There might have been some technical advances since 2000 (the replacement of monochrome CRTs with LCDs would be the most visible). But I guess the impression that this scope seems old by now has to do with some design changes that are pure "marketing descisions" and do not really represent technical advances. Oscilloscopes had the same uniform grey look for many decades and it is a recent trend that even scientific gear is "stylish" and reminds you of the looks of consumer products. I guess as an engineer one should not let himself be blinded by the "looks" of the gear. I for my part regard some things as "modern" but not necessarily "advanced": For example I don't see the advantage of flashing soft buttons over the (in my opinion) more rugged plastic buttons they used 30 years ago.
We had one just like this one in our school lab. It worked so well and it was very intuitive. It was a hand-me-down from a local electronics shop that moved out of the building right next to the school.
i was able to rescue a 54622a from my university. they where going to throw it away because the buttons underneath the screen didnt work. i got it for free and i have fixed the buttons and now it works perfectly
Hi Dave, i could not resist in buying one of these scops after seeing this demostration ! Like your videos and your expressions haha, THANKS FROM MALTA !!!
Picked 3 of them up for 75 each with free shipping! They were virtually unused and had all the original probes! Couldn't resist. Why buy one when you can get three for the same price?
Best scope ever those days!.... I love it too! I got 2 x 54622A and 1 x 54622D Now I have upgraded to MSO7104B, but still use 54622D for my daily usage.....
Another new owner of this classic. However its the 54621D / 60Mhz MSO. Love it. Discovered these scopes late. Was chasing the TEK TDS400/500 series. Was tough to let go of the dream, but the HP has more bang IMHO. Thank you for the video. I love you man 😎
Hi, a little bit late, but Dave mentioned that the fan could be replaced with a quieter one. The fan is a Panasonic FBA08A12U with a massive 47 CFM airflow and 38dbA. Up to now I couldn't find a much quieter one with nearly this airflow. Any ideas?
Awesome video as always, Dave! I find it amazing that there are circumstances where slightly older tech outshines newer counterparts. I still write with fountain pens, which I think is a great example of that.
I loved using this scope while on placement, was such a fast and easy scope to use. Had many competitions between other students to gain the highest score on Asteroids ;)
Rockon! I worked with one of those two years ago and nobody told me about Asteroids on it. Only used one or two channel analog scope features but it worked great!
I own(ed) one of these. Got it 2nd hand from EBay about 8 years ago. BEST investment I ever made. The only downside was the floppy drive which made it very difficult to get screenshots from it. I recently sold it for AUD$1500 and bought myself an MSO6034 (300MHz, 4/16ch) for not a lot more. :)
Double thumbs up for the Easter egg. Let's see if we will have affordable scopes with full intensity 4K touch displays by year 2020. And Oh yes, it should be a MDO with embedded AWG (i.e. Great expectations).
Well i am a nightbird and stay late doing stuff... when Dave makes a new video i usually watch it arround 10 PM and she always falls asleep when she hears his voice... He's certanly not boring to me...
Have you ever been able to connect the oscilloscope to your computer via the serial port to the Keysight BenchVue software? I have an Agilent 54621D. Thanks
Hi Dave I got a HP54540C TFT - colour LCD oscilloscope just recently it started going to full brightness contrast setting. When I move it sometimes it goes back to full contrast - what are your thought on that? I am about to tear it down and replug everything together and see if I can spot any "Dave"solutions?
Look at the ADC's : They are spec'd AD9054A-135 which is the 135 MSa/s version. I can't figure out from the manual if 200MSa/s is for both channels at the same time. If it is, then they have been cought with their pants down, like Rigol. Using 135MSa/s spec'd ADCs at 200MSa/s.
I wonder what's the refresh rate on that CRT. Most LCD run only at 60 Hz. Maybe, there's some way to infer it from the camera capture artifacts at high shutter speed.
When i switch my 54622D i receive following messages: Battery is low, System clock is defaulted, Ram disk is defaulted, The default setup was loaded, etc... What to do, to just change a battery?
Hi My 54622D's firmware is last released firmware(version A.02.31) and Language pack（system version 2.4/11 language).I can select SPI(2 & 3 Wire Serial) and for instance set ~CS and Clock,at the same time we can see DATA.even though 2 channel OSC.Old firmware didn't select SPI,so we had to upgrade the firmware.Support was feasible up to last year.LOL I think it is not so retro.LOL.And if you use PC-Based software like LAP-C at the same time,we can decode I2C module.(54622D only decode I2C hardware,so select START and use LAP-C)So totaliy,54622D is now still very usuful.
