Turn your Rigol DS1052E Oscilloscope into a 100MHz DS1102E

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:44:36 +0200, oopere <me@somewhere.net> wrote:

>David L. Jones 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.
>> 
>
>You can also upgrade high end Agilent scopes buying the "feature" you 
>want, which turns out to be just a string of characters to be typed 
>somewhere. It is funny to know that you already own the required 
>hardware to go several GHz further! Now _that_ would be interesting to post!
>
>Pere

I don't have a problem with charging for extra functions which involve extra software, but when you
have to pay to enable hardware you already own it feels like a rip-off, like Agilent charging to
allow you to use memory you already bought by selling a ' memory upgrade license'.

What is even more ridiculous in Agilent's case is that the upgrade purchase involves them fedexing a
certificate with the unlock code on it..
 

Phil Allison wrote:

>> Where is the deception?

> In the FACT that the 100MHz version is  NOT actually a different model 
> but sells with a very significant price hike -  like 40%.

> If they told buyers  THAT  simple truth they would not have any sales.

 Oddly enough, this technique is quite frequent, though, the selling
technique is more transparent, unlike Rigol who intentionally obscures
the similarities.



 One that comes to mind are multi-processor mainframe computers that are
sold fully kitted out, but only enable the number of processors the
customer pays for.

 The idea is, you have the entire box delivered, you *know* it's the
fully populated box, you call them and say you want x processors
enabled, and you pay accordingly.  They connect remotely, and using
complex encrypted communications, your box is reconfigured:  Almost
instantly you have the performance you paid for.

 There is a risk to the vendor, who forks out for the entire box and
have clients who never pay for all of it.  But it's not all bad, this
results in possible lock-in (depending on product) guaranteeing further
income from clients that would have considered moving in the future, AND
it gets YOUR brand name out there in the market, which is always good news.



 Likewise, where I used to work, when questioned about the quite
significant price difference between our lower-speced and higher-speced
acoustic products.  We tell the client the control circuitry is
*exactly* the same, and the difference is in the cost of the microphone,
and show them the price list in case they were interested.
 If they wanted to upgrade (or downgrade), just swap microphones, make
relevant adjustments, and re-calibrate the instrument, and that's it.
 The entire process was transparent.



 How is this different from the Rigol situation?  Three points:

 Firstly, they have ADDED circuitry to hinder native performance, verses
include, or enable circuitry (or firmware/software) to improve performance.

 Secondly, they've intentionally obscured this fact (exact same hardware
and firmware), by making it look like two different products.

 And lastly, possibly worst of all, they've made it this easy to hack.

David L. Jones Inscribed thus:

> 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.
 
Priceless.  ;-)

-- 
Best Regards:
                Baron.

"Nial Stewart" <nial*REMOVE_THIS*@nialstewartdevelopments.co.uk> wrote in 
message news:81gnlpFsriU1@mid.individual.net...
> "Phul (of it) Allinson"
>
>>> It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
>>> optimise their profits.
>>
>> Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of 
>> criminal fraud.
>
> Fair enough, I agree completely with this statement.
>
> If you pay for a scope they say has 50MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
> that has a 50MHz bandwidth?
>
> If you pay for a scope they say has 100MHz bandwidth, they deliver a scope
> that has a 100MHz bandwidth?
>
> Where is the deception?


Are you really that ignorant? So I create a 100Mhz scope and sale it for X 
dollars as a 100Mhz scope. I then slap a new sticker on the 100Mhz scope and 
call it a 50Mhz scope and sale it for Y dollars.

Now, if my profit margins for the 100Mhz scope was not that high then how 
could I make profit on the "new" 50Mhz scope? Either they jacked up the 
profit margin significantly to be able to do this trick or they are making 
virtually no profit on the 50Mhz scope.

BUT! If they are making no profit on the 50Mhz scope then why not just 
reduce the price of the 100Mhz scope in the first place?

They are exactly trying to simply get into a market that the 100Mhz scope 
can't because of it's higher price. They can lower the price, pretend it's a 
crappier version and then increase their market size for three reasons. 
Those that can't and never will buy the 100Mhz version but will buy the 
50Mhz and those that are lured in by the 50Mhz version and decide "I might 
as well get the 100Mhz version since it's just a "little more"". Also those 
that buy the 50Mhz version may decide to buy the more powerful one as an 
"upgrade"... which in fact there is no real upgrade involved.

