EEVblog #747 - PC Based Logic Analyser Project

Dave goes back 20 years and find an old PC Based Logic Analyser project of his that was published in Electronics Australia magazine back in 1996. He uncovers the original timing diagrams, schematics, and prototype. And tries to resurrect the old Borland Pascal 7 source code and Lattice ispLSI PLD chip code.
And the old Protel Autotrax for DOS PCB and schematic files.
Will it all work 20 years later?
A bonus side detour into the venerable Tektronix TDS210 TDS220 oscilloscope, the first review!

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[bobcunningham]

Oh, man, does that bring back memories.  When I was a freshly minted embedded real-time software engineer in the mid '80's I was immediately tasked with programming all the GALs and PALs (using PALASM), since that "felt like software" to the old-school EEs (who were still transitioning to PC-based schematic capture).  But that work sharpened my digital hardware skills, and got me deeply invested in moving functionality back and forth across the hardware/software divide, to get the most done with the smallest board and the least power consumption.  Now we live in a wonderland for embedded design that ranges from discrete jelly-bean logic, to immense FPGAs, to low-power multi-core SoCs that include a shocking number of peripherals and application-programmable GPUs.  Whew, what a ride!

[tawfiqtube]

When Dave is sleeping, his supercap is c­harging, when it is fully charged and dr­iving the base current of the transistor­, he wakes up in the sta­rts to lunch is acting l­ike a resistor and he feels like eating is resisting him from wo­rking and he is desperate to go back to the mean Dave, you sleep elect­ronics, eat electronics, you work you man! Oh the good old DOS you say make me nostalgic, really! We learned everything/electronics the hard the fun wonder if I can make one of my son (yes, I'm blessed with two, first one- double the age of Sagan and second one half his age) get into electronics, I try to show him your videos and blogs, how enthusiastic one can be about electronics, how much you can be in love with these things and stuff like that! Electronics is fading away now a love your passion and knowledge. Keep up the porns for

[midgetsHead]

I've been looking everywhere for a Dave's Head simulator. You not only found the paper copy but the Dave's Head audio to narrate the simulation.  Awesome. Last time I saw a Dave's Head simulator work was almost a week ago and the video Dave's Head outputs these days is pretty dang good!

[user]

This video brings back some memories. Back in 1979 (or was it '78) I designed my own 100 channel data acquisition device.  It had a trigger level and if any channel triggered all channels were fed into a commodore Pet computer.  I used a 6502 microprocessor and a couple of PIAS.  The whole mess was wire wrapped and on several cards in a rack card cage. I was in the last few years of a BSEE degree at the time.  I finally graduated in 1980 after taking a final 400 level math course.  
Anyway, I entered it in the IEEE student paper contest and won third place.  Thanks for all your great videos.  I have been a code monkey for the last 30 years but miss the lab with scopes and spectrum analysers, etc...

[necessaryevil]

Doesn't anyone notice that Dave looks a little young for someone who designed such a project 20 years ago?

[johnmalone]

Turbo Pascal was what I used to learn how to program at Uni back in the late 80s.
Loved it.  Moved up to C/C++ and off to the races as a professional programmer.
Good memories!

[TheEPROM]

As a vintage computer enthusiast getting old software running can be a pain in the ass.

[faqbytes]

Looking at computer stuff before my era is quite fascinating to me. The fact we went from having to model things like this on paper 20 years ago to simulating everything inside a program inside a true UI is amazing. My father gave me a "Computer Shopper" catalog from September 1991 and looking at it is quite simply fascinating and the fact the stuff we have today is something people 20-25+ years ago could never have imagined working. "You'll never carry around a calculator with you all the time" is a popular line from my elementary school teachers, but we have so much more. I carry around a 5.5" 1080p phone with a 2.5 GHz quad core processor and 3 gigs of ram with 16 GB memory and 4k video camera. That is simply unimaginable just two decades ago.

[astrogirlusa]

It was fun seeing you get so excited, while walking down nostalgia lane.  It was very interesting to see your design too. :)

[StenIsaksson]

When my father died we was going thru his things and we found old electronic drawings from the 1960's witch he made when he was studying on the university. It was fun to look at since I have studied electronics as well.

[robmckennie]

I was born in 1996, that was not nearly 20 years ago. HOLY SHIT I'M ALMOST 20.

[dinkc]

Thanks for sharing this project with us, Dave!  Really excellent video.

[stonail]

Nice project for it's date and definitely deserved to be on front page .
More magazine please, no matter new or old.

[brothersever]

Dave! Show us a picture of you when you were younger. Circa when you were doing this project.

[DJignyte]

Lengthy yes, but damn fascinating!

Cheers, Dave!

[avidrandomer]

Good to see DaveCad 95 still does the job!

[Tomato]

actually there was a patcher for the output pascal .exe files to fix the Runtime error 200 - you didn't need to recompile

but I think I found it in around 2000 or somesuch

[adslfytiquhf]

You did this in '95/'96 so... your early 20's?! Crazy. Very impressive.

[adilmalik]

wow, as someone born in '97 seeing all these magazines and projects makes me wanna be born earlier :>. Fascinating dave!

[SteveJonespilot]

Awesome! It's been a long time since I've seen Borland Pascal...