Turn your Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope into a 100MHz DS1102E

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 01:50:02 +0200, "fritz" <yaputya@microsoft.com>
wrote:

>
>"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message 
>news:sgh7r5583nq4rmkvd7caen4itfp13uqco4@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:07:27 +0200, "fritz" <yaputya@microsoft.com>
>> wrote:
>...
>>>
>>>Fuck the lawyers ! They are the leeches of the world. And although you
>>>ain't one, you seem to aspire to be one by your subservient attitude.
>>>All this crap about 'software licensing' is lawyer talk. If I buy a 
>>>product
>>>(software or hardware) I own the fucking thing and I can do what I want
>>>with it as long as I don't sell it to anyone else.
>>
>> You generally have a legal right to sell it to someone else, at least
>> in the US. You may not in europe.
>
>I thought it was obvious to anyone that I meant you cannot modify it and
>falsely represent it for resale.
>You admit you are not a lawyer, but you still react like one.
>
>>>Take a step back from your silly posturing and consider the following...
>>>How is anyone going to find out what you have done to your own
>>>'scope in the privacy of your home ? Can you see Rigol getting
>>>search warrants to invade their customer's homes ???
>>>
>>
>> Once a scope is in my posession, converting it to 100 MHz does Rigol
>> no economic harm. Dave's posting detailed hacking directions to the
>> world does them real harm, and they may have legal recourse.
>
>Crap.
>If you have already bought one, the hack is an irrelevant but pleasant 
>bonus.

But if you don't have one, and buy the cheaper one instead of the 100
MHz, because you know you can hack it, Rigol loses revenue. Dave has
made this possible.

>If you haven't bought one already, you will have to act quickly to get an 
>'old'
>one as Rigol have already blocked the simple port hack that David repeated.

Good. That will limit the damage. Of course, it cost them something to
spin the firmware. I'm sure they'll be a lot more careful in the
future.

John

John Larkin wrote:

>> Crap.
>> If you have already bought one, the hack is an irrelevant but pleasant 
>> bonus.

> But if you don't have one, and buy the cheaper one instead of the 100
> MHz, because you know you can hack it, Rigol loses revenue. Dave has
> made this possible.

 This correct.  Their aim was to sell to one particular market, and
cut-price a lower speced product that would cater for the part of the
market that would not have bought it otherwise.

 Not only is there nothing wrong with this, it's normal marketing practice.

 The special case here, is Rigol has opted for down-specing an existing
product, to be sold cheaper.  Not only that, they've made it obscenely
easy to do it.

>> If you haven't bought one already, you will have to act quickly to get an 
>> 'old'
>> one as Rigol have already blocked the simple port hack that David repeated.

> Good. That will limit the damage. Of course, it cost them something to
> spin the firmware.

 Boo hoo.  They should have done this in the first place.  More so,
which market did they *THINK* they were selling to?   It's a scope for
christ's sake.  The people using it are possibly the most trained,
geared-up and have incentive to do it.

> I'm sure they'll be a lot more careful in the future.

 Or less stupid as the case may be.

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message 
news:26i7r5t2l5ji2cra7k6r6cl0guvi5h2u0q@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:25:04 GMT, Swanny <swanny@nospam.org> wrote:
>
>>John Larkin wrote:
>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>> <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>>
>>>> Dave.
>>>
>>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>>> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>>>
>>
>>So are all the overclockers in the USA in jail for depriving Intel of
>>revenue by not buying a higher grade CPU for more $?
>
> No. Overclocking is not illegal.
>
> John
>
But neither is hacking your own bought 50MHz scope. I can't see how your 
views are consistent here.

Mark. 

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message 
news:coo7r51146o86lfnhfputfeom9iiqk997p@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 01:50:02 +0200, "fritz" <yaputya@microsoft.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in 
>>message
>>news:sgh7r5583nq4rmkvd7caen4itfp13uqco4@4ax.com...
>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:07:27 +0200, "fritz" <yaputya@microsoft.com>
>>> wrote:
>>...
>>>>
>>>>Fuck the lawyers ! They are the leeches of the world. And although you
>>>>ain't one, you seem to aspire to be one by your subservient attitude.
>>>>All this crap about 'software licensing' is lawyer talk. If I buy a
>>>>product
>>>>(software or hardware) I own the fucking thing and I can do what I want
>>>>with it as long as I don't sell it to anyone else.
>>>
>>> You generally have a legal right to sell it to someone else, at least
>>> in the US. You may not in europe.
>>
>>I thought it was obvious to anyone that I meant you cannot modify it and
>>falsely represent it for resale.
>>You admit you are not a lawyer, but you still react like one.
>>
>>>>Take a step back from your silly posturing and consider the following...
>>>>How is anyone going to find out what you have done to your own
>>>>'scope in the privacy of your home ? Can you see Rigol getting
>>>>search warrants to invade their customer's homes ???
>>>>
>>>
>>> Once a scope is in my posession, converting it to 100 MHz does Rigol
>>> no economic harm. Dave's posting detailed hacking directions to the
>>> world does them real harm, and they may have legal recourse.
>>
>>Crap.
>>If you have already bought one, the hack is an irrelevant but pleasant
>>bonus.
>
> But if you don't have one, and buy the cheaper one instead of the 100
> MHz, because you know you can hack it, Rigol loses revenue. Dave has
> made this possible.

