I was a repair and calibration tech for Tektronix in the 1970s. For EVERY piece of gear that came into the shop, its first stop was the wash rack. The gear was hosed down with soap using a sprayer nozzle virtually identical to the ones you see at the self-serve car washes, in a well lighted and mostly enclosed metal "sink" that had a large lazy Susan in the middle so that the gear could readily be rotated during the procedure. It'd then be rinsed off, and then blown out with compressed air. The next stop was the dryers, which were large heating cabinets that ran about 130 or so degrees (IIRC), and they'd stay in there for at least two days. The only rule was, any gear that had transformer cans, had to be positioned so that the opening in the can faced down to avoid any chance of a large amount of water pooling up inside and not drying out completely over the two days. Consequently, none of the techs ever had to deal with the "smell of dusty tubes," it was all squeaky clean before we did anything to it, even before we powered it on for the first time. I never saw or even heard of a case of something being damaged from the wash. Made it nice to work on the old tube gear given there were a lot of them still operating that had long been in dusty and dirty shops. Tektronix had its own ceramics shop to make the strips, so they were the only ones who used them-- and they also made it a breeze to work on. The ceramics shop eventually grew into making ceramic CRTs, another thing you were not likely to see in any of the competition's equipment, and they made their own bistable storage tubes, quite an achievement at the time. Tek gear was designed to be maintained, in the 7000 series for example, every transistor is socketed as well as all the ICs. And the 7000 series "digital" readout chips were actually analog, designed by Tek to "steal" the beam away from the trace momentarily and move it into the corners to draw the readout characters. The 7000 series displays are not raster scanned, they're actually drawn, which gives them their unique look.
No, I don't believe so-- as far as I know the water was right out of the tap and not treated. I suppose there could have been a water softener, I don't recall now, but I doubt it was distilled. And it was blow-dried off before putting it into the drier, mineral deposits weren't an issue.
Absolutely-- if you drop it in a puddle, that's what I'd do. With a phone though, you might want to open it up to clean the inside, which isn't always so easy...
@@racitup4114 Not really the same as a laptop or phone has a battery inside so there is always voltage flowing around circuits. As someone who deals with liquid damage Macs, water and electronics that are powered is not good at all.
Is this the same tektronix that is nowadays building solid-state Bowling machine electronic parts for the Brunswick and AMF machines? I'm kind of thinking not, but stranger things have happened..
Tektronix built mostly Test & Messurement equipment, but as only a tiny part of what they once were, anything is possible. For years they were the largest employer in Oregon, 24,000 people, now less than 4,000 and shrinking.
We had one in the corner of the lab where I started working in the late 1970s. The "old timers" who used to use them said the after turning on the lights in the morning, you would turn on the 555. The go make coffee, drink a cup, chat with you buddies, and take your second cup back to the bench, because by then your 'scope had thermally stabilized. You could warm your sandwich up at lunch time be just placing it on the top ! A true engineering marvel !!
Wow, I am a old engineer and I have owned a 555. The explanation of the filament regulator was excellent. Seeing the tubes with labels to, as that meant they were matched pairs. That family of scopes had issues with the HV rectifier tubes and I still own a drawer full of 15000 volt silicon diodes to replace them. Their yours if you like.
I worked at Hirst Research Centre in Wembley from 1968 until 1975. We had 545's and 547's, and one 555 (there were more in other labs) which I got to use quite a lot. They were all still in use when I left and very reliable.
I had the privilege to repair these beauties and all the other Tek Osciloscopes of the day between 1978 & 1999 at Tek UK. The best job in the universe and to this day keep up with my fellow colleagues who I call my extended family. A time to celebrate but sadly never to return.