Dave, you've got to admit the old green screen look was a lovely feature of the day. Did they ever do a colour CRT or did it go straight to colour LCD?
1000 pixels horizontal on such a small screen because it's CRT, or because the pixels are smaller since they're just green? Never really thought about how dot pitch could be effected by monochromy.
IMO it's both. When the scope was built, LCD tech was pretty primitive, so getting a screen with that density would have been either impossible or very expensive. If they don't need color, then the number of display pixels per logical pixel becomes one instead of three. So, if manufacturing technology at the time can only produce pixels of above a certain size, a monochrome display would be able to attain a greater pixel density than a color one.
For the magnets and electron beam of a crt screen, it really doesn't make a difference if the pixels are colour or monochrome. So having 1024×768 in a small 13 inch CRT screen effectively meant you had a 3072-pixel wide 13 inch screen. (well this technically isn't true, as the CRT dots weren't side by side but in a matrix, but hell let's keep it simple). Wonderful times, CRT period
On color LCD, since R,G and B pixels are arranged in a row, there's a technique called subpixel rendering where you can light an uneven number of pixels to simulate a higher resolution.
I remember that the monochrome CRT's actually had solid fluorescent in front, not like RGB screens that had pixels. It depended more on driving electronics and electron beam how much resolution it had.
Good day sir! I have a question about that game. Haha! Was it stored in the floppy disk or already stored in the scope? Thank you in advance for the response.
+Toby Mole Agilent no longer had the spare part, which was a shame as it wasn't at all expensive if it had been available. I did fix my scope though. I stripped it down and applied a very thin layer of Caikote 44 to the elastomer buttons. This stuff has flakes of silver in it and once dry works really well. It's available on Amazon. Give it a try.
it is 400MS/s on digital when you use only 8 channels, otherwise it is 200MS/s, unless it is updated from the HP 54645D Curious how you have all of those FFT's, integrals and other stuff without the need of external module and 54645D needs measurement/storage separate module for this
This was what software guys used where I worked I had a nice LeCroy with color LCD not CRT :) I did not liked this Agilent scopes even if it was just 800x600 pixels.
Bom dia ,sou do Brazil é sou super fã do seu canal ,gostaria de tirar uma dúvida .pra você que e muito mais experiente do que eu lógico rsrsts seria vantagem comprar este osciloscópio nos dias de hoje ????
If you're referring to the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, it describes that you effectively only need twice the sampling rate to sample a certain frequency
Barrios Groupie Hmm.. that is weird yes. A quick google search shows up that oscilloscopes don't necessarily always one-shot capture. Doing a one-shot 200msps would indeed only give you a fairly poor 100mhz resolution image. equivalent-time sampling can be used to reconstruct a repetitive signal. However, a 100mhz oscilloscope can still display a 100mhz signal. The resolution of the waveform decreases as the frequency goes up, but that is only natural; even on a 200mhz scope the 100mhz signal would be of lesser resolution than a 50mhz signal.
With SinX/x interpolation you only need 4 times the bandwidth in sample rate (there is some heavy behind this that proves it's the case), and this can interleave 2 channels to get that.
EEVblog It depends on the speed of the roll-off of the front end anti-aliasing filter. Sinx/x interpolation is then carried out on the sampled signal. I guess you'd have to measure the frequency response to confirm this.
Yes, because where you live determines the test apparatus you can use. I don't know, I also live in Estonia but I have a fairly modern DSO and luck wasn't involved in acquiring it. I think the problem might be on your side.
You can use it to inspect the waveform of both analog and digital signals coming from a circuit or going into a circuit. Essential bit of kit for an EE lab.
Hello 54622D users. Here is a video where you can see noisy horizontal trace when scope is powered on. easyupload.io/0r9edv I have 2 of these scopes and i am worried if this is an issue or something normal? Thank you!
The "Dave Effect" or "EEV Blog Effect" will make it worse. I've said before that Dave could make a few bucks by letting people know the old equipment he will review so people can buy them before the price goes up.
There might have been some technical advances since 2000 (the replacement of monochrome CRTs with LCDs would be the most visible). But I guess the impression that this scope seems old by now has to do with some design changes that are pure "marketing descisions" and do not really represent technical advances. Oscilloscopes had the same uniform grey look for many decades and it is a recent trend that even scientific gear is "stylish" and reminds you of the looks of consumer products. I guess as an engineer one should not let himself be blinded by the "looks" of the gear. I for my part regard some things as "modern" but not necessarily "advanced": For example I don't see the advantage of flashing soft buttons over the (in my opinion) more rugged plastic buttons they used 30 years ago.
