Discover How You Can Easily Document
Your Hardware Design Data

Dear Friend,

If you use an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, or spectrum analyzer to help you develop your hardware and/or software let me a ask you a few questions.

How many times have you attached your oscilloscope's probes to your hardware to see its waveforms - and done this over and over again?

How many times have you had to set up your logic analyzer or spectrum analyzer to find a glitch in the hardware and then gather your project teammates to see the problem?

How many times have you discovered a hardware problem using your oscilloscope or logic analyzer and then tried to explain the problem to someone across town? In another city? Or even in another state?

In each case a picture is worth a thousand words.

Your Time Is A Valuable Resource. Don't Waste It!

During hardware testing the subtle details and inner workings of your circuitry are rarely documented. Modern test instruments are quite capable of displaying the circuit's functionality for you to study. However, this is where the disconnect occurs. Current methods to save the design information occupies a great deal of time and effort to put it into a clean report format.

Setting up your test instruments and equipment is usually tedious and time consuming. And the whole idea of the exercise is to document the transient states of your design. This data should be retained for future reference, but rarely is.

You probably accumulate an enormous amount of time using various spectrum analyzers, logic analyzers, and digital oscilloscopes. How much of that data is captured and saved? The vast majority is probably lost. Often you end up repeating the tedious set up procedures in order to verify a hardware and/or software event that you've already tested!

When you use the print feature of newer CRT-based test instruments, such as spectrum analyzers, logic analyzers, and digital oscilloscopes, you can usually save the captured waveform to a floppy disk or get a hardcopy output with a printer or plotter. And while the floppy disk method is better than using a dedicated printer or plotter, it is still a major headache to use the captured images in your documentation.

PC-based logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, or digital oscilloscopes also present the same problem. Many of the PC-based test instruments can only generate a hardcopy image by printing to a printer or plotter. In many cases they can't even save the captured image to a disk file! You are again faced with the same problem of using the captured images in your documentation.

Show Others What You're Doing...With Images!

More often than not software plays a significant role in the design of modern electronic equipment. It's not surprising that the software engineers find it hard to become involved in the hardware design. However, when you place a good document in their hands that shows the effect of their code they tend to take an interest in things like timing, interrupt stack up, DMA peculiarities and so on. This is a very good thing! A quick e-mail of a waveform can save huge amounts of grief later on.

Show us the proof. Quality control and product assurance departments are constantly trying to convince everybody, from test engineering departments to the Feds, that things are working a certain way. When the people in an RF compliance group approach the FCC they must have clear and concise documentation. Delays here can destroy the entire profit of a product because your competition hit the streets first.

The earlier an error is caught the cheaper it is to correct. One of the great benefits of documenting your design as you go is that you can easily share the data with others. When you send an oscilloscope or logic analyzer trace to another person you may be pleased to find out that another set of eyes has found a "hole in the fabric". Each of us sees things a little differently and that fact can add integrity. There's no better time to find these holes than "as soon as possible".

How To Survive Your Design Review!

Picture this. Your lab bench is covered with schematics, prints, meters, hand tools, cables, clip leads, various electronic test equipment, and electronic instruments of all kinds. Your attention is on the hardware and you're using an oscilloscope, logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, etc., to verify some mode of operation of the hardware and/or software.

We've all lived this scenario many times. Looking back, we know we weren't thinking about the future. But it's a pretty good bet that after the product was released, we would have to revisit the design for one reason or another. A conventional engineering notebook doesn't really help.

It would have been a major help if the critical snapshots of the hardware and a thoughtful text description were available. If your sustaining engineers had access to documents that contain the details of a design they would be in a much better position to support the product without going back to the source engineers and interrupting them for details. Documenting a circuit is not on your mind when in the middle of a design.

Or how about this? It's design review time! Engineering design reviews are rarely an occasion to celebrate. Typically the issues yet to be dealt with are presented and all of the issues that have been solved are left behind you. As things progress a design framework is formed that you must live within. If communication fails during any phase, fingers are usually pointed. Hardware blames software - software blames hardware. It's an old story that we've all seen and heard.

The various documentation (typically red-lined schematics and code) are on the table, but what's missing is the "hard evidence". All of the logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, and spectrum analyzers are in the lab where the design review might best take place - but never does.

What if during the design process waveform data was captured as code was being developed and it was placed in a word processor with a full explanation. Timing between events in silicon and the code that generated the event would now be in one place. This would mean that most of the questions and issues could be answered in less time. You can't argue with the hard evidence.

Students! Easily Add Images To Your Lab Assignments!

