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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Sigh.

I really like the concept, I really dislike the lock-in. I think what I want is the unholy love-child of Saleae and Dangerous Prototypes[1]. I've got the original version of DP's Logic Sniffer [2] and built a really nice USB 2.0 protocol analyzer with it. The combination of open source, inexpensive hardware, and awesome documentation let me take it in a direction that no one else had. Salea on the other hand has really slick software that is sexy as heck, but only runs on Windows and well, I am really trying hard to not have to have a Windows box around on my workbench.

[1] http://dangerousprototypes.com/

[2] http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/preorder-open-workbench-log...

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The good news is that we have cross platform software & and APIs for using the device without our software and writing your own analyzer plugins.

These products won't sample fast enough for decoding USB 2.0 high speed, but we do support low speed and full speed with the existing products and the new stuff.

-Mark (Saleae)

That is good news, I downloaded it to have a look. A couple of suggestions.

First, try to use Linux friendly names in your directories, that means no spaces, no special characters. While its possible to navigate to

   Logic\ 1.1.18\ \(64-bit\)

It really is a pain for shell users. May I suggest logic_1.1.18_amd64/ which not only communicates its the 1.1.18 version but also tells you it for the 64 bit x86 architecture. the 32 bit version could be x86.

Second the text files you include would ideally have newlines (\n) every 80 or so characters rather than the one long line ending with an ^M which is popular in Windows text tools.

The SDK could use man pages for Linux users, but I appreciate that the API is pretty simple, PIO or stream, but I'm a bit unclear if there is device support for triggering? Or is that something the software is expected to do?

You are being really naive and unfair here.

Saleae suffered a lot from chinese copycats. People copied their hardware for pennies, while saleae was fair enough to provide their software without copy protection.

I think it is only fair they release custom hardware now.

Unfair I might concede but not naive. I've been doing circuit development for a long time. I also have a challenge with 'copied for pennies.' Software you can copy for pennies but hardware really does require some tooling which is not 'pennies'.

There is a market for 'soft' test equipment. The amount of margin available in that market it something worth debating. I've got a USB oscilloscope that has proprietary software that only works on Windows XP, I've got a Tek475 oscilloscope with similar specs from 1981 that works on anything. They both cost about the same amount (just under $300) The point (for me at least) is that the 'softness' of test equipment, where it relies on a third party OS/computer to work) has a negative value coefficient. I know that at some point its going to be worthless, unlike the Tek scope which, as long as it can be calibrated, will have intrinsic value.

That is what I like about the SUMP based designs that DP did. They took the risk away by publishing all their source and letting me decide if I'm willing to do the work (or hire someone to do the work) of keeping the test gear running on my current hardware. I get tired of the 'Atmel' based digital o'scopes but eventually we'll get a decent open source front end and then all bets will be off in terms of being able to make something useful, and more important to me durable. I'd like my test gear to have an expected 20 - 30 year lifespan, it isn't like the test problems change.

Saleae has cross-platform software. I have a Logic and use it on my Ubuntu workstation with no problems.

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