In his autobiography – I Am Spock – famous actor Leonard Nimoy wrote that when he started shooting Star Trek he was given a pair of lousy pointy ears props from the production. He found no way to make them look real, nor to stand still on the top of his ears. So he decided to shell out his own money and get some real props.It is always difficult, when you are passionate about your work, to draw a line to constrain your involvement. In the same way I don’t like the precision scale approach – i.e. stopping exactly at my duty edge.
So I decided to overcome some internal bureaucracy problems of my employer and buy a logic state analyzer to do my job. Waiting official channels would have taken a time not compatible with project deadlines.
I opted for a Saleae (the cheapest one – I don’t need anything more… and, well, that’s still quite some money) and placed an on-line order on Batter Fly. No shipping fees, I got the package in two days… great service (just beware – they show prices on the site without the VAT, surprise is saved for checkout time).
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Here is the box, very light… Suspiciously light, hadn’t they bothered to put at least a brick inside? |
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No brick, apparently nothing. But my cat Trilli looks very interested in the chips |
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Here it is. |
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The logic state analyzer is very small. From the picture I’ve seen I thought it was at least twice the size it actually is |
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In the bag, aside from the logic analyzer itself, there are – connection wires, probes, USB cable and a thank you postcard that doubles as a quick guide. |