I've got a 54622a, got it for $95 excellent scope, came with manuals and a pair of original probes, best purchase ever...
It makes me kinda sad to talk about the year 2000 like it's been a long time ago...Feels like yesterday. I refuse to call this one a "vintage" ;P
+EEVblog Should have added 2000s FALLOUT 4 PIP BOY STYLE SCREEN GAMING
Cheers!
We had one just like this one in our school lab. It worked so well and it was very intuitive.
It was a hand-me-down from a local electronics shop that moved out of the building right next to the school.
i was able to rescue a 54622a from my university. they where going to throw it away because the buttons underneath the screen didnt work. i got it for free and i have fixed the buttons and now it works perfectly
I own a 54622D and a 54642D and absolutely love both.
Hi Dave, i could not resist in buying one of these scops after seeing this demostration !
Like your videos and your expressions haha, THANKS FROM MALTA !!!
I just bought the analog version 54624A. $200 US on Ebay. My first scope.
Picked 3 of them up for 75 each with free shipping! They were virtually unused and had all the original probes! Couldn't resist. Why buy one when you can get three for the same price?
I was just given one of these and I don't know how to use it yet. I'm glad this video exists.
6 years later, but just what I needed. Was considering picking one of these up on eBay.
Bought a 54621a after watching this, didnt need digital, just use it for 27mhz cb, what a great piece of kit, so intuitive to use.
Best scope ever those days!.... I love it too! I got 2 x 54622A and 1 x 54622D
Now I have upgraded to MSO7104B, but still use 54622D for my daily usage.....
Another new owner of this classic. However its the 54621D / 60Mhz MSO. Love it. Discovered these scopes late. Was chasing the TEK TDS400/500 series. Was tough to let go of the dream, but the HP has more bang IMHO. Thank you for the video. I love you man 😎
I love old tech, seems strange for me calling 2000 era tech old as I remember it so well.
That's just cause you're old ;)
Is that a LaTeX pfp?
Hi, a little bit late, but Dave mentioned that the fan could be replaced with a quieter one. The fan is a Panasonic FBA08A12U with a massive 47 CFM airflow and 38dbA. Up to now I couldn't find a much quieter one with nearly this airflow. Any ideas?
Awesome video as always, Dave! I find it amazing that there are circumstances where slightly older tech outshines newer counterparts. I still write with fountain pens, which I think is a great example of that.
Fountain pens are still made and developed, unlike CRT-oscilloscopes :D, though you're right on the spot regardless
I loved using this scope while on placement, was such a fast and easy scope to use. Had many competitions between other students to gain the highest score on Asteroids ;)
Nice short video to work up the appetite before dinner. Great stuff Dave.
Rockon! I worked with one of those two years ago and nobody told me about Asteroids on it. Only used one or two channel analog scope features but it worked great!
I own(ed) one of these. Got it 2nd hand from EBay about 8 years ago. BEST investment I ever made. The only downside was the floppy drive which made it very difficult to get screenshots from it.
I recently sold it for AUD$1500 and bought myself an MSO6034 (300MHz, 4/16ch) for not a lot more. :)
The Mega Zoom ASICs look like some gate arrays from Fujitsu, they start with "MB". The processor starts with "UPD" so it is most likely a NEC chip :)
Mixed transistor sizes - lovely!
Back for a SS@TS (second suck at the sav). Have same scope but 60Mhz version. I love that puppy. Hate my GF. Life goes on. Cheers! 🇺🇸
Ive had this scope for years and just learned about that astroid game today...
3:20 wow you operate this machine really fast.. guess you've been using it for half a decade or even longer, and it sure is showing
Not really, I forgot a few things, been a good 5-6 years since I've used one, so not as fluid as I once was.
Double thumbs up for the Easter egg. Let's see if we will have affordable scopes with full intensity 4K touch displays by year 2020. And Oh yes, it should be a MDO with embedded AWG (i.e. Great expectations).
I use a similar model at my uni, the Agilent 54621A. Nice old gear, but the other Agilent 2000/3000 X series scopes at my uni are really nice.
As always; very nice review Dave!
I am looking at a hp/agilent 54602a scope that I found. Its similar to this one. Will this still work for a hobbyist with modern day electronics?
Some time I have no idea what your talking about but I enjoy your videos still. I don't known????
Браво, но ми се вижда много стар този осцилоскоп. Хубавото е че работи.
