone scope
(2) Laptop + USB scope
I prefer option (2) and PicoScope 5K + Picoscope 6 Win works great for me.

I tried Picoscope 7 about a year ago, but quickly decided it wasn't for me.
It's so baby blue and white - it just looks washed out to my eye.
Looking at it now on David's YT video, I'm a bit disappointed it's not more polished, it's been years in development.
Maybe Win version is more stable, IDK. But I'm sticking with 6, even if 7 gets the bugs fixed.
I don't think software engineers make the best GUI designers, looks like it needs the input of a UI designer with electronics experience.
Or just copy LeCroy (please).

I want to see Pico do well, they are quite innovative and well known for a relatively small company with just 20M turnover, 0.5M R&D expenditure. Punching above their weight really.

The bit I quoted in bold is the key here really. I really, reeeeally want to like it. For basically a year since buying the one I returned I've been watching their website for updates hoping they'd get it right. For the price, form factor and software features they could knock it out of the park if they could just get the damn thing stable. What I've seen, whether beta or the new stable release just isn't that.

I'm going to try it on the Intel machine when I get some spare time this week (they've confirmed I can keep that unit if I want, so no rush to get it back) so with any luck the crashes are specific to the M1 processor and if that's isolated they can troubleshoot that area more specifically.

Has anyone tried the "stable" release of 7 on Windows yet? I'd be curious to know how that's running, but their forum is just tumbleweeds. I could try it in bootcamp/Parallels but I don't know how accurate an assessment that's going to be

[mendip_discovery]

I want to see Pico do well, they are quite innovative and well known for a relatively small company with just 20M turnover, 0.5M R&D expenditure. Punching above their weight really.

I think that is why I have a soft spot for them. I have two of the TC-08 temp dataloggers and they are not the best thing in the world but they are one of the more affordable solutions.

With regards to the comments about portability of a proper scope vs pico. LoL. The pico can go in the bag with your laptop that most service engineers need with them. The box weight is just a few hundred grams and is in a fairly robust case, I could drop it down the stairs and it would no doubt still work.

The software does have its moments, the picolog takes and age to start up on my laptop and does the job but I cant see why it takes so long.

[jasonRF]

Has anyone tried the "stable" release of 7 on Windows yet? I'd be curious to know how that's running, but their forum is just tumbleweeds. I could try it in bootcamp/Parallels but I don't know how accurate an assessment that's going to be

I have used the most recent stable version of Picoscope 7 under Windows.  Overall it seems to work well and the touchscreen interface is reasonable.  I haven't tested all of the features - in particular have not attempted to use any of the serial decoding since I mostly just do analog stuff.  But the features I use seem to all be there now and work fine, including the math channels.  The streaming-mode operation is better than in Picoscope 6 in that the measurements/stats seem to work properly, which will probably only matter to folks that have the shallow-memory models like my 2204a.  For ~2 hour sessions it has been stable but I haven't tried running it for hours on end. 

Edit: I have had a recent early access version running continuously for a handful of days with no problem. 

The main thing I miss from 6 at this point is the user-defined keyboard shortcuts.  Especially when running from a laptop on-the-go, doing everything with the mouse-pad or the touchscreen is a little annoying. 

Since I am on windows I usually just use the most recent version.  It is nice that the installers automatically include 'early access' in the name of versions that aren't officially listed as 'stable' so you can easily have both on your machine without getting confused. 

jason 

[voltsandjolts]

IIRC Picoscope 7 is an electron app (or maybe it's picolog, or both, hmm)

https://www.electronjs.org/blog/apple-silicon

What about Rosetta 2?

Rosetta 2 is Apple's latest iteration of their Rosetta technology, which allows you to run x64 Intel applications on their new arm64 Apple Silicon hardware. Although we believe that x64 Electron apps will run under Rosetta 2, there are some important things to note (and reasons why you should ship a native arm64 binary).

Your app's performance will be significantly degraded. Electron / V8 uses JIT compilation for JavaScript, and due to how Rosetta works, you will effectively be running JIT twice (once in V8 and once in Rosetta).

You lose the benefit of new technology in Apple Silicon, such as the increased memory page size.

Did we mention that the performance will be significantly degraded?

