Announcing M1 Oscilloscope Tools™ v5.02

Powerful Unique New Waveform Decode Functionality

The decode capabilities in M1 Oscilloscope Tools allow you to view encoded waveforms in terms of what they're doing, and then apply the powerful debug, analysis and embedded intelligence of M1 to get to the bottom of problems you see in decode mode. Currently supported decode types includes 8B10B, CAN, LIN, FlexRay, I2C and SPI. With the current version of M1, you can now view encoded waveform behavior in powerful new ways.

When you're trying to get to the bottom of a problem in your encoded waveform, being able to see when things happen... what values are present or not present... how often certain values or groups of values come up, can provide important insights into rapidly drilling down to the source of the problem. The current release of M1 OT has several unique views to do this, which include viewing your encoded waveform fields (address, data, control when appropriate) versus time (i.e. see when that value/values occur) as well as viewing how the range of values distribute in a histogram.

Another useful new exploratory mode occurs when searching for values of a field (e.g. frame starts, data values, addresses, R/W, etc.). Decode Search in M1 allows you to search on individual or multiple values, for example, multiple address values for I2C or multiple PID valus in a LIN waveform... you can move from one specific event to another and M1 will keep the decode-timing view synched with the M1 ScopeView as well as any other vs-time views. This will allow you to rapidly associate potentially pathological waveform features by their proximity to the event. These unique insights can be the difference in rapidly finding the root cause of a problem vs lingering on it for days.

In the example above, M1 is shown decoding FlexRay data.  In the top view, a histogram shows the distribution of Data Bytes we have seen in this acquisition, while the 2nd view shows those data bytes in the order that they occurred.  Note that this TimeView is synched to the ScopeView at the bottom using M1's Sync Axes feature, allowing you to correlate information across domains via the ScopeTrack box.  In the tab, the Search dropdown shows that we can search for Frame Start events, Byte Start events, or one or more Data Byte values.  The Decode Tab is also where the Decode TimeView and HistoView at the top of the screen are opened and closed from.

Eye Mask Multi-Margin

For quite a while now, M1 has included a Margin value on the Eye Mask tab.  If your signal satisfies the chosen mask, the overall margin is shown - i.e. the percentage by which the entire mask can be scaled up before any failure is found.

This capability has now been enhanced in M1 OT v5.02 with the new Multi-Margin readout.  In addition to the Overall Margin, separate margin values are now also shown for Top, Bottom, Left, and Right.  These represent the amount that the actual eye could be expanded in that direction before a failure is found.  By clicking on the button for a particular margin type, the margin mask for that type will be shown graphically.

This feature can improve your understanding of eye mask results, allowing you to see exactly where your signal is performing well and where it may be close to failure.

New Compliance Test

ASA has tests for many popular standards available for free download from our website for any user of M1 OT. The newest addition to this growing collection is FB-DIMM. We've also upgraded several older TestScripts to bring them up to newer versions of the relevant standards.  Remember, if you need a test that we haven't written yet, you can use M1 and ScriptBuilder to create it yourself in a matter of hours.

Want to Contribute to the Single Most Innovative Tool
in the T&M Industry?

Are you an M1 user that appreciates the kind of rich innovation flowing into the product like HAL, and the "mega-efficient user interface" (to quote one of you) or an Rj/Dj scheme that actually respects physics and has been validated at someplace other than the sweet spot of the core algorithm? Do you support The Revolution we're leading against trace innovation, weak thinking, lame proprietary tools and predatory, anti-customer business practices at ScopeCo? Do you think there's more contribution a tool maker can give than sending a talking haircut from marketing to the committee meetings so they can say they went? I'm working on Version 6 and 7 while our engineers are working on extending HAL and Version 5, and one of the things I've noticed in recent customer visits is that there are some pretty smart guys using our tools that seem to want to contribute to the innovation storm. We have a VERY good system already as you can tell (http://www.m1ot.com/why-m1-oscilloscope-tools.htm), and a rich roadmap of capabilities that will continue to impress... but you can never go wrong by adding a smart guy or two to the circle.

This is not about recreating the "focus groups" ScopeCo uses to find their software ideas, and we aren't looking for people that have ever been part the ScopeCo focus group process. We're also not looking for engineers who serve on any "technical committee" However, if you are actually prone to fits of rage when you think about what the committees have done to the practice of engineering (plunged our industry into a literal Dark Age), you might be what we're looking for (passionate thinkers).

So, with that said, if you'd like to get inside the fence and be a contributor to the best tool on the market, here's what I'm looking for. You're a long-time M1 user. You KNOW the tool and you get the vision. You have no idea what a "1" or a "0" is. You're THE go-to guy at your end for measurement, debug and engineering. You're articulate and you take pride in your work. You don't want for "ideas" both in your field and in others, but most importantly, your ideas work more often than not. You think about products in terms of user impact rather than lines of C code, or committee requirements. You're not a geek anymore and Shackleton would have hired you. If this is sounding like you, shoot an email to info@m1ot.com with "To Mike W" in the subject. Tell me how you'd like to contribute and a little bit about yourself, and we'll talk. Keep in mind... product design (content, direction, vision, etc.) is not a democratic process here, but we value great ideas and passion. If selected, you'll need to sign an NDA and bring some good ideas to the table. We'll share our model/insights around measurement workflow and our architecture for satisfying that (NONE of the scope companies have these things). You'll get to work with the "engineering versions" of M1 with advanced features and modes that haven't been released, and provide feedback on what you like and don't. I hope to hear from you.

Mike Williams
President and Chief M1 Product Designer 

Employment Opportunities at ASA

ASA Corp. is currently seeking imaginative electrical or computer engineering programmers to join our team. These individuals should have solid programming and test equipment experience, but more importantly, be willing to bring energy and the passion to dominate the industry to ASA.

ASA is also looking to fill the position of Marketing and Public Relations. Qualified candidates will have a degree in Communications, Marketing or related field.

If you're interested in employment at ASA click here for more information or send an e-mail with your resume to: jobs@Amherst-Systems.com.