Nearly every lab assignment requires some kind of report to show that your assignment was completed. Typically you would have to try to explain the operation of your circuit with a text description of some kind. But no matter how well you spin your web of text it is always as dry as a desert.

Now imagine that same report with 'scope images to help you explain the operation of your hardware. Instead of trying to build a picture in your reader's mind, you can show them the picture and explain the operation and your conclusions.

We visited a local community college in our area and talked with the head of their electronics engineering department. Their lab has no high-end oscilloscopes for the students to use. Instead they have nearly every PC in the lab equipped with a PC-based oscilloscope. The students are required to include the 'scope trace in their documentation. However, the method they use to include the trace is very tedious and time consuming. They have to "print screen" to copy the entire screen to the clipboard, open Microsoft Paint, paste the clipboard data as a new drawing, edit the drawing to isolate the part that they need for their report, and then save the data as a bitmap file. The whole process takes almost 15 minutes!

With PrintCapture, the time involved was reduced to about 30 seconds and they got just exactly the image they needed! All they had to do from the PC-based oscilloscope was "print" using one of Windows' built-in plotter drivers. On computers with sufficient memory resources both the PC-based oscilloscope and PrintCapture can run on the same machine.

You can order PrintCapture by visiting our downloads page. Your registered copy of PrintCapture also entitles you to free updates. If you'd like to 'try-before-you-buy', you can download a 30-day trial version of PrintCapture from the downloads page or by clicking here. The 30-day trial version is fully functional - except that it will only run for 30-days after the first execution of the program. You can also visit the downloads page for updates and upgrades to PrintCapture.

How You Can Solve Your Hardcopy Documentation Problems!

PrintCapture adds an easy, no hassle, hardcopy print capability to your logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, or oscilloscope. It does this by acting as a printer emulator and a plotter emulator. Waveform data from your test instrument can be captured by PrintCapture, saved as an image file on your computer, and easily inserted into other Windows-based applications, such as e-mail or word processors, with little effort using file-based, drag-and-drop, or clipboard operations.

Since PrintCapture emulates a printer and a plotter, it can replace the serial, parallel, or GPIB printer or plotter that you would normally use for hardcopy output. Just connect the hardcopy output from your oscilloscope, logic analyzer, or spectrum analyzer to either a serial port or GPIB interface on your Windows-based computer and 'print' to PrintCapture. PrintCapture processes the Hewlett-Packard Printer Control Language (PCL), Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language (HPGL/2), or Epson ESC/P Control Code commands from your instrument to create the image file. Once the data is displayed in PrintCapture it can be printed or inserted into other Windows-based applications for hardware documentation and report generation.

If you would like to see a couple of samples of how we used PrintCapture for our own clients you can download these PDF files. One is for a preliminary design of an X-10 RF Receiver and the other is for a feasibility study of a Windows-based 9-Bit Serial Protocol.

The screen-shot below displays the same image seen in the picture at the top of this page. It is an interactive image that will display popup tooltips for the major parts of PrintCapture. This image is just to familiarize you with PrintCapture's functionality.

What can you do if your logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, or oscilloscope doesn't have a serial printer or serial plotter output? Generally, there are two other interfaces available for hardcopy output from your test equipment:

PrintCapture is a plotter emulator and a printer emulator. It will capture your CRT-based test instrument's hardcopy data and save it as a Windows bitmap (BMP) file. Although a BMP file is the format of the captured image, the captured image can be converted to other file formats. With PrintCapture all images are caught quickly and with no intervention or programming required.

PrintCapture will also work with Windows 95- and Windows 98-based test instruments that print with HPGL plotter drivers (Hewlett-Packard HP7470A, HP7475A, HP7550A, HP7580A, HP7580B, HP7585A, HP7585B, and HP7586B). It also works with Windows NT- ,Windows 2000-, and Windows XP-based test instruments that print with HPGL/2 plotter drivers (Hewlett-Packard HP-GL/2 or HP7550 Plus). With a PC-based test instrument you can run both the test instrument and PrintCapture on the same machine - no need for two computers!

PrintCapture Makes It Easy For You To...

