M1 Reader™

A low cost, remote-analysis version of M1 Oscilloscope Tools™

M1 Reader™ does everything that M1 Oscilloscope Tools does in terms of analysis, but it cannot collect any data from a scope. The user must use saved data from an M1 OT product that resides on a scope. M1 Reader is very inexpensive, so labs can purchase a large number of copies. This ensures that each user has access to M1's capabilities when they are needed. No longer does everyone in the lab have to wait to use their one copy of M1, and no longer will one engineer block all of the other engineers from access to the scope while doing in-depth analysis. 

Why use M1 Reader?

Over the years, we have seen that engineers using real-time scopes often have too much information to sort through to be of any great value. When you are looking at real-time traces, you don't want to miss anything. M1 is a great tool for helping you sort through all of that data, especially when using its Record/Playback feature. With M1 OT, you have to be in front of the scope when you are doing your analysis. While you are at the scope, none of your other co-workers can be using that scope. The cost of a good real-time scope is going up, and it's difficult to fit a new scope into the capital budget, so there are often many more engineers sharing the good scopes than anyone in the company would like. M1 Reader is designed to alleviate the bottleneck of scope availability.

Free Up More Time on that Expensive Real-Time Scope

The purpose of M1 Reader is to provide companies with a larger number of seats for doing analysis cheaply; while also allowing a more efficient use of expensive of scope hardware. With M1 Reader, expensive scopes are not being used for analysis; they are used to acquire data. Once M1 OT has been used to acquire the data, engineers can use M1 Reader to do their analysis at their desks. This gets them out of a sometimes distracting and uncomfortable lab environment, and lets them take their time to truly comprehend the data coming out of M1. That frees up the scope for other engineers to come down and take some more acquisitions. M1 Reader is a very effective off-line analysis tool.

Effectively Get Your Lab a Multi-License M1

Some of our customers think of M1 Reader as a way to get a multi-licensed M1; they purchase one copy of M1 OT to reside on the scope, and as many M1 Readers as they wish based on the number of users in their lab that need to use M1 for off-line analysis. 

Perform Off-line Analysis Away from the Distractions of the Lab

Many times in the past decade we have seen customers looking for rare events that happen over such a long period of time that an overnight run is required. Most scopes only save the most recent acquisition, so they have to trigger that scope in one-shot mode and hope that they are looking for the right thing. With M1, you don't have to know what to trigger on. With M1 OT's Record/Playback feature, you can take a series of acquisitions overnight, storing them on a shared directory on the network. When you come in the next morning, you will have lots of information to look through. M1 has some great analysis tools, but don't have to tie up the scope all morning while you run them. You can run them off-line with M1 Reader on a PC that is networked with the same shared drive where you recorded all of the scope's acquisitions. Your co-workers will be pleased that you aren't sitting at the scope all day, and you will be much more comfortable and more productive working at your desk. That desk can even be at home or on the road! M1 Reader is a great tool to install in a home office to let engineers be productive even when they are away from the office.

Resolve Differences of Opinions with Vendors, Other Divisions, or Customers:

M1 Reader can also be used resolve differences of opinion between sites or between vendors to analyze data collected from a DUT at a location that is remote from the scope. Printouts and emails don't always work to solve a problem; the person at the remote site needs to actually see the data and the analysis. That's when sending the data is much more effective. M1 Reader lets the person at the remote site see and analyze data taken by M1 on your scope, even if he doesn't have M1 OT. The vendor does not have to spend a lot of money to see for himself what you can see and analyze what you have analyzed.

How does M1 Reader Work?

M1 Reader can only read the data that has been saved by an M1 OT product. M1 Reader cannot read the saved data files from older versions of M1. M1 Reader is electronically licensed to a particular PC; each engineer who is going to do analysis on his PC needs a license for M1 Reader. M1 Reader comes with a one-year electronic license code. M1 Reader is inexpensive enough that you might consider it a pay-per-use license. With so many engineers moving around these days, a pay-to-use license makes a lot of sense. After you purchase M1 Reader, you will receive a CD ROM in the mail. This CD ROM has the program that needs to be installed on the PC. When the software is installed, you will be asked to register that product with ASA. In return for registration, a code word providing a 1 year license will be sent to you in your email. When the code word is about to expire, you will be prompted to contact ASA to receive info about how to purchase another M1 Reader 1-year electronic license. During the period of the license, ASA Corp will send you all software updates that are released. This ensures that your M1 Reader will stay current with the latest M1 OT product in terms of analysis capabilities.