Low Cost 17 Channel Logic Analyzer

Um die Pollin Tastatur näher zu untersuchen, werde ich früher oder später einen Logic- und Protocol- Analyser brauchen. Leider habe ich keinen und auch nicht das Geld um mir einen zu kaufen. Eine fast kostenlose Lösung ist die Verwendung eines alten PCs mit LPT-Drucker-Port. Hierzu habe ich ein sehr interessantes Projekt gefunden, was fast keine Wünsche mehr offen lässt. Die Signale werden unmittelbar an den EPP/ECP Port angeschlossen.

• Digital Oscilloscope / Logic Analyzer with up to 17 input lines
• Uses the parallel (printer) port for input.
• While Logic Analyzers normally are very expensive, this one is for zero cost
• Written in speed optimized C++ to get the maximum possible sample rates
• The program is a stand alone single EXE file which neither needs any additional DLLs nor any framework. It runs out of the box
• Runs on all Windows platforms (95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, Windows 7, 2008 R2)
• Runs on 32 Bit Windows and 64 Bit Windows
• When first run, installs a driver to access hardware IO ports on all NT platforms
• Plays a sound via PC speaker to prove that the driver works correctly
• Shows the actual state of the input lines life in the LED's of the GUI
• Captures up to 500.000 samples / second (depending on your hardware and OS)
• Captures to memory (rather than disk) for maximum speed
• Capturing runs always with the maximum frequency that the hardware allows
• Memory saving capture technology stores only the changes of the input lines rather than storing all lines with each sample that is taken
• The capture process is independent of data analyzing so you can try various settings to display the captured data in the best way
• The analyzer generates coloured oscilloscope diagrams with a raster grid
• The output is written into an HTML file and one or multiple GIF files
• So the analyzer results can easily be shared with other people who must not install any program to view a proprietary binary format
• You can write an individual heading into each analyzer output to distinguish them later in a multitude of files
• When analyzing data, you can choose to delete old analyzer output or keep the old files
• The time axis shows absolute or relative time with microsecond precision (Performance Counter)
• Automatic detection of inactive input lines shows only the channels that have activity
• Automatic detection of idle time cuts out long phases of inactivity
• Automatic detection of input frequency chooses the adequate raster unit like on a real oscilloscope (10 µs, 20 µs, 25 µs, 50 µs, 100 µs, etc..)
• Automatic detection of context switches of the operating system
• Decoded serial data (Start Bit, Parity, Acknowledge, Stop Bit) and the Byte that they represent may be printed into the diagrams and/or printed to HTML where it can be copied to the clipboard.
• Decoded serial data (Start Bit, Parity, Acknowledge, Stop Bit) and the Byte that they represent is written into the diagram
• Very cleanly written source code with a proper error handling and plenty of comments 

Der Protokoll Analyser :

• I²C Bus, SMBus, ModBus
• PS/2 Bus
• SPI Bus
• Asynchronous (RS232, RS422, RS485)
• Infrared Remote Controls
• Smartcards