The dishonesty is in the tactics they use and tells you a lot about what 
they think of their customers. This, of course, is not a new trick.

The dishonesty part is equivalent to lying. If you called them and asked 
them about it do you really think they will tell you they are exactly the 
same hardware with just a firmware change to cripple the cheaper version?

You can hide behind the cloak of capitalism all you want but this is not 
capitalism but outright theft.

How do we know you are wrong and I'm right? Very easily... call up rigol and 
ask them about the difference between the models. If they are honest they 
will tell you there is only a firmware difference. If they are dishonest 
they will make up something that we already know is false. The street name 
for this kinda shit is lying. You may be confused by the big word dishonesty 
but maybe one day you'll figure it out.

Of course this is not necessarily criminal but is walking the fine line. An 
ethical company would not implement such practices. I don't know about 
you(well, I guess I do) but I'd rather do business with a company that isn't 
out to screw me. 

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:30:26 +0100, Nial Stewart wrote:

> By your logic Microsoft should only be charging $0.50 for the costs of
> the DVD when they sell Windows7.

Is it worth that much?

On 3/31/2010 12:46 AM, miso@sushi.com wrote:
> On Mar 30, 8:03 pm, John Larkin
> <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com>  wrote:
>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>
>> <altz...@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.
>>
>> 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 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
>
> The design cost  is amortized over all the units. [Hey, don't worry
> what the consults charges, it will go to zero as we sell a million
> units.]
>
> Rigol does themselves a disservice by having to maintain two
> products.  They should just sell the higher speed scope, bomb the
> market, and then own it.


Destroying a market isn't usually a good way to make money in the long 
run.

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.

Companies have been selling crippleware forever--the earliest example I 
know of was the 6 MHz IBM PC-AT.  You changed the crystal and one other 
thing that I forget, and suddenly you had a blistering fast 8 MHz AT! 
(Cooler than the coolest thing ever, no?)  There were similar howls of 
outrage over that one.


The moral question is actually an interesting one, I think, and the 
different views seem to hinge on what people think they're buying, and 
whether a hardware/software combination is more like hardware (which you 
can hack up as you like) or software (which has a license agreement 
you're bound by).

I don't think it's tenable to say that Rigol is dishonest when they sell 
two models that differ only in firmware, and the difference in the front 
ends.  For instance, nobody thinks it's morally repugnant for Intel to 
sell different speed grades of microprocessor which actually come from 
the same wafer, right?  That's because we fantasize that the slow-spec 
ones all failed at speed sort--which is far from true, because otherwise 
the available supply of the slow version would evaporate as the process 
improved.  Still, no big outrage there--overclockers can have fun, the 
rest of us ignore the issue.

We also don't mind Microsoft selling a 60 cent DVD full of software, 
because that's what we expect.  (Some of us grumble, but nearly everyone 
is willing to pay.)

It's where these hardware/software chimaeras come in that we don't have 
an agreed model for what is fair and what isn't.

I'm not meaning to be a Dutch uncle here--I don't think I know the full 
answer myself--but it's an interesting question.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs









-- 
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
ElectroOptical Innovations
55 Orchard Rd
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058
hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

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/



Nial 

"Naive Fuckwit Stewart Pommy Shit "


 " Hmmm, Rigol is the dishonest party here. "


>>> It's their design, they can market and sell it whatever way they want to
>>> optimise their profits.


**  Shame that if they told buyers the truth they would not get away with
it.

Obtaining financial benefit by deception is the very definition of criminal
fraud.

> Where is the deception?


** In the FACT that the 100MHz version is  NOT actually a different model
but sells with a very significant price hike -  like 40%.

If they told buyers  THAT  simple truth they would not have any sales.

FUCKWIT  !!!!!!!!!!!



>>> Dishonesty would be promising 100MHz performance then delivering 50MHz 
>>> performance
>>> with a demand for more money to get to 100MHz.
>>
>> ** Nope  -   that would be blatant example of extortion.
>
> Perhaps a better example would be promising a scope with 100MHz bandwidth
> then delivering 50MHz bandwidth.


**  Standard example of consumer fraud - ie obtaining a financial benefit
( ie product sales ) by a deception.

 YOU  FUCKWIT   POMMY  MORON  !!!


> I'll leave the dickhead judgement to my friends.


** ROTFLMAO  !!

This trolling pommy cunthead's only " friends"  have four legs
 and go:  " hee haw -  hee haw  - hee haw   "  !!!!!!