	Incorporate images from your oscilloscope, logic analyzer, or spectrum analyzer into your project documentation.
	Replace the serial printer, serial plotter, parallel printer, parallel plotter, GPIB printer, or GPIB plotter that is generally connected to your logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, or oscilloscope for hardcopy documentation.
	Keep multiple images open at once so you can easily see the difference between images.
	Open and display a file that currently exists in a BMP, Epson ESC/P, GIF, HPGL, HPGL/2, JPG, PCL, PCX, PNG, TGA, or TIF file format.
	Convert an image to a BMP, EPS, GIF, JPG, PCX, PNG, TGA, or TIF file format.
	Select a working directory where your images will be stored. This makes it easy to separate images by project.
	Auto-increment image file names for sequential captures. Just keep pressing the 'print' button on your test equipment.
	Drag-and-drop an image into another Windows-based program.
	Copy an image to the clipboard. From the clipboard the image can be pasted into other Windows-based programs.
	Edit the image, via an external program such as Microsoft Paint or Paint Shop Pro, so you can add your own information to the image.
	Maintain an image notes document via an external program such as WordPad, NotePad, or Microsoft Word.
	Print the image on your computer's printer.
	Save the raw data from your test equipment to help us improve the image processing engines.

System Requirements

	Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4.0 (SP4 or greater), 2000, or XP. PrintCapture has only been tested on XP Professional - but it should install and run just fine on XP Home Edition. PrintCapture should also install and run on Windows Me but we don't have access to Windows Me for testing.
	Windows NT 4.0, 2000, and XP require Administrator Rights for installation.
	Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater. Internet Explorer has to be installed but it doesn't have to be your default browser. The online help for PrintCapture uses parts of Internet Explorer.
	An available serial port or a National Instruments compatible GPIB interface.
	Your logic analyzer, spectrum analyzer, or oscilloscope must have print or hardcopy capability and must have a serial printer or serial plotter output that supports hardware handshaking (RTS/CTS or DTR/DSR). If your computer has a GPIB interface that uses National Instruments' NI-488.2 device driver then PrintCapture 3.x can also be configured to use NI's device driver. If your test equipment doesn't have a serial printer or serial plotter output, but it does have a parallel printer, parallel plotter, GPIB printer, or GPIB plotter output, there are parallel-to-serial and GPIB-to-serial converters that can be used instead.

You can order PrintCapture by visiting our downloads page. Your registered copy of PrintCapture also entitles you to free updates. If you'd like to 'kick the tires', you can download a 30-day trial version of PrintCapture from the downloads page or by clicking here. The 30-day trial version is fully functional - except that it will only run for 30-days after the first execution of the program. You can also visit the downloads page for updates and upgrades to PrintCapture.

What Some Of Our Customers Have To Say!

PrintCapture Is Easy To Use!

PrintCapture was born out of frustration. Working in electronic engineering labs with all manner of oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, logic analyzers and so on, has shown us one thing; frustration with the inability to easily retain hardcopy for our documentation.

Normally, it's a hassle to incorporate good images into a design document. If it were simple and easy you would already be doing it. We've changed that. Then, as now, we knew this was a great tool for the electronic engineering lab.

When you use any oscilloscope, logic analyzer, or spectrum analyzer that this product is designed to work with, it consumes a significant amount of your attention just keeping the instrumentation aligned to the task at hand. You're not thinking about hardware documentation. And that's a problem. The data you collect is right at the heart of your design - so why throw it out?

Before we built PrintCapture, we asked ourselves what we would expect from the program in a laboratory environment. The bottom line was two things; simple to use and bulletproof. Our concept of simple may be at odds with other people, but PrintCapture has been designed from the beginning to be simple - by any reasonable standard. This program is easier to use than a printer or plotter and you don't have to worry about running out of paper or ink. Making the product bulletproof is an ongoing process.

Early on we decided that bells and whistles were out. The idea of sitting in front of a modern spectrum analyzer madly punching buttons rings enough bells in our minds. With that in mind we decided the approach to follow was to make using PrintCapture an absolute no-brainer. We believe the only trouble you'll likely encounter is using up all of your hard drive space with images.

You can order PrintCapture by visiting our downloads page. Your registered copy of PrintCapture also entitles you to free updates. You can also download a 30-day trial version of PrintCapture from the downloads page or by clicking here. The 30-day trial version is fully functional - except that it will only run for 30-days after the first execution of the program. You can also visit the downloads page for updates and upgrades to PrintCapture.

Mike Shride
F&F SoftTools
934 S. Burlington Blvd., PMB 133
Burlington, WA 98233

Some Final Odds-And-Ends

PrintCapture installation is smart. It will not break the system files on your machine. We know that you work hard to keep your platform stable. To preserve your system's integrity we install all of our files to the PrintCapture folder so we don't clobber any of your system's files.

If you have a problem with PrintCapture, please let us know about it. It's feedback from our customers that helps us improve the product. For example, if XYZ Corporation produces a piece of test equipment that PrintCapture has a problem with, we want to know about it. The sooner the better. If we support you, we make it easier on ourselves to make our product better.