Connect your oscilloscope to your PC - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 04:47:48 pm
content: I have a brilliant idea! Convert your oscilloscope floppy drive to usb, so you can connect your scope to your PC.#1 Tear apart your slimline usb floppy drive and remove the adapter from the back.#2 Take your scope all apart and remove your floppy drive.#3 Attach the adapter to the floppy connector on your scope. [where the floppy connector was]#4 Run the USB cable out of the floppy drive opening in the scope front face.#5 connect the USB cable to your PC with a USB extender cable.#6 You're good to go!Next: cosmetics

author: BlueBill
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 04:55:42 pm
content: What year is this?

author: Monittosan
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 05:05:13 pm
content: You should be able to connect via GPIB I don't believe your method would work?As a best case the scope would be detected as a mass storage device and hang when you try and do anything with it.You can network most scopes these days

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 05:18:48 pm
content: Sweet! I just put a floppy in my Tektronix 547, now what??

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 05:27:44 pm
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on March 08, 2015, 05:18:48 pmLike the man said - cosmetics.

author: max666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 05:31:13 pm
content: USB is asymmetrical, with one host only. You can't just connect two hosts.I don't get the joke

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 05:34:15 pm
content: Quote from: xrunner on March 08, 2015, 05:27:44 pmOK... This is all I could find... It still doesn't show up in "my computer"?

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 05:45:58 pm
content: Quote from: max666 on March 08, 2015, 05:31:13 pmThere is USB on the go, but the problem isn't that he's trying to connect two USB hosts together, he's going to connect two floppy controllers to each other.Not impossible in itself, but highly unlikely to work "just like that". There's a better chance that my jar of hair gel will spontaneously turn into a high speed WiFi ADC.Or...http://www.ebay.com/itm/NIB-SEALED-GENUINE-Sony-MSAC-FD2MA-Memory-Stick-3-5-Floppy-Disk-Adaptor-Mavica-/221692924234?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item339ded914a

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 06:19:11 pm
content: "You can network most scopes these days"I searched for " floppy drive to LAN converter" didnt get any hits."Tektronix 547, now what??" a 547 never came with a floppy drive."There's a better chance that my jar of hair gel will spontaneously turn into a high speed WiFi ADC." havent heard of that one. have heard of porcine aviatrix though.Hosts transmit and receive, are they hard wired to only see mass storage devices?1998 HP and TEK scopes had floppy drives [ some of them]

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 06:35:35 pm
content: The usb to floppy drive adaptor is made to connect to a floppy drive, not to a floppy drivecontroller

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 06:40:48 pm
content: Quote from: malch on March 08, 2015, 06:19:11 pmI know Tek is/was notoriously cheap and stingy with the connectivity on their lower-end scopes, what scope model do you have? On the other hand, a scope in 1998 with a floppy would almost certainly have a serial port?You can't connect two low-level devices like floppy controllers to each other that way. The floppy interface is at the level of sending stepper motor commands, sensing track zero, and having the bitstream from the heads. That's it.The scope's computer expects to have 100% total control over the mechanism. When the scope writes to a floppy, it expects to spin up a piece of round plastic and pumps out a bit stream to the heads, with much participation from the OS to figure out where to write what.It's quite low-level.

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 06:50:32 pm
content: It's for a TDS A series scope. The floppy drive seems kinda useless nowadays. Just trying to repurpose the drive.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 07:09:15 pm
content: Quote from: malch on March 08, 2015, 06:50:32 pmA series? What does that mean? What model number? There's tons of model numbers that went to an "A".And it doesn't have a slot in the back for the communication module? Like this?http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tektronix-TDS2CM-communication-module-/111616183490?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19fcd7ccc2

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 07:09:32 pm
content: Yeah! one positive!Posted during the new post. TDS 420A 430A 460A 320A 520A ETC

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 07:14:25 pm
content: Quote from: joeqsmith on March 08, 2015, 07:07:42 pmI'd capture the bitstream/commands that the controller is sending to the heads and send it to the PC for decoding. The Amiga read an entire track into memory and the OS took care of understanding it.Such floppy to USB adapters exist.http://www.ebay.com/itm/Floppy-Drive-to-USB-Converter-Adapter-Emulator-for-Sieb-and-Meyer-720-KB-4-GB-/291291991003?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43d25b0bdb

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 07:18:35 pm
content: Yeah! two positives! Does that ebay converter work as an input to the computer rather than a thumb drive port?

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 07:20:32 pm
content: Quote from: malch on March 08, 2015, 07:18:35 pmI don't know.

author: max666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2015, 11:52:18 pm
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on March 08, 2015, 07:14:25 pmThis is what I mean! Such an adapter expects a flash stick on the USB port, ergo the adapter is the USB host and the flash drive is the device.You can not just connect a male to male USB cable between the adapter (host) and your computer (host) and "#6 You're good to go!", doesn't work that simple.

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2015, 12:07:56 am
content: OKMaybe we should start with a null modem USB cable.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 09, 2015, 12:23:21 am
content: Quote from: max666 on March 08, 2015, 11:52:18 pmYes, I get that. But this is as close as it gets COTS.

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2015, 11:40:37 pm
content: I found the answer.http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/Cables/USBtoUSB.htmThe USB-USB null modem cable can be used to take the place of a traditional serial null modem cable to transfer data between two PCs.For modern systems that no longer have legacy serial ports, the 2.5m USB-USB null modem cable is a convenient solution which uses FTDI's Virtual COM Port (VCP) drivers, hence allowing the use of familiar applications such as HyperTerminal to communicate between machines.

author: BlueBill
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 12:02:51 am
content: How do you plan to install the FTDI driver on the scope?You're going to need a floppy emulator to USB host. i.e. 26pin IDE floppy emulator that can save to a USB flash drive. If you want it to connect directly to your PC that's another matter entirely.It would be probably be cheaper to buy a modern DSO such as a Rigol DS1054z that has USB & Ethernet connectivity.

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 12:14:31 am
content: With thishttp://www.ebay.ca/itm/Slim-Floppy-drive-Emulator-Lecroy-Oscilloscopes-and-Tektronix-TDS3014b-/291291990999?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43d25b0bd7Having drivers at both ends is problematic.

author: BlueBill
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 01:42:15 am
content: Which Tek scope are you upgrading?

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 01:45:29 am
content: Quote from: BlueBill on March 11, 2015, 01:42:15 am"Posted during the new post. TDS 420A 430A 460A 320A 520A ETC"

author: Monittosan
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 06:16:00 am
content: Hi malch any reason why you can't use a GPIB to usb controller ?

author: malch
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2015, 04:05:26 pm
content: I wanted to know how to re-purpose the floppy drives in TEK, HP, and Lecroy scopes.Not so much full control but saving rolling waveforms and the like.