So, if PicoScope 7 is an x86 electron app on the mac m1/2, it might explain the slow menu behaviour David has...may be some of the crashes too 

[David Aurora]

IIRC Picoscope 7 is an electron app (or maybe it's picolog, or both, hmm)

https://www.electronjs.org/blog/apple-silicon

What about Rosetta 2?

Rosetta 2 is Apple's latest iteration of their Rosetta technology, which allows you to run x64 Intel applications on their new arm64 Apple Silicon hardware. Although we believe that x64 Electron apps will run under Rosetta 2, there are some important things to note (and reasons why you should ship a native arm64 binary).

Your app's performance will be significantly degraded. Electron / V8 uses JIT compilation for JavaScript, and due to how Rosetta works, you will effectively be running JIT twice (once in V8 and once in Rosetta).

You lose the benefit of new technology in Apple Silicon, such as the increased memory page size.

Did we mention that the performance will be significantly degraded?

So, if PicoScope 7 is an x86 electron app on the mac m1/2, it might explain the slow menu behaviour David has...may be some of the crashes too 

FFS 

If this is correct, that would mean they've been actively developing for outdated hardware for over 2 years 

I know they're watching this thread (they mentioned having seen my video in an email, and it's unlisted on Youtube and only linked here), maybe they could chime in to confirm or deny that? And if it is indeed the case, I then wonder what the path to Apple silicon support is going to look like.

[voltsandjolts]

FYI I'm no expert on PC software, so this post might be full of misleading crap, but here goes...

I've had a look at PicoLog and Picoscope 7 just now. PicoLog is an electron application.

I was wrong about Picoscope 7, it's actually a C# application, not an electron app.

On Windows it seems to be using the microsoft C# JIT compiler, as you would expect.

On mac it uses the mono JIT compiler but mono's supported platforms don't include mac arm, only mac x86-64.
So, on your m1 your likely running PicoScope 7 software on the mono compiler which is JIT'ing to x86-64 code which is running on the Rosetta thingy to translate to arm64.
Doesn't sound 'snappy' to me, and you're probably waiting for mono to add support for mac arm to see better performance. Not much Pico can do about it.

If this is correct, that would mean they've been actively developing for outdated hardware for over 2 years 

To be fair, they're targeting the majority of mac users who will be using mac x86-64.

[David Aurora]

FYI I'm no expert on PC software, so this post might be full of misleading crap, but here goes...

I've had a look at PicoLog and Picoscope 7 just now. PicoLog is an electron application.

I was wrong about Picoscope 7, it's actually a C# application, not an electron app.

On Windows it seems to be using the microsoft C# JIT compiler, as you would expect.

On mac it uses the mono JIT compiler but mono's supported platforms don't include mac arm, only mac x86-64.
So, on your m1 your likely running PicoScope 7 software on the mono compiler which is JIT'ing to x86-64 code which is running on the Rosetta thingy to translate to arm64.
Doesn't sound 'snappy' to me, and you're probably waiting for mono to add support for mac arm to see better performance. Not much Pico can do about it.

If this is correct, that would mean they've been actively developing for outdated hardware for over 2 years 

To be fair, they're targeting the majority of mac users who will be using mac x86-64.

Thanks for the crash course!

As for the target market, that still seems ass backwards to me. They could have drawn a line in the sand and gone "Use V6 wherever you want, but the new version is built for new hardware". What's the point of new software if it's built on the premise that you're only going to use it on old hardware? If not now, I wonder when they will make the leap to supporting modern processors

[voltsandjolts]

If not now, I wonder when they will make the leap to supporting modern processors

Pico chose to hitch their wagon to mono for cross-platform, so it's really a question for mono.

If I were Pico, I think I would have went with Qt, for fast binaries running native on all supported platforms. Which sounds ideal for a 'scope app. I see Qt support mac arm. Anyway, I'm sure they had reasons, hiring C# programmers is probably easier than for C++/Qt.

[David Aurora]

If not now, I wonder when they will make the leap to supporting modern processors

Pico chose to hitch their wagon to mono for cross-platform, so it's really a question for mono.

