What operating system is that oscilloscope running? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: GiskardReventlov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2014, 01:35:22 am
content: I never thought much about this until I started looking into getting a scope. I've looked at the rigol thread and it looks like they're running linux of some kind. And I saw a tektronix on sale that had winXP logo on the screen. Does anyone know what the predominant OS is for scopes? I'm not interested in an OS war, just curious to know which vendors run which OS.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2014, 01:59:15 am
content: Its a bit of a mixCheap scopes sometimes don't use an OS at all, or use a realtime linux/BSD based OSMore expensive scopes sometimes use WinCE or WinXP embedded.You don't see that on the cheap ones because of the licencing fees.

author: Nerull
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2014, 03:04:00 am
content: The super high end agilent scopes run windows - XP on some models and the half million $ 96204 looks to be running windows 7 and even has a desktop.

author: Alphatronique
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2014, 03:42:06 am
content: HImost Tektronik scope TDS serie run VxWorkfor Sure all the TDS 5xx and 7xx ,7xxx and probably the newer version toVxWork was very popular on thing like this for one that may paid the license since it not cheap

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2014, 06:22:38 am
content: agilent 2000 3000 4000 serie : WinCEAgilent 6000 7000 series : VxWorksAll 'big iron' from Agilent : WinXp or win7

author: Steffen
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2014, 10:47:40 am
content: I recently purchased a Tektronix MSO5054B for the company I work for. It runs Win 7 Ultimate 64bits. Surprisingly Windows boots up within seconds from that 500GB SSD inside where the Tektronix Scope application takes ages to load.

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2014, 10:54:31 am
content: I wrote Hameg and asked, all they would say is not Windows based.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2014, 11:03:38 am
content: Quote from: Steffen on February 02, 2014, 10:47:40 amMost likely its using HORM (hibernate once, resume many)You can get crazy boot times with that.

author: electronics man
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2014, 11:22:02 am
content: Do the rigol scopes run any operating system

author: dr.diesel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2014, 11:23:03 am
content: Quote from: electronics man on February 02, 2014, 11:22:02 amA Linux variant.

author: w2aew
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 02, 2014, 04:23:44 pm
content: Tek DPO/MSO 2000, 3000, 4000 run LinuxTek DPO/MSO 5000, 7000, 70000 run Win7 Ultimate.

author: ve7xen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2014, 01:28:32 am
content: Quote from: dr.diesel on February 02, 2014, 11:23:03 amI'm pretty sure it's not Linux. It appears to be some sort of RTOS. I think someone figured out what it was in the Rigol hacking thread, but I'm not going to go digging for the details now.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2014, 07:33:44 am
content: you can create an embedded windows install. there is a tool for that. that is what agilent uses. it strips all the crap , autodetect and other things from windows.you do an install once with all hardware in place and then lock it down. during boot there is no dynamic searching , no poking around to see if new hardware was installed , no waiting for driver update checks. load and run. such a system boots VERY fast.some machines use deepfreeze.

author: GiskardReventlov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2014, 10:28:19 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on February 03, 2014, 07:33:44 amThis is good to know, I admit when I saw the tektronix with winxp and a floppy drive I immediatley thought about a virus/trojan, etc.That could really ruin the day on a scope.QuoteThat searching and poking around was exploited many times on PCs I recall.

author: GiskardReventlov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2014, 10:32:32 pm
content: Quote from: ve7xen on February 03, 2014, 01:28:32 amI thought I saw something about linux on that thread. But I didn't read it all of course. Probably a safe bet that it's not vxworks or windows. Still leaves a lot of possibilities. Could make some educated guesses knowing what chip it runs.

author: ve7xen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2014, 02:27:12 am
content: Quote from: GiskardReventlov on February 03, 2014, 10:32:32 pmIt's an AD BlackFin. Linux can run on these, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Here are cybernet's comments from the hacking thread:QuoteVDK is VisualDSP, which is Analog's development environment for Blackfin. Rest is probably homebrew. The newer cheaper instruments (1074Z, DSAs, etc.) aren't BlackFin anymore though (moved to i.MX), so may use a different OS, which could certainly be Linux, and I haven't been following investigations on that front.

author: GiskardReventlov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2014, 04:05:27 am
content: @ve7xenAmazing to think that the end user can add or possibly change functionality. That should be a selling point but maybe they don't really want people making changes!I think the i.MX is ARM and there have been lots of ARM changes going into the linux kernel lately.

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2014, 04:55:33 am
content: Quote from: GiskardReventlov on February 04, 2014, 04:05:27 amI can just see it now - getting a high end scope with lots of CPU, so I can run SimCity on part of the screen, and play video poker while I wait for the scope to trigger.

author: Alphatronique
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2014, 03:12:25 am
content: Hi in scope i see WIN os run from ram image at boot it copy from disk to ram-drive then launch os from the imageso if you power off or pull the plug it not croup the os and at each boot it clean ..it may use another partition for same data and setting that need to remain

author: GiskardReventlov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2014, 04:32:20 am
content: Quote from: Alphatronique on February 06, 2014, 03:12:25 amWhich scope are you using. Does the scope had a regular hard disk? It seems like that would be really noisy to have inside your scope. Or SSD?So if the SSD (or HDD) is read-only then there would never be unwritten data but you can still lose data.

author: calexanian
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2014, 05:13:03 am
content: I wonder if one can boot off the USB port puppy linux.. How much ram do these scopes have? puppy can squeeze itself and run on less than half a gig. It would be fun to have somebody write a hacked OS for a scope platform to do all the fun junk we want to do.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2014, 05:24:47 am
content: http://rigol.codenaschen.de/index.php/Main_Page

author: GiskardReventlov
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 06, 2014, 08:17:34 pm
content: Quote from: calexanian on February 06, 2014, 05:13:03 amThere are some small distros around that run in much, much less. Busybox, aboriginalinux, DSL. All these can run in 50 megabytes or so. I guess I would try thme only if I'm ok with bricking the scope.