But you don't know you've got a reliable 100MHz scope at the end of it 
unless you buy the actual 100MHz version! As you say, they may well have 
sampled them and bets are off as to accuracy. All you've really got is a 
modified 50MHz variant that *may* be accurate. You'd need to calibrate it, 
even then no guarantees it won't drift.

>
>>If you haven't bought one already, you will have to act quickly to get an
>>'old'
>>one as Rigol have already blocked the simple port hack that David 
>>repeated.
>
> Good. That will limit the damage. Of course, it cost them something to
> spin the firmware. I'm sure they'll be a lot more careful in the
> future.
>
> John

They'll have to spin the hardware too apparently. That'll cost them a bit 
more and take longer for the old ones to filter out.

Mark. 

<...>
> And it's easily possible that Rigol saves a boatload of money by having 
> only one assembly number to design, code, build, and test.  Remember that 
> (as Dave discovered earlier) they're actually overclocking the ADCs on the 
> 100 MHz model--so one can argue it's really a 50 MHz scope that Rigol 
> themselves hacked into a 100 MHz one.
>

And this is where John's logic really does break down as said in another 
post. By John's logic Rigol have deprived the ADC makers of revenue by 
buying lower specified ADCs and clocking them faster than they are rated. 
John argues that this is OK because it's not illegal. But the thrust of his 
argument is that somehow hacking a 50MHz scope 'deprives' Rigol of revenue, 
and since hacking per se is not illegal  this simply amounts to a moral 
argument that it is somehow wrong. If that is the case then so is 
overclocking ADCs. If it is OK to overclock an ADC, why is it not OK for a 
user who has bought a 50MHz version to privately 'overclock' it to 100MHz by 
making a firmware tweek or hardware mod? In both cases the results are not 
guaranteed anyway.

Mark.

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:7REsn.21709$iu2.15075@newsfe15.iad...
> Nial Stewart wrote:
>>> It's also very dishonest and goes to show why humanity will never
>>> make it very far. People like Larkin are too arrogant to understand
>>> this. Do you think people would buy their products if they knew that
>>> the only difference between the low end and high end versions is the
>>> price....
>>
>> ...and access to extended functionality that someone's had to be paid
>> to develop?
>
> In this case Rigol actually went to the trouble to design-in circuitry to 
> enable this 50MHz "cripple" feature. The front end was clearly designed 
> from day one to be at least 100MHz bandwidth, and they then decided to 
> dumb it down to meet a lower end market and price point by adding the 
> cripple feature.
> So George is essentially right, the only effective difference is the 
> price.

They could as has been pointed out do sampling, some may fall below the 
100MHz threshold and are destined to become 50MHz versions. There is no real 
guarantee that a 50MHz scope when hacked will perform as well as a bought 
100MHz scope. But that's the risk the end user takes in carrying out the 
mod.

>
>>> At the very least they could have added some true functional
>>> improvement that made it justifiable but simply changing the model
>>> number....
>>
>> ...and access to further functionality that someone's had to be paid
>> to develop....
>
> The only extra functionality is being able to go to 2ns timebase instead 
> of 5ns, everything else is identical. A couple of lines of code?
>
> Any extra design effort that has gone into this product all went in to 
> designing the cripple feature to dumb it down!
>
>>>  doesn't justify a 40% price increase.
>>
>> By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs
>> of the DVD when they sell Windows7.
>
> A completely silly analogy.
>
> Dave.

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message 
news:41e5r5lufg6o9dkttqtgjiaarsd18jpjb6@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
> <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>
>>Dave.
>
> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>

Is buying a piece of equipment and modifying it yourself to use yourself 
without trying to profit from it at all a criminal act in the USA? Does that 
mean you can't put go faster stripes on your car if the manufacturer had a 
version that had a similar product? Remember there are no warranties with 
such a modified product, usually the disclaimer states any modification or 
tampering simply voids the warranty. As long as you don't directly profit 
from that modification e.g. by selling them on I can't see the problem.

Software is another issue. With software you have a license to use not 
necessarily to own, and there may well be clauses that prohibit reverse 
engineering or using multiple installs, but these are clauses in a contract 
that are clearly stated at the time of purchase. Not so when buying things 
like scopes on eBay.