If I were Pico, I think I would have went with Qt, for fast binaries running native on all supported platforms. Which sounds ideal for a 'scope app. I see Qt support mac arm. Anyway, I'm sure they had reasons, hiring C# programmers is probably easier than for C++/Qt.

Kind of circles back to the earlier parts of this thread I guess- why not just say "Windows only" and do one thing properly rather than claim it works on other operating systems but not pull it off 

Hopefully when I get around to an Intel test it works better, although that's kind of useless to me given I only want it for portability with a MacBook Pro (M1), not chained to the Intel box on the desk. I guess if it does though there's a chance that maybe someday the third party they're relying on sorts out the issue and it's usable with a modern laptop, fingers crossed

[JPortici]

If not now, I wonder when they will make the leap to supporting modern processors

Pico chose to hitch their wagon to mono for cross-platform, so it's really a question for mono.

If I were Pico, I think I would have went with Qt, for fast binaries running native on all supported platforms. Which sounds ideal for a 'scope app. I see Qt support mac arm. Anyway, I'm sure they had reasons, hiring C# programmers is probably easier than for C++/Qt.

Most probably.
Also maybe since they have a long history of windows products they may have had a long history of programming with Visual studio and .net, using mono for multiplatform seems the path of least resistance

[voltsandjolts]

Kind of circles back to the earlier parts of this thread I guess- why not just say "Windows only" and do one thing properly rather than claim it works on other operating systems but not pull it off 

They should explicity say "Mac x86-64" on their download page, rather than the generic "Mac", which only leads to disappointment.

Hopefully when I get around to an Intel test it works better, although that's kind of useless to me given I only want it for portability with a MacBook Pro (M1), not chained to the Intel box on the desk. I guess if it does though there's a chance that maybe someday the third party they're relying on sorts out the issue and it's usable with a modern laptop, fingers crossed

Yup. Thanks for having the patience to stick with it, hopefully things improve.

[David Aurora]

Just installed it on the Intel Mac while waiting for a customer to arrive and gave it a quick go. Menus still appear laggy, possibly a little less though? Hit the reset config button a handful of times without a crash so far. Haven't actually probed anything yet as I only have 5 minutes right now, but will try to actually measure some stuff later and see if it behaves better on Intel

[David Aurora]

OK, I reckon there's definitely merit to the mono theory. I finally gave the Picoscope a run on the Intel machine today, and only had one crash (not sure what triggered it, but it was pretty random rather than anything that was crashing on the M1 processor). Menus still seem a little laggy to open/close, but otherwise it worked pretty well.

Actually, it worked well enough that without even thinking about it I left it set up for the next thing I worked on and did that job on the Pico rather than the usual gear. Might not sound like a big deal, but compared to my first impressions of this thing that's a pretty big step to just use it happily for actual work.

According to an email I got yesterday the number entry thing should be a straightforward fix.

If at some point the software works properly on a modern Mac I'd actually be pretty stoked with this as a mobile setup for job callouts.

[Xandinator]

I wouldn't give up on them, they've come from not planning to support Intel Macs back then to a reliably working version.

[David Aurora]

I wouldn't give up on them, they've come from not planning to support Intel Macs back then to a reliably working version.

... 2 years after Apple switched away from Intel. I wouldn't really consider that much of a win 😂

I guess now it's a waiting game to see if they plan on making these work on current model Macs. It'd be good if they figure this out and release an update soon to address it, but failing that I reckon they're better off just throwing in the towel and re-labelling their stuff as Windows only. I think it does more harm to their brand than good to keep swinging and missing like this

[voltsandjolts]

Picoscope-7 uses the Mono .NET implementation for cross-platform portability. I don't see much chatter about Mono adding support for macOS ARM64. In fact, there is more talk of 'Microsoft .NET Core' (which has been renamed to 'Microsoft .NET') being the future for C# cross-platform, so maybe Mono is going to die.

On a brighter note, the recent Microsoft .NET 7 runtime does natively support macOS ARM64. I have no idea how much work it would be for Picoscope to be moved from Mono to Microsoft .NET 7, but it could be the way forward. I'm not sure which version of .NET Picoscope-7 uses on Windows, hmm, need to check. If it's .NET 5 or higher then moving to .NET 7 (and so gaining macOS ARM64 support) should be fairly straightforward.