It's surprising how much better knobs of this oscilloscope feel than new agilents'.
It would be nice to know if there's an easy point to pick up a 1v video out point I could connect to. Thanks Dave another great video.
It's a really nice instrument. Thanks for sharing.
Now i know what i do for the next 30 minutes!
well, this is good background sound while cleaning!
My gf uses Dave's videos instead of sleeping pills.
Eviltech hope it doesnt mean he is boring :D
Eviltech not many females are interested in oscilloscopes
Eviltech oh lel
Well i am a nightbird and stay late doing stuff... when Dave makes a new video i usually watch it arround 10 PM and she always falls asleep when she hears his voice... He's certanly not boring to me...
Have you ever been able to connect the oscilloscope to your computer via the serial port to the Keysight BenchVue software? I have an Agilent 54621D. Thanks
Thanks Dave, I need a scope for working on old Sony es audio gear. I'm wondering if this will be a wise choice ?? Great info!
Hi Dave I got a HP54540C TFT - colour LCD oscilloscope just recently it started going to full brightness contrast setting. When I move it sometimes it goes back to full contrast - what are your thought on that? I am about to tear it down and replug everything together and see if I can spot any "Dave"solutions?
Love the retro gear. Awesome.
Awesome scope despite i never used it
I am a new to ee and i ve recognized this scope because it used in NI multisim
Look at the ADC's : They are spec'd AD9054A-135 which is the 135 MSa/s version. I can't figure out from the manual if 200MSa/s is for both channels at the same time. If it is, then they have been cought with their pants down, like Rigol. Using 135MSa/s spec'd ADCs at 200MSa/s.
In my haste I completely forgot to look at the ADC's!
There's nothing inherently wrong with "overclocking" ADCs if the signal is not affected :D
15:05 -- I thought the "mv" in the upper right corner of the screen was a heart for a moment. :P
Always wanted one…got one today for 50€! 😊
I wonder what's the refresh rate on that CRT. Most LCD run only at 60 Hz.
Maybe, there's some way to infer it from the camera capture artifacts at high shutter speed.
Love the floppy drive built in, Is that floppy drive for storing data or running waveform generators?
6:51 XD oh wow you've got to be kidding
Would HP Agilent 54601B be a good pick up under 100?
Can I upgrade sample rate by replacing AD9054A-135 or not?
When i switch my 54622D i receive following messages: Battery is low, System clock is defaulted, Ram disk is defaulted, The default setup was loaded, etc... What to do, to just change a battery?
HAHA! Well...there goes my chance of picking up a cheap 54622D on Ebay Dave :D
Hi My 54622D's firmware is last released firmware(version A.02.31) and Language pack（system version 2.4/11 language).I can select SPI(2 & 3 Wire Serial) and for instance set ~CS and Clock,at the same time we can see DATA.even though 2 channel OSC.Old firmware didn't select SPI,so we had to upgrade the firmware.Support was feasible up to last year.LOL I think it is not so retro.LOL.And if you use PC-Based software like LAP-C at the same time,we can decode I2C module.(54622D only decode I2C hardware,so select START and use LAP-C)So totaliy,54622D is now still very usuful.
Dave, you've got to admit the old green screen look was a lovely feature of the day. Did they ever do a colour CRT or did it go straight to colour LCD?
1000 pixels horizontal on such a small screen because it's CRT, or because the pixels are smaller since they're just green? Never really thought about how dot pitch could be effected by monochromy.
IMO it's both. When the scope was built, LCD tech was pretty primitive, so getting a screen with that density would have been either impossible or very expensive.
If they don't need color, then the number of display pixels per logical pixel becomes one instead of three. So, if manufacturing technology at the time can only produce pixels of above a certain size, a monochrome display would be able to attain a greater pixel density than a color one.
For the magnets and electron beam of a crt screen, it really doesn't make a difference if the pixels are colour or monochrome. So having 1024×768 in a small 13 inch CRT screen effectively meant you had a 3072-pixel wide 13 inch screen. (well this technically isn't true, as the CRT dots weren't side by side but in a matrix, but hell let's keep it simple). Wonderful times, CRT period
On color LCD, since R,G and B pixels are arranged in a row, there's a technique called subpixel rendering where you can light an uneven number of pixels to simulate a higher resolution.
I remember that the monochrome CRT's actually had solid fluorescent in front, not like RGB screens that had pixels. It depended more on driving electronics and electron beam how much resolution it had.
DjResR I thought that was more for vector CRTs rather than raster ones.
Good day sir!
I have a question about that game. Haha!
