Software
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I tried the software version 1.1.34 on 2 laptops, one running on Mac OS X.10 Yosemite and another on Windows 8.1. Everything ran fine on both.
I'm updating the review with software version 1.2.1, available for Mac OS and Linux only. At launch, the main screen shows the available channels, a configuration menu with a big start button, a pull-down Options menu, and three dedicated areas for Annotations, Analysers and Decoded Protocols. |
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Configure the Channels, Modes and Sampling Rates
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The first thing to do is to configure what to acquire:
All this has a direct impact on the size of data collected, and thus on system requirements. To put things in perspective, recording 10 seconds at 10 MS/s sampling rates gives 1 billion potential measures for one channel. |
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In the example shown on the right,
Mid-grey for selected channels and light-grey for unselected channels isn't very easy to interpret. |
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An Estimated Memory Usage is shown for each selection and updated for every change. The same 10 seconds recording requires (below, for left to right)
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Recording 10 seconds at 100 MS/s gives 1 billion potential measures. Fast sample rates require a powerful computer with large amount of RAM and fast processor.
I ran the same 1 billion measures test, with two digital channels for I²C at 100 MS/s and one analog channel at 12.5 MS/s , on 2 laptops:
Running the same test at lower speeds with 6.25 MS/s for digital and 1.562 MS/s for analog went fine on both computers. So selecting the sample rate is key. |
Choose the Protocol
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Protocol selection is done through the Analyzers drop-down menu.
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One windows pops-up and asks for the channels.
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The protocol and signals appear under each channel.
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The protocols can be chosen before or after recording.
Triggers can also be defined. |
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Record
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To start recording, just press the big green button Start.
To stop recording, click on the Stop button on the pop-up window. |
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Analyse
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Left, zooming out for the analog signal. Click to enlarge.
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Right, zooming in for the I²C signal. Click to enlarge.
The decoded I²C protocol appears on the top, with the corresponding analog signals on the bottom. |
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The overall interface is very clean.
However, I'm not a big fan of some surprising choices that make it really difficult to read, especially for the text in light grey on a dark grey background. |
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Similarly, the characters of the labels don't leverage the high resolution of the Retina display.
Let's hope a future revision of the application includes support for Retina. |
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Version 1.2.1 still doesn't take advantage of the Retina display.
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Further customisation of the interface is possible.
For example, non required channels could be hidden. Channels can also be zoomed in vertically up to 8x, very useful for analog signals. 
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Annotations, bookmarks and timing markers can be added.
Here, time is measured between two timing markers. Clicking on the signal provides additional information, like the 1.113 V voltage for the analog signal. |
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Other Options
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The Decoded Protocols area shows the signal, here the I²C protocol, in plain ASCII with the control sequences, Read/Write and ACK.
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Search is now possible, only on single character.
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The options menu allows to export the capture and set the preferences.
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The analyser has a RGB LED on the top. The light is very bright and useless. Here's the option to turn it off.
I'd like to use this RGB LED as a feed-back. For example, the LED is off when the analyser is inactive, green when it starts recording, turning yellow then red at the end of the sequence. Another idea, the LED would display the memory usage and how much remains free. |
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Some clever short-cuts are very handy. Here are some examples out of the full list.
Also, standard gestures on the MacBook trackpad are used. Version 1.2.1 greatly improves the use of the trackpad: scroll left and right by moving two fingers. However, other coming gestures aren't supported yet: pinch to zoom in or out doesn't work. Similarly, the full screen mode doesn't hide the dock in Mac OS X. |
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Real-Time
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Release 1.2.21 (still in beta) features real-time view. The data recorded is shown on the screen.
The green Start button turns into a red Stop. Zoom-in and zoom-out are available but the analysers do not show decoding of the signals. |
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Conclusion
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New releases bring many improvements over previous ones. The interface is more intuitive and faster to use. They bring many options to ease the analysis of the signals, like the vertical zoom for analog signals and the search for digital protocol. Real-time view (still in beta) offers a welcome addition.
In order to ensure optimal performance, don't forget to configure the channels, modes and sampling rates first before recording! Surprisingly, releases 1.1.34 and 1.2.1 are still stated as beta. During the whole test, Logic was stable and never crashed on Mac OS X. Version 1.2.1 was also faster than version 1.1.34. When Logic does plan to exit the beta state? |
Pros
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Cons
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Wrap-Up
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Next |