....  Phil

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 03:02:13 -0500, "George Jefferson"
<George@Jefferson.com> wrote:

>
>
><miso@sushi.com> wrote in message 
>news:0abfe648-de60-42c3-ab53-0c0bd4dc5497@z11g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
>> On Mar 30, 8:03 pm, John Larkin
>> <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>>
>>> <altz...@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.
>>>
>>> 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 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
>>
>> The design cost  is amortized over all the units. [Hey, don't worry
>> what the consults charges, it will go to zero as we sell a million
>> units.]
>>
>> Rigol does themselves a disservice by having to maintain two
>> products.  They should just sell the higher speed scope, bomb the
>> market, and then own it.
>
>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? At the very least 
>they could have added some true functional improvement that made it 
>justifiable but simply changing the model number doesn't justify a 40% price 
>increase. 

People buy the standard and Pro versions of Windows knowing the only
difference is a few flags. Windows consumer versions are brain-damaged
to allow only a small number of network connections at a time, and
cost almost nothing bundled with a PC. Windows Server removes the
limit and costs about $2K.

I'm sure that all sorts of expensive automotive options are just
firmware these days. All sorts of products differ only in theor
firmware. 

It's Rigol's choice how to price their products and amortize their
engineering. Buying their 50 MHz scope and hacking it, and gleefully
telling the world how to do it, it is essentially vandalism. Legally,
it may be criminal conspiracy to use a computer to commit a crime.

Jones is perfectly capable of estimating the considerable economic
damage he is doing to Rigol. I suppose he hates Rigol enough that he's
happy about it.

If you spent years writing a book or some software, would you be happy
if people copied it and distributed it for free, cutting off your
rotalties? After all, copies cost almost nothing. Now can you justify
charging $20 for a book or $500 for a program when it costs pennies to
manufacture copies?

John

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:38:34 -0400, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

>On 3/31/2010 12:46 AM, miso@sushi.com wrote:
>> On Mar 30, 8:03 pm, John Larkin
>> <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com>  wrote:
>>> On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:29:12 +1100, "David L. Jones"
>>>
>>> <altz...@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.
>>>
>>> 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 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
>>
>> The design cost  is amortized over all the units. [Hey, don't worry
>> what the consults charges, it will go to zero as we sell a million
>> units.]
>>
>> Rigol does themselves a disservice by having to maintain two
>> products.  They should just sell the higher speed scope, bomb the
>> market, and then own it.
>
>
>Destroying a market isn't usually a good way to make money in the long 
>run.
>
>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.

Rigol may well be culling assembled scopes, picking the best ones to
sell as the 100 MHz versions.

>
>Companies have been selling crippleware forever--the earliest example I 
>know of was the 6 MHz IBM PC-AT.  You changed the crystal and one other 
>thing that I forget, and suddenly you had a blistering fast 8 MHz AT! 
>(Cooler than the coolest thing ever, no?)  There were similar howls of 
>outrage over that one.

The IBM 1401 has about a dozen cards that slowed it down, things like
homing disk heads on every seek. A 1410 cost more and didn't have this
stuff.

>
>
>The moral question is actually an interesting one, I think, and the 
>different views seem to hinge on what people think they're buying, and 
>whether a hardware/software combination is more like hardware (which you 
>can hack up as you like) or software (which has a license agreement 
>you're bound by).
>
>I don't think it's tenable to say that Rigol is dishonest when they sell 
>two models that differ only in firmware, and the difference in the front 
>ends.  For instance, nobody thinks it's morally repugnant for Intel to 
>sell different speed grades of microprocessor which actually come from 
>the same wafer, right?  That's because we fantasize that the slow-spec 
>ones all failed at speed sort--which is far from true, because otherwise 
>the available supply of the slow version would evaporate as the process 
>improved.  Still, no big outrage there--overclockers can have fun, the 
>rest of us ignore the issue.
>
>We also don't mind Microsoft selling a 60 cent DVD full of software, 
>because that's what we expect.  (Some of us grumble, but nearly everyone 
>is willing to pay.)
>
>It's where these hardware/software chimaeras come in that we don't have 
>an agreed model for what is fair and what isn't.
>
>I'm not meaning to be a Dutch uncle here--I don't think I know the full 
>answer myself--but it's an interesting question.

Yes. What's a fair price for IP that costs nothing to manufacture?

John