> I have some sympathy for Rigol here. Many of our products have an
> option that can be enabled in firmware, and that we charge for. We put
> a lot of engineering effort into the firmware, and need to be paid for
> it. If buyers of my gear can order the cheaper one and make it into
> the expensive one, by copying an EPROM maybe, or setting a bit in
> flash somewhere, I can't recover the cost of the feature. The act is
> arguably legal theft. It's certainly moral theft.
>
> Products are increasingly IP and less hardware these days, and the IP
> is expensive.
>
> Of course, Rigol made it too easy. They will probably go back and make
> it harder to do, and that will make the scope cost more in both
> versions.

I say! Sending encrypted packets over serial would be a good start. Also 
don't allow a simple hardware mod to allow switching between modes by 
bypassing any firmware change would be another. These are pretty basic 
mistakes, the only result is a potential hack and loss of revenue by not 
selling as many 100MHz versions. BTW this doesn't mean the users that have 
done this mod have deprived Rigol at all, they are now using a device that 
is now out of warranty and, more importantly,  has no guarantee of 
performance. As long as they don't directly profit from that by reselling 
and claiming 100MHz operation I can't see how they have deprived anyone.

>
> I recently got a 1052E, and it's a pretty nice scope. The digital
> filtering is not perfect, but it's sure cute. It has way more goodies
> than a comparable Tek for under half the price. I'll probably get a
> few more.
>
> John
> 

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 01:38:08 +0100, "markp" <map.nospam@f2s.com> wrote:

>
>"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message 
>news:26i7r5t2l5ji2cra7k6r6cl0guvi5h2u0q@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:25:04 GMT, Swanny <swanny@nospam.org> wrote:
>>
>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>>> <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into a
>>>>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave.
>>>>
>>>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>>>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>>>> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>>>>
>>>
>>>So are all the overclockers in the USA in jail for depriving Intel of
>>>revenue by not buying a higher grade CPU for more $?
>>
>> No. Overclocking is not illegal.
>>
>> John
>>
>But neither is hacking your own bought 50MHz scope. I can't see how your 
>views are consistent here.

I'm not talking about "my views", I'm talking about the law. The US
has a rather draconian anti-hack law, DCMA, and Dave et al may have
conspired to violate it. Of course, he doesn't live here.

My view is that it was a tasteless thing to do.

John

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message 
news:nku7r5tgj010iq3r1l7roo0l8hjsl99a25@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 01:38:08 +0100, "markp" <map.nospam@f2s.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in 
>>message
>>news:26i7r5t2l5ji2cra7k6r6cl0guvi5h2u0q@4ax.com...
>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:25:04 GMT, Swanny <swanny@nospam.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>>John Larkin wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>>>> <altzone@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> For those with a Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, you can now turn it into 
>>>>>> a
>>>>>> 100MHz DS1102E with just a serial cable:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnhXfVYWYXE
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dave.
>>>>>
>>>>> What you have done is possibly a criminal act in the USA, using a
>>>>> computer to deprive Rigol of revenue. In the US, "using a computer" to
>>>>> perform an act can be a much more severe crime than the act itself.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>So are all the overclockers in the USA in jail for depriving Intel of
>>>>revenue by not buying a higher grade CPU for more $?
>>>
>>> No. Overclocking is not illegal.
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>But neither is hacking your own bought 50MHz scope. I can't see how your
>>views are consistent here.
>
> I'm not talking about "my views", I'm talking about the law. The US
> has a rather draconian anti-hack law, DCMA, and Dave et al may have
> conspired to violate it. Of course, he doesn't live here.
>
> My view is that it was a tasteless thing to do.
>
> John

The key word is *may*. I don't believe any law has been broken because in 
reality anyone who mods something would not be breaking the law as such 
unless the reason is to defraud. However, what they get after the hack is 
not guaranteed to work. It's an unofficial hack, no guarantees it'll be 
stable or anything else. Furthermore if no EULA is signed, no agreement is 
made not to modify or reverse engineer for personal use, no attempt is made 
to sell or pass it off as a 100MHz scope, there can be no attempt to 
defraud. They are not doing anything but using the hardware they were sold 
and running it 'out of spec', and for no financial gain. The argument comes 
down to you thinking this is 'tasteless'. But presumably you think that 
overclocking ADCs beyond their rated spec, not buying proper rated parts and 
flogging that as a guaranteed working product is OK because that's 'not 
illegal'? I find your position somewhat un-tenable.

Mark. 

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:21:21 -0700, Muzaffer Kal wrote:

> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:44:14 +0100, "Nial Stewart"
> <nial*REMOVE_THIS*@nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>>I was going to type out a lengthy reply but you're obviously not open to
>>reasoned debate.
>>
>>Would you accuse AMD of 'outright theft' for selling 4 core processors
>>as 3 core processors?
>>
>>http://www.guru3d.com/news/phenom-ii-x3--enable-the-4th-core/
>>
>>
> The difference there is that you don't have access to AMD's
> verification/test suite which shows some of the functionality on one of
> the cores as broken so it would be marked as bad and disabled. It is
> certainly the same die as the 4 core processor but it may not have
> passed all the tests.

AFAIK, this is what CASIO did with their calculators.