Sigrok: An Open Source Logic Analyzer 42
Uwe Hermann today announced the availability of sigrok, one of the first Open Source logic analyzers. Tired of being tied to Windows and proprietary software with limited features, in late 2010 he began work on flosslogic, which, after discovering Bert Vermeulen was also working on similar software, became sigrok. From the article: "Thus, the goal was to write a portable, GPL'd, software that can talk to many different logic analyzers via modules/plugins, supports many input/output formats, and many different protocol decoders. ... Currently supported hardware includes: Saleae Logic, CWAV USBee SX, Openbench Logic Sniffer (OLS), ZEROPLUS Logic Cube LAP-C, ASIX Sigma/Sigma2, ChronoVu LA8, and others." Their wiki has a list of supported protocols as well. You can grab the source over at SourceForge.
Re:SeeedStudio Nano OS 1 channel hardware and soft (Score:4, Insightful)
The Nano is a digital storage oscilloscope - which is no doubt useful. It shows continuous voltage levels over time, and is great for analog signals; it measures 0-10V at 1Msps, with 12-bits of resolution.
But a logic analyzer fits into a different niche; it really only measures "high" or "low", but across many channels (instead of 1 or 2 as in an oscilliscope).
The OpenBench Logic Sniffer, for example, measures:
- Up to 32 channels at 100 MHz
- Up to 16 channels at 200 MHz
- 1.8-5V, which covers most digital chips.
- costs $50 - almost half of the Nano's price.
They are clearly different tools, though. If I were measuring PPM coming out of a microcontroller (as in an arduino), I'd choose a Logic Analyzer over an oscilliscope.