On 4/16/12 8:19 AM, Eric Garner wrote:
I have the latest and greatest from both Tek and Agilent at work,
designed and made right here in the states. They suffer from menu-itis
just like the chinese stuff does. My Tek DSA 72004 at work is a
complete PITA to use unless I have the mouse and keyboard attached. In
my opinion, it's just how things are in the modern age.
yes.. they save knobs by not having on a spectrum analyzer for instance,
a separate knob for center frequency, span, and reference level.
On the scopes, it's not so bad.. you have one knob for vertical and one
for horizontal, and it seems to make sense.
But the UI is what has always separated brands of test equipment.
Those of us who grew up with Tek Scopes always found the HP scopes a bit
weird to use. Likewise, you get used to the HP spectrum analyzer and
signal generator, and going to something else is a bit weird.
Power supplies are the worst. even within the same mfr, it seems every
PS has different ways to do the current limit, the OVP, to switch the
metering, etc.
The new Agilent supplies (like the N6700 series), though, are very
cool.. they have a built in ARB to do soft starts and transient testing,
and a built in oscilloscope function to look at inrush. And they're
available in two versions.. one with knobs on the front panel and
binding posts for bench use, and a basically identical unit with a few
buttons on the front panel, and connections on the back for use in a rack.
These days, I look for the remote interface, and if I'm going to be
typing on a keyboard, I'd rather do it on the host PC, not the instrument.
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