Post B4mblmrY8688eRhBAG by leon_p_smith@ioc.exchange
(DIR) More posts by leon_p_smith@ioc.exchange
(DIR) Post #B4mYqXs2zshRjwVPM0 by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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This is NOT a commitment or statement of intent to build such a tool.But if it existed, how likely would you be to use a libscopehal-backed T&M application for iPad? This would not be a port of ngscopeclient, it would be a from-the-ground-up touch first GUI backed by the same suite of protocol decoders and hardware drivers, and probably reusing a few of the waveform rendering shaders.Maximum memory depth would be limited to probably 10M points or so by available RAM, and it would likely not be possible to exchange scopesession's with ngscopeclient exactly, although there would probably be some sort of export capability to at least interchange waveforms.Android is significantly less likely of a target because apple silicon's graphics/HPC capabilities are so far ahead of the competition, so if a tablet based platform were to be created apple silicon is the natural target.
(DIR) Post #B4mZ9IlBP1F8NREqcS by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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(further context: I am not an iOS developer and do not own an iPad, so if such a tool existed its development would entirely be done by other people with me overseeing/supporting on the libscopehal side. This is me gauging interest as to whether this is something I should try to encourage someone else to begin tinkering with)
(DIR) Post #B4mblmrY8688eRhBAG by leon_p_smith@ioc.exchange
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@azonenberg I didn't vote because I haven't used ngscopeclient yet, but my bench multimeter, oscilloscope, and programmable linear power supply are listed as "known to work". Which, I guess is a sign that I have largely bought relatively popular T&M gear on the cheaper side of things, lol.That's a good start, I really need to dig into hooking all my gear up to my computer and making things happen, so I'll definitely give ngscopeclient a go when I get around to that.
(DIR) Post #B4mbmJIbX2mlFcbEmG by equinox@chaos.social
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@azonenberg not to be divisive, but is it really worth investing into the Apple (or Android) ecosystems at this point?Somebody will (or already has, and just needs PR) figure out a good way to stick a plain Linux on a tablet, at which point that'll just be best option.
(DIR) Post #B4mbuA89VKn98ESGbA by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@equinox I think apple silicon is hands down the most powerful graphics performance you can get on a mobile device, regardless of what operating system is running (maybe asahi will get ported to iPad one day or something).Given how much oomph crunching lots of waveform data takes, it seems the best target.
(DIR) Post #B4mbyVvkOXIXtwjAkS by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@equinox Either way, if we want to target tablets a touch-friendly UI would need to exist. ngscopeclient is a mouse/keyboard first tool and not something you would want to run on a tablet.
(DIR) Post #B4mcd4FAEqbXuB9B2m by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@equinox the other thing is, this is a tool for engineers not free software idealists. If we reach the point of a fully f/oss tablet OS being in common use on corporate devices in engineering labs it will make sense to target that.Until then, we have to meet users where they are. The same reason ngscopeclient also builds for Windows even though I'd much prefer all our users to be on Linux.
(DIR) Post #B4mcrR2uFzDSgBGT8i by equinox@chaos.social
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@azonenberg ah, I didn't consider the GPU performance. But is will that stay an advantage for long enough to be worth the effort? Also, yes, a "touch mode" interface would be useful for this (assuming people indeed want to do this on their tablets); but that doesn't automatically mean Apple/Android (ok yes 90% it does *sigh*)
(DIR) Post #B4mcxH6I991BZVdHfs by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@equinox given how well apple silicon laptops perform with ngscopeclient compared to fairly beefy nvidia cards, yes. It's a huge improvement.
(DIR) Post #B4md8Il0KMPXtYvwSO by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@equinox like if i could put a m4 max pcie card on my desktop replacing the 2080 Ti I'd do it in a heartbeat. The memory system performance is unbelievable and the capacity is unparalleled. You can't get anything from nvidia in a <100W power envelope with 128GB of RAM
(DIR) Post #B4mdElsIytWBwKQw0e by equinox@chaos.social
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@azonenberg right, but it is a tool you're building as FOSS, and even if you're "just" guiding other people in making an Apple variant, you're still spending your personal time on it. I intentionally asked "is it worth" - it's your time, you obviously have no obligation to supply anyone with anything, but I understand the… what to call it… "drive to provide"?
(DIR) Post #B4mdO6DuhAExeizLw8 by equinox@chaos.social
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@azonenberg ok, I have zero clue and will take your word for that 🙂
(DIR) Post #B4metCSLfhPNuy8Nn6 by 0h00000000@ioc.exchange
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@azonenberg @equinox Oh - and the new Apple laptops just released have a M5 making the M4 'old stuff'.
(DIR) Post #B4mfAMUxaXhvzBXUa8 by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@0h00000000 @equinox yeah I remember a while back doing a benchmark of a mac mini compiling ngscopeclient against one of my xeon workstations and it was extremely competitive, I think actually faster than the old one.But doing it in a laptop rather than a server's power budget. Apple silicon is extremely impressive and if I could get it running something other than macOS I'd be daily driving it for sure.
(DIR) Post #B4mqWTK3zn1p19Bhvk by sounddrill@infosec.exchange
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@azonenberg does WebUSB make sense instead? Not sure if it is applicable in your chase though
(DIR) Post #B4msflhBFrqOVxYrIG by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@sounddrill no this is more like "thunderbolt DMA directly to GPU memory" territory
(DIR) Post #B4oe7itQ9sRcw04uhM by tnt@chaos.social
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@azonenberg @sounddrill Is that something that's even doable in iOS constraints ?Maybe I'm misinformed or outdated but until not so long ago you couldn't even have apps talking to non-blessed-by-apple peripherals at all ...
(DIR) Post #B4oeH7Ti7VHrn5X744 by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@tnt @sounddrill We are getting a custom driver made and signed for MacOS, I haven't looked into what the path for doing it on iOS would look like.Worst case, it would be usable to talk over wifi or thunderbolt-LAN dongle to a PC-attached thunderscope or a bench scope with a SCPI interface
(DIR) Post #B4oeLDtMDSiyqBUBIu by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@tnt @sounddrill Preliminary skimming of published stuff suggests that DriverKit thunderbolt drivers made for macOS are not too hard to get working on iOS
(DIR) Post #B4oeSK9BMEp6GgH23c by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@tnt @sounddrill it has to get cross-signed by apple but you need that to have it run on macOS with SIP enabled (they mandate 100% driver signing) which is something we are doing for the thunderscope anyway
(DIR) Post #B4p1mQ0LaSyFAjgxw8 by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@jeroen @tnt @sounddrill RDP/VNC is easy but interacting with a mouse/keyboard targeted UI with touchscreen is hard.Rather than moving bitmaps it's much better to move waveform data even if WFM/s and memory depth aren't what you would get on a PC. Then you can get nice smooth interactive scrolling and decoding and stuff once you have the capture.
(DIR) Post #B4p2WBBR1YXGWfhNaq by azonenberg@ioc.exchange
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@jeroen @tnt @sounddrill If you want to decimate you can just reduce the sample rate on the scope. If you want to be able to decode or do math on the waveforms, you need higher sample rate data.The only purpose for a passthrough/server tool like you describe is if you want to add network transparency to a device that currently only provides a USB API like a PicoScope or Digilent device. Which we already have.