Usefulness of Vintage Logic Analyser (7D01) vs USB Cheapie

[joshuao]

Hi,

I recently came into possession of an old 80s logic analyser (a Tektronix 7D01) with display formatter.

I was just wondering if these are basically useless nowadays compared to just a simple USB logic analyser?
 I know if I found an 80s analog oscilloscope I'd still fancy keeping it around, but this seems like it's been entirely supplanted by even the cheapest of hardware, is there something I'm missing?

Here's a link to the specs if you'd like to compare actual values.
http://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/7D01

Thanks.

[alm]

In general, the vintage logic analyzers, especially the dedicated logic analyzers, can be better with a higher channel count (for a 16-bit bus, you can easily need 24+ channels), sample speed (if you want to sample in excess of a few hundred MHz), state (as opposed to time) sampling, and the ability to debug old microprocessors with inverse assembly.

Looking at the specs, the 7D01 has few, if any, of these advantages.

For sampling and decoding an SPI serial bus, the USB analyzer is way more convenient. No contest!

[Kean]

Pretty much.  It was a very nice piece of kit in its day, but there were better dedicated units.

First of all you would need to acquire, potentially repair, and maintain a working 7000 series mainframe to put it in.
Secondly, it provides very limited data capture, and no protocol decoding functionality - which makes it pretty limited for typical modern designs.
Thirdly, there is no ability to save the data, other than a photo of the screen.  And obviously no way to re-load or further analyse except by hand.

The main advantage it has over the cheap clones of the Saleae Logic is that they can only capture at 24MHz max.  The 7D01 can capture 100MHz with 4 channels (but only for 1016 samples!)
It can also do quite nice triggering in hardware, whereas the Saleae clones do software triggering.

[Kean]

BTW, there are people who still collect Tek 7000 series kit, so the 7D01 probably isn't something you should consider as worthless and trash.

I have a 4-slot Tek 7514 with various plugins, but it isn't working due to bad backplane connectors.  Sadly it has been sitting in storage for over 10 years waiting for me to find time to work on it...

[joshuao]

Thanks for the responses, it seems it's destined not to stay with me.
I'd keep it around just for the coolness factor but it's bloody massive!

BTW, there are people who still collect Tek 7000 series kit, so the 7D01 probably isn't something you should consider as worthless and trash.

I have a 4-slot Tek 7514 with various plugins, but it isn't working due to bad backplane connectors.  Sadly it has been sitting in storage for over 10 years waiting for me to find time to work on it...

Oh, that's good to hear, hopefully I can find a nice home for it then.
They're both installed into a 7603 oscilloscope, and I have all the manuals/probes, so perhaps someone would value it.

Thanks again for the information!

[Kean]

Oh, if you have the 7603 and accessories as well that's great - especially if in good nick.
And yes, they're huge scopes.  The 7514 is even bigger with 4 slots, although it does have a noticably smaller screen.

You could put up a post on https://www.eevblog.com/forum/buysellwanted/ if you are looking to move it on.  It is a bit too far away for me to organise shipping.