Author Topic: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size  (Read 61007 times)

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Offline nunoTopic starter

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Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« on: July 25, 2014, 01:16:46 pm »
After some weeks waiting just received my DS1000Z series scope. Boy, what immediatelly struck me is the screen's font size: TOO DAMN SMALL!! It's barelly useable for me at an arm's length, but the measurements are so small it's the same as not being there, this text is 2mm high. WTF are they thinking?! I get a bigger screen and a much smaller text? I already miss my Rigol 1052E. I am the only one with a weak sight? At what length from you do you guys use your scopes? My "arm's length" is 69cm (~27inch).
« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 08:10:08 pm by nuno »
 

Offline shailesh3t

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2014, 09:11:04 am »
HI,
i do agree with you too

its too small the font size , would have been nice if it was able to increase the size
regards
shailesh
 

Offline miguelvp

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2014, 09:18:18 am »
I have glasses and i'm over 50 (not by much) and I can see the screen at arms length with no problems at all.
 

Offline Psi

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #3 on: July 26, 2014, 09:24:59 am »
glue a fresnel lens to the front of the scope :P
Greek letter 'Psi' (not Pounds per Square Inch)
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2014, 09:57:28 am »
glue a fresnel lens to the front of the scope :P

Niche ebay after-market product right there!
 

Offline KedasProbe

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2014, 10:25:09 am »
I have glasses and i'm over 50 (not by much) and I can see the screen at arms length with no problems at all.

Try it without the glasses.....
(there is no reason to think that someone with glasses can see less good, unless you have other than focal eye problems)
Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts.
[W. Bruce Cameron]
 

Offline sfiber

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2014, 10:41:28 am »
I use this oscilloscope too but I am 22.So that is not a big deal for me but I can understand what you are thinking.Maybe 8'' is well because of 4 channel.When I opened to meause on signals are disappointed.
 

Offline nunoTopic starter

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2014, 11:14:30 am »
This is really frustrating. Doesn't seem a big deal to improve, it's mainly the measurements font size, there could be an option to display them on the signal area (heck, they even shrink that area to show the stats) and bigger. The menu descriptions use a font bigger than the measurements :palm: . Measurements always have big easy to see letters on all kind of instruments for obvious reasons. They enlarged the only and most useless item of the screen: the Rigol logo :palm: .
I opened a ticket about this to Rigol, but they'll obviously couldn't care less about one complain and I'm not even be holding by breath waiting for a useless answer, so I guess I'll have to sell it and try one of the older series 4 channels one. Bahh!!  :-- :-- :-- for DS1000Z series screen readability.
 

Offline mjkuwp

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #8 on: July 26, 2014, 05:42:44 pm »
Maybe you can pick up a DS2000 series Rigol from someone wishing to 'trade up' to an MSO of the same.  just a thought. 

Can you connect it to a PC and view those measurements?  just a wild guess.
 

Offline miguelvp

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #9 on: July 26, 2014, 05:53:37 pm »
I have glasses and i'm over 50 (not by much) and I can see the screen at arms length with no problems at all.

Try it without the glasses.....
(there is no reason to think that someone with glasses can see less good, unless you have other than focal eye problems)

I'm far sighted, so I have no problems seeing at over arms length, but I do need my glasses for anything in between. I can only squint for so long.

But I have no problems with the font size. The measurements on the DS2072 use a bigger font that the one I'm using to type this on an 10.1" android tablet with keyboard (asus transformer prime tf201) even with IPS off.

 

Offline mrflibble

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2014, 06:37:22 pm »
I can read the DS1074Z display just fine at normal working distance. But that said, Rigol could have made better use of the available screen estate. Oh well, give them a couple more years to hire someone for the Ergonomics & Usability department. And while that new hire is at it .... BIGGER knobs! If they could just copy/paste the jog wheels as found on some of the 90's HP gear they'd be all set.
 

Offline Hydrawerk

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #11 on: July 26, 2014, 08:42:51 pm »
The Hameg scopes have a small screen with little letters, too.  :(

Well, they are compact scopes.
Amazing machines. https://www.youtube.com/user/denha (It is not me...)
 

Offline nunoTopic starter

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #12 on: July 27, 2014, 12:20:38 am »
Quote from: mjkuwp
Maybe you can pick up a DS2000 series Rigol from someone wishing to 'trade up' to an MSO of the same.  just a thought. 
I bought the scope exclusivelly for the 4 channels (the signal gen came handy too). DS4000 is too expensive for me and, having a DS1052E, I didn't want to buy the 4 channel version because I can't imagine 4 channels crammed into that screen size (same size as the DS1052).

Quote from: mjkuwp
Can you connect it to a PC and view those measurements?  just a wild guess.
Absolutelly not... I would have bought a PC scope if I wanted such a thing. I think people underestimate the power of a "stand-alone" instrument.

I'm perfectly ok with the knobs's size but wouldn't be shocked to see them bigger.

The DS2000 & DS4000 have a bigger screen Miguel, so if they used the same font size as the DS1000Z it would still look bigger.

I can't be sure from the video, but the Hameg doesn't seem to have a font as small as the DS1000Z. The DS1000Z measurements' font is 2mm high (even smaller in width, of course), can you measure the font height on the Hameg?