Was it stored in the floppy disk or already stored in the scope?
Thank you in advance for the response.
It is stored in ROM inside the scope. HP used to include nice easter-eggs like this one in their official firmware.
good to hear I'm not the only one that thinks "Keysight Technolgy" is a stupid name.
Rock on dood !
I just bought a Agilent hp
54645D but got no logic leads can you do a teardown so I can see if i am able make some as I can't seem to get any
Wayne Turner I just order the other day som 100mhz probes on wish. I paid only$17
I have one.... leftmost button under the screen needs a good push to make it work now though :-( Might need to strip it down to see what I can do...
+Toby Mole Agilent no longer had the spare part, which was a shame as it wasn't at all expensive if it had been available. I did fix my scope though. I stripped it down and applied a very thin layer of Caikote 44 to the elastomer buttons. This stuff has flakes of silver in it and once dry works really well. It's available on Amazon. Give it a try.
it is 400MS/s on digital when you use only 8 channels, otherwise it is 200MS/s, unless it is updated from the HP 54645D
Curious how you have all of those FFT's, integrals and other stuff without the need of external module and 54645D needs measurement/storage separate module for this
Me: oh good! I'll search for this on ebay
Dave: add this to your watchlist
Me: now i have 20.000 persons trying to do the same thing :(
This was what software guys used where I worked I had a nice LeCroy with color LCD not CRT :) I did not liked this Agilent scopes even if it was just 800x600 pixels.
When I saw the game, I was just: Wait, what?
Only thing about this scope, the softkeys under the screen are junk.
Bom dia ,sou do Brazil é sou super fã do seu canal ,gostaria de tirar uma dúvida .pra você que e muito mais experiente do que eu lógico rsrsts seria vantagem comprar este osciloscópio nos dias de hoje ????
Nice job of Rigol copying the "MegaZoom" logo and making their "UltraZoom" out of it ;) .
Lets Take it apart !!!!
28:15 100mhz analog stuff is kiddy stuff?!
Hi I have it.And You upgrade the fiirmware,then you can decode SPI.
Decode or trigger on?
where is the display driving part?
i would get that just for the game :DDD
Can someone help me with finding a power supply circuit that osilloscoupe?
What do You think its value is?
If it only samples at 200Ms/s, then how can the bandwidth be 100Mhz? The rule of thumb is to divide the sample rate by 10 to get the analog bandwidth.
If you're referring to the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem, it describes that you effectively only need twice the sampling rate to sample a certain frequency
***** Yes, but you need a good front end analogue filter to limit the bandwidth of the signal being sampled, and this filter isn't perfect.
Barrios Groupie Hmm.. that is weird yes. A quick google search shows up that oscilloscopes don't necessarily always one-shot capture. Doing a one-shot 200msps would indeed only give you a fairly poor 100mhz resolution image. equivalent-time sampling can be used to reconstruct a repetitive signal. However, a 100mhz oscilloscope can still display a 100mhz signal. The resolution of the waveform decreases as the frequency goes up, but that is only natural; even on a 200mhz scope the 100mhz signal would be of lesser resolution than a 50mhz signal.
With SinX/x interpolation you only need 4 times the bandwidth in sample rate (there is some heavy behind this that proves it's the case), and this can interleave 2 channels to get that.
EEVblog It depends on the speed of the roll-off of the front end anti-aliasing filter. Sinx/x interpolation is then carried out on the sampled signal. I guess you'd have to measure the frequency response to confirm this.
I would be lucky if I had at least that, but I'm living in Estonia.
Yes, because where you live determines the test apparatus you can use.
I don't know, I also live in Estonia but I have a fairly modern DSO and luck wasn't involved in acquiring it. I think the problem might be on your side.
What are these things used for?
You can use it to inspect the waveform of both analog and digital signals coming from a circuit or going into a circuit. Essential bit of kit for an EE lab.
What for bandwidth have your Mickey Mouse voice?
Hello 54622D users. Here is a video where you can see noisy horizontal trace when scope is powered on. easyupload.io/0r9edv I have 2 of these scopes and i am worried if this is an issue or something normal?
Thank you!
yay, no overmodulation this time
A hidden game of asteroids?LMAO
cool
wow.that scope is still selling for a lot of dough on ebay..
The "Dave Effect" or "EEV Blog Effect" will make it worse.
I've said before that Dave could make a few bucks by letting people know the old equipment he will review so people can buy them before the price goes up.
excavatoree
Don't you just love it when they jack the price up and add a link to the EEVBlog videos?
😁❤