12 Jun
2015
12 Jun
'15
2:03 p.m.
Hi Tony,
I don't mean to throw shade on your HP 1630 or your K100 ... just in my own
personal opinion, when I see a HP 1630 on eBay for $100 or a HP 1660 on
eBay for $100 ... and you see this all the time ... I think going with the
1660 is the better deal ... you do make a good point about schematics and
repairability ... and hack-ability ... there are plenty of very exotic
looking components ... especially on the acquisition cards ... on the newer
machines that I'm sure are basically impossible to repair.
I just try to manage that risk by keeping as many spare cards on hand as I
can get for the 16500 series, and I've always got the 1662 standing by in
case something happened to it ... honestly, when you can get a HP 166x for
$100, unless you enjoy the sport of troubleshooting and repair in and of
itself (and I do so sometimes myself) is it really worth sinking much time
and effort into repairing a 1630 series, or a K100?
I just want folks to be aware ... people might not necessarily realize,
what their money will get them; I'd hate for someone to shell out for a
1630 when they could have gotten a 166x or 167x for the same price... That
almost happened to me when I was shopping around and I would have regretted
it. I'm glad I did the a little bit more background research beforehand...
No intrinsic dislike for the classic instruments; if you got em, use em! :O
Best,
Sean
On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 4:52 PM, tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
* The HP 16500B and 16500C use a different
'030 based logic board and
also
[...]
* Generally anything the "C" can do,
the "B" can do and vice versa. The
big
difference between the two is that they switched
from HP-HIL peripherals
on
the "B" to standard PS/2 peripherals on
the "C", if you want to connect
an
external keyboard and mouse to use in lieu of or
in conjunction with the
touch screen; depending on what you have in your stash ... I happened to
have a bunch of HIL mice and a HIL keyboard so HP-HIL on the "B" doesn't
bug me.
I don't know if it works on these instruments, but there was an interface
to
use a quadrature mouse on an HP-HIL system.
* IMO, the HP 1630 series and the Biomation K100
are pretty obsolescent
and
... unless you already have one, or someone local
to you is giving you
one... I don't think they're really worth the cost of shipping unless you
have some nostalgic attachment to a particular instrument.
As somebody who has both and uses them (and has no later analysers), I have
to disagree with you there. After all the OP was asking for the 'Tek 465
of logic
analysers' which suggests not the latest instruments. The HP1630 and Gould
K100D
are easily fast enough for classic computer work (I've never had
problems). They
also seem to be a lot better documented than later analysers (can you get
schematics of later HPs? I seem to remember they are not in the manuals).
The
probe interface is also documented and quite simple. While I recomend only
getting a LA with the original pods, the ability to make custom pods has
helped
me on several occasions. The inputs to both those LAs are simple
differential
ECL signals, easy to hack about with.
-tony