Ii get really irritated with this kind of thing, because I do sw for a living, if I had access to the code I could fix this in a few hours. Damned, this isn't a 2 buck crap!
« Last Edit: July 27, 2014, 12:23:12 am by nuno »
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #13 on: July 27, 2014, 12:17:26 pm »
This is one reason, why I have the Agilent MSO7000B Series scope.

I noticed this too, with many new instruments and I think it is the new generation of engineers
that have no problems looking at tiny smart phone screen and even smaller fonts. At least on
most smart phones and tablets you can set the font size.

There are 3 kinds of people in this world, those who can count and those who can not.
 

Offline nunoTopic starter

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #14 on: July 27, 2014, 12:31:43 pm »
Funny how you can adjust the font size in a $60 "crapy" phone but not on semi-professional $900 equipment :palm: .
 

Offline Mark_O

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #15 on: July 27, 2014, 04:07:27 pm »
Funny how you can adjust the font size in a $60 "crapy" phone but not on semi-professional $900 equipment :palm: .

Funny how devices with different purposes have different functionality.

You also can't adjust font size on Rigol's top-of-the-line, most expensive scopes, which are priced over $9,000.  So it's funny you'd think it should be possible on their most inexpensive units at 1/10 the price.
 

Offline nunoTopic starter

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #16 on: July 27, 2014, 05:13:20 pm »
I hope (bet?) text is wide and clear on the 9K$ equipment. I see it as an ergonomics issue.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2014, 05:15:42 pm by nuno »
 

Offline Orange

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #17 on: July 27, 2014, 05:19:33 pm »
I hope (bet?) text is wide and clear on the 9K$ equipment. I see it as an ergonomics issue.
You need glasses, and stop moaning about it. Nobody has problem with it.
 

Offline pascal_sweden

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #18 on: July 27, 2014, 08:36:54 pm »
Maybe the support ticket will be implemented?
If the support engineer is on your side, it might make it in the next firmware update.
Just have patience I would say.
 

Offline Maxlor

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #19 on: July 27, 2014, 10:23:29 pm »
Heh it's funny that your irked by the tiny font. Just the other week I was thinking that Rigol really need to clean up their UI design as far as fonts are concerned. There are way too many different ones used on the 1000Z. And the measurement font is particularly terrible. It's too small, and even worse, it's a bitmapped serif font on a low res display, which makes it extra hard to read. Rigol: use a sans serif font, pick two sizes (none smaller than 3mm), and stick with those everywhere!

I also long for the firmware upgrade that cleans this up, but I fear we won't ever be so lucky.

And yes I agree, the 1000E series is better in this regard. Strangely enough though, that ugly serif font shows up there too, in the language selection option. It's like a (rotten) easter egg.
 

Offline nunoTopic starter

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #20 on: July 27, 2014, 10:40:05 pm »
There are many things we see but we do an extra sight effort for that, which isn't good for the sight.
I see 3 more people agreeing or complaining in this thread about the tiny font size. Maybe if we all complain to Rigol about it... in EU http://www.eu.rigolna.com/tech-support/ in the US http://www.rigolna.com/tech-support/ .
 

Offline nunoTopic starter

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #21 on: July 28, 2014, 10:11:30 am »
Hey guys, guess what, I got an answer from Rigol. R&D promissed there will be a font size "Normal" and "Large" option on the next sw release, which "will probably come soon" :) . The AE answering (which told me also saw this thread here, hi there!) told me the manual already mentions such option (indeed, I've just confirmed; I did a few searches on the manual before that that escaped me) but it isn't implemented on the product (yet). There should be a "Measure" -> "Font size" menu entry with "Normal" and "Large" options.
Hurrey for Rigol  :-+  :clap:
 

Offline mrflibble

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #22 on: July 28, 2014, 02:37:41 pm »
Good to hear Rigol is responsive to user requests. :-+

If they read this ...
@Rigol person: Please read the above post by Maxlor. Because that is worth spending some time on. Make sure you have a single unified set of properly rendered fonts and stick with that. And as a bonus ... one unified set makes it easier for the firmware designer (aka cheaper). The firmware designer just has to consult the style guide that tells him what the proper font is for such-and-such. And this style guide should been written by someone who actually knows how to make things user friendly & optimize readability. (Which more often than not is NOT the firmware engineer).

What I'm trying to say is: with the right choice of font for a given size you can get better readability for the same amount of pixels on screen.
 

Offline nunoTopic starter

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #23 on: July 29, 2014, 10:32:16 pm »
I can fw these comments to the AE support person, in case the person hasn't seen them and since I've already a communications channel open. Someone else cares to backup the requests? The more people asking, the higher the probability of them to implement the requests.
 

Offline GeorgeOfTheJungle

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Re: Ridiculously small Rigol DS1000z series font size
« Reply #24 on: July 30, 2014, 08:07:22 am »
I can fw these comments to the AE support person, in case the person hasn't seen them and since I've already a communications channel open. Someone else cares to backup the requests? The more people asking, the higher the probability of them to implement the requests.

I totally agree with you: the font is way too small and it should be a sans serif, not that "Times" font.
The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
 


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