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From: Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design,sci.electronics.repair
Subject: Re: Favourite Test Equipment
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2024 09:19:54 -0000 (UTC)
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Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com> wrote:
> On 6 Apr 2024 22:05:35 GMT, Roger Hayter <roger@hayter.org> wrote:
> 
>> On 6 Apr 2024 at 21:39:25 BST, "Cursitor Doom" <cd@notformail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Fri, 05 Apr 2024 19:37:27 -0700, John Larkin <jl@997PotHill.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 00:35:46 +0200, Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund
>>>> <klauskvik@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On 05-04-2024 23:22, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>> On Fri, 5 Apr 2024 16:26:49 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 4/5/2024 3:49 AM, Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>>>>>>> On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex
>>>>>>>> <user@example.net> wrote in <660ed343$0$1258343$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com>:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> <https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Nice, real components...
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> $50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> mm 50 dollars,
>>>>>>>> even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
>>>>>>>> buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 555 timer works fine too
>>>>>>>> Or use sox in Linux for all sort of audio, including sweeps:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/howto-sox-audio-tool-as-a-signal-generator.4242/
>>>>>>>> or just use a Raspberry Pi as signal generator:
>>>>>>>> https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/newsflex/download.html#freq_pi
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I love my beat-up old unit on my bench.  Timing and levels are
>>>>>> brutally quantitative.
>>>>>> 
>>>>> I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
>>>>> forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
>>>>> hours work :-)
>>>>> 
>>>>> https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html
>>>>> 
>>>>> EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...
>>>> 
>>>> We bought a few Rigol 300 MHz 4-chan scopes and insisted that they
>>>> throw in the 500 MHz upgrade.
>>>> 
>>>> I remember when FFT was an extra-cost feature. Now it's free.
>>> 
>>> Excuse me for being a bit slow on the uptake here, but it seems to me
>>> that there are a *lot* of products which are fundamentally all
>>> manufactured to the same spec - but then deliberately crippled unless
>>> you pay some sort of ransom to have them 'unlocked' as it were. Would
>>> that be correct or am I being too cynical?
>> 
>> No, but is differentiating products on softwar supplies any different from
>> differentiating them on hardware?  Cheap ones simply wouldn't be available to
>> hobbyists if they had to sell them all as top of the range, where they make
>> the money for the effort to make a high bandwidth scope.  There is also the
>> advantage that they can perhaps be hacked by well-informed hobbyists, but most
>> commercial buyers wouldn't be happy doing that for one or another reason.
> 
> AFAIC, it *does* matter if the limitations are in hardware or
> software. In the case of scopes for example, good  bandwidth don't
> come cheap! So if you're going to go to the expense of developing high
> bandwidth capability it just seems like self-mutilation to cripple all
> that hard work to produce an inferior product.
> 

Depends. 

The value of a thing is what a willing buyer will pay for it in a free and
stable market. (*) That has only an oblique connection with the BOM and
engineering costs. 

Then there are economies of scale. Parts get cheaper when you buy more of
them, so if you build only your high-end model, the total BOM cost may well
go down. Certainly the cost of engineering, testing, and inventory will go
down. 

Keeping inventory of finished goods down also reduces business risk and tax
liability, because most companies have to pay taxes as though it was
already sold. (There are probably tax advantages to keeping inventory of
nearly-finished goods instead.)

So there are lots of reasons to sell what some customers might regard as
crippleware.  

That being said, I don’t think it immoral for folks to figure out how to
unlock the other features.  It’s not that hard to prevent, if you really
care to. 

Cheers 

Phil Hobbs 

 (*) Yes, there are issues with the time-dependence of actual markets, but
then honesty and fair dealing are themselves valuable.)



-- 
Dr Philip C D Hobbs  Principal Consultant  ElectroOptical Innovations LLC /
Hobbs ElectroOptics  Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics