Scopes I have known and loved (or not)

[Craig]

A not exhaustive list of Tek gear. I'll have to keep taking the tablets, clearly.......

I have a very understanding wife. I keep telling her that I could be interested in tractors or traction engines........

• 7904 4-slot mainframe, 500MHz bandwidth, 2 off one with fast writing CRT
• 7904A 4-slot mainframe, 500MHz bandwidth
• 7834 4-slot mainframe, 400MHz multimode storage 5500div/us
• 7844 dual gun 4-slot mainframe, 500MHz
• 7104 4-slot mainframe, 1GHz bandwidth, MCP CRT.
• 7313 3-slot mainframe, 25MHz split screen bistable storage, 5div/us
• 7623B 3-slot mainframe, 100MHz multimode storage, 2222div/us
• 7633 3-slot mainframe, 100MHz multimode storage, 2200div/us
• 7603 3-slot mainframe, 100MHz
• 7704A 4-slot mainframe, 200MHz
• 7854 4-slot mainframe, 400MHz digitizing scope
• 7403N 3-slot mainframe, 60MHz
• 7912HB transient digitiser, 1GHz bandwidth single shot
• 7934 4-slot mainframe, 500MHz multimode storage 8800div/us
• 7B10 delayed timebase (200ps/div)
• 7B15 delaying timebase (200ps/div)
• 7B53A dual timebase (5ns/div) 4 off
• 7B70 timebase
• 7B71 timebase
• 7B80 delayed timebases (1ns/div) 2 off
• 7B85 delaying timebase (1ns/div) 2 off
• 7B87 pre-trigger acquire timebase for 7854 (1ns/div) 1 off
• 7B90P programmable timebase
• 7B92A dual timebase (500ps/div)
• 7D11 digital delay
• 7D01/DF1 logic analyser
• 7D15 225MHz universal counter timer
• 7A11 FET probe amp
• 7A12 dual channel vertical amp
• 7A13 differential comparator
• 7A16P programmable amp
• 7A18 dual channel amps (75MHz) 4 off
• 7A19 vertical amps (600MHz), one with variable delay 3 off
• 7A21N direct access plug in
• 7A22 differential amp (2 off)
• 7A24 dual channel amp (400MHz)
• 7A26 dual channel amps (200MHz) 5 off
• 7A29 vertical amps (1GHz), one with variable delay 2 off
• 7A29P 1GHz programmable
• 7L5 spectrum analyser with tracking generator
 Type 2701 switched attenuator (1GHz)
• 7L12 spectrum analyser
• TR502 tracking generator for 7L12
• 7T11 sampling timebase
• 7S11 sampling unit 2 off
• 7S12 TDR sampler
• S4 sampling head (14GHz) 2 off
• S6 TDR sampling head (12GHz)
• S2 sampling head (4.6GHz)
• S1 sampling head (1GHz) 2 off
• S52 pulse generator head (25ps)
• S53 trigger recogniser head
• S3A sampling probe (1GHz)
• 7M11 delay line
• 012-0124-00 sampling head extender (3 foot) 2 off
• 634 video monitor
• 620 x-y monitor
• 7M13 readout unit
• 7CT1N semiconductor curve tracer
• C1002 digital oscilloscope camera
• Type 111 pretrigger pulse generator (300ps rise time)
• Type 110 pulse generator (200ps rise time)
• 067-0513-00 tunnel diode pulser (25ps rise time)
• Type 106 pulse generator
• Type 114 Pulse Generator
• Type 130 L-C meter
• S30 delta standards (130 L-C calibration)
• Type 190B constant amplitude signal generator (0.35 – 50MHz)
• Type 191 constant amplitude signal generator (0.35 – 100MHz)
• Type 184 time mark generator
• Type 284 tunnel diode pulser, (70ps rise time)
• Type 285 Power supply (for S50 series heads)
• 067-0502-01 Amplitude generator and calibrator
• 067-0503-00 Precision DC divider (10:1 and 100:1)
• 067-0508-00 50 ohm calibration fixture
• 067-0529-00 1000:1 divider
• 067-0562-00 P6046 input adaptor
• 067-0587-01 mainframe calibrator
• 067-0587-02 mainframe calibrator, 2 off
• 067-0589-00 rigid plug-in extender
• 067-0608-00 overdrive recovery fixture
• 067-0616-00 flexible plug-in extender 3 off
• 067-650-00 constant amplitude signal generator (220 – 900MHz)
• 067-0652-00 peak to peak detector 2 off
• 067-0710-00 7912 calibration aid
• 067-0875-00 50-ohm bridge
• 545A and 545B oscilloscopes with the following plugins
 Type 1L5 spectrum analyser (50Hz to 1MHz)
 015-0107-00 Swept Frequency Convertor for 1L5
 Type 1L10 spectrum analyser (1 to 36MHz)
 Type 1L20 spectrum analyser (10MHz to 4.2GHz)
 Type N sampling unit
 Type 1S1 sampling unit (1GHz)
 Type 1S2 TDR sampler (4.6GHz)
 Type L amp
 Type D differential amp
 Type CA dual channel amp
 Type Z differential comparator
 Type 1A4
 Type Z
• P6201 FET probe (900MHz)
• P6202A FET probe (500MHz)
• P6032 cathode follower probe (650MHz)
• P6201 current probe (65MHz)
• P6013A high voltage probe (13kV, 75MHz)
• P6105 high voltage probe (20kV, 75MHz)
• P6046 FET differential probe (100MHz)
• P6016 10x probe (250MHz) 2 off
• P6075A 10x probe (200MHz) 2 off
• P6101A 1x probe (35MHz) 2 off
• Matched pairs P6055 passive differential probes (150MHz) 2 off
• P6063B 10x/1x switchable probes (150MHz) 2 off
• P6054A 10x probe
• P6056 10x probe (3.5GHz)
• P6057 100x probe (1.7GHz

[ppppenguin]

By then I was working for Michael Cox Electronics. We had Solartron OS3000 and Telequipment D83 (the big screen version of the D75). Both about 40-50MHz. I preferred the Solartrons and the manufacturer's rep sold me an ex-demo unit. This was my a faithful scope for a few years until the EHT blew up

When I said Solartron OS3000 I meant Advance OS3000. They were mostly the original Advance models, not the later ones sold under the Gould name.

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/advance_in..._os_3.html

They were very easy to use, with clearer controls than the Teks of that period.

[boater sam]

What! No Polaroid Camera rig Craig? I shot hundreds of packs of film on Tek scopes, caustic everywhere in the darkroom.

[beamcurrent]

My first decent scope was a Solartron 711S. It had a 5" flat face tube with a fast blue phosphor and a long persistence yellow one.

I do recall it's MTBF as almost too short to measure, well maybe I exaggerate just a bit. It was an ex military job and it spent the first part of it's life in a air defense missile control cabin, another story.

However all the high stab black resistors were fitted with a Hellerman rubber sleeve with the component number nicely written on it. There must have been some reaction between the rubber, or more likely the lubricant the wireman used and the resistors would go high or open circuit almost as fast as I could replace them!

It was a two man lift!

Ho-Hum

[ppppenguin]

The official "Hellerine" lubricant for Hellerman sleeves smelt somewhat of bananas. Most of us were not above using a little spit when the Hellerine wasn't immediately to hand.

[Craig]

What! No Polaroid Camera rig Craig? I shot hundreds of packs of film on Tek scopes, caustic everywhere in the darkroom.

Well, I had one but sold it. It was just something that sat on a shelf and looked good. And yes - I used one back in the day; the trick was to rigorously clean the rollers in the back because the goop in those film packs would damage them.

But I do have the electronic equivalent - the C1002 - which I occasionally use. 490 x 728 pixels (356k pixels!). That is actually good enough for typical scope screen resolution. £3k in 1990 without the power supply!

[ppppenguin]

Makes you think about the hostory of storage scopes. Analogue storage scopes using special CRTs were troublesome beasts but a useful alternative to cameras in sme applications. Then fast forward to today's digital scopes where even modest instruments like the Rigol 1054Z at under £300 have tremendous storage capabilities. Or the PC based scopes which outsource much of the work to a host computer with essentially unlimited memory. Still need a good analogue front end and sampling system.

A lot depends on whether you're tring to capture a "one shot" event or just want a record of a fairly repetitive waveform. The former needs true nyquist sampling, at least twice the highest frequency of interest. The latter can use equivalent time sampling, something that was pioneered on things like the Tek 1S1 1GHz sampling plugin for 500 series scopes.

Useful article on sampling. Note the use of an analogue scope to verify the results of a sampling scope.
https://www.tek.com/document/application...e-sampling

[Craig]

You can pull some real stunts with a fast analogue storage scope. The attached image is of a single shot at 1ns/div on a 7834 storage scope, on reduced scan fast variable persistence mode.

[ppppenguin]

Does anyone have a Tek 2467? The one with a microchannel CRT. Apparently it can provide a visible trace from signals with extreme mark/space ratios.

[Craig]

I have a 7104, which also has an MCP. It is quite something to see a single shot at 200ps/division in bright daylight. But at that speed there are so few electrons in a single shot that the trace looks "grainy" because of statistical fluctuation in the number of electrons reaching the MCP. Even the readout looks like that because you select gated mode so you get a single signal scan and then a single readout scan.