Yeah, it was a swell place to work. It was my first good job and I didn't know how good I had it until I went to work for a computer company whose techs had to scrounge for equipment-- was really spoiled by working at a tech bench that had everything you could possibly want, all the right tools for the job. Eventually I moved into software, and I guess it was a good thing as all the hardware engineers I knew back then were getting laid off once the IBM PC and its clones arrived, and we were no longer making computer systems of our own designs and the company I worked at after Tek. Software was the right place to be at that point, and I enjoyed doing it (still do to this day). But I do value my experience at Tek. I also tell the story of one point in the 1970s where Tek did a salary survey and figured out we were underpaid-- I remember many of us getting a SIZEABLE increase all at once to bring things up to what was competitive. I've never seen or heard of that being done anywhere else. And the profit share program was nice as well. Yep, they're one of a kind.
@@jacknedry3925 I take it you haven't yet worked for Google in Mountain View, California, or Johns-Mansfield in Denver. Both are awesome places to work (and I was a janitor). I since pulled a temp stint at Bourns in Riverside, California doing janitorial. There was this stray cat living in the parking lot. We called him "trimpot".
I saw my first Tektronix, in the late 60'S. So, I got the schematic; and it took a long time to get it all. But I wanted to know EVERY thing; and what it did. It was one of the most exciting electronics; in my 33 yrs of working with electronics at RCA; and subbing on my own for 12 yrs. Total was 45 yrs. Wow, what you said brought tears of nostalgia. I loved that Oscilloscope. Thank you Paul. You are truly a "Cut-Above".
Former Tek engineer here (7000 series). I'm not sure when we stopped drawing the schematics by hand, it could have been just before I joined the company in 1978. The draftsmen were incredible and had excellent senses of humor. There are various cartoons scattered about the schematics from the hand-drawn era, the Wizard being one of the most common. I often wonder how many 500-series 'scopes from that era helped send Apollo to the moon and back.
The silver solder was used to provide compatibility with the silver-clad ceramic material of the terminal strips. Common tin-lead solder would leach the clad silver and compromise the terminal strips' reliability.
My friend had one of these, mostly working. He collected scopes and test equipment. The trace on these things are really uniquely coloured, as you can see in the video. It's quite a piece of equipment.
Actually while I am bored with most common circuit descriptions and usually turn it off. That circuit is mind blowing. Simple and effective! Took me deeper than I ever thought I wanted to go into the old tektronics scope.
One way to think about the cost of a complete upper level Tektronix scope system, amplifiers, cart, probes, and mainframe, is that it would cost about the same as a nice suburban home. This held true until about the late 70s ~ early 80s when real estate values went nuts-high. My teen and young adult years were in the back yard of Tek starting in the late 60s. I got to see the scopes being made and got to meet many of the fine engineers that created this stuff.. In that period, the last of the tube units were still being made, and the new generation solid state product was coming to market, the 5000/7000 series mainframes, and the TM500 auxiliary instruments. It was amazing what they created, and now over 50 years later, I still use a lab full of analog instrumentation by Tek in the pursuit of making a living. I have dozens of major Tek instruments still working and keeping cal, at from 35 to 50 years old. Magnificent technical achievement was the norm at Tek until the founders died. That dual beam is a gem... I use my later period dual beam all the time, a 400MHz R7844, accompanied by a 7834 400MHz storage scope, a7704 with P7001 digitizer, and a 2247A portable. We also use TM500 scopes for general waveform monitoring. My 7704/P7001 was the personal property of its inventor, the father of digital oscilloscope processing, Hiro Moriyasu.
As a calibration tech worked on many 500 series o-scopes. In the early 80's when they were scrapped employees could purchase them for about 25 dollars. After awhile the lawyers said it was a legal liability and I rolled dozens off the loading dock into dumpsters.
Well that was a blast of nostalgia! My little company bought a used Tek 555 in 1968, and we were damn smug about having such a nice oscilloscope. As we could, we acquired several different plug-ins. I recall that Polaroid made an adapter that clamped onto that round bezel, allowing you to make hard copies of the waveforms using (IIRC) Polaroid 5" x 7" cut film. You could set the oscilloscope to Single-shot, open the camera shutter, trigger the scope, close the shutter and pull the film through the squeegee rollers. A minute later, you could see if you caught the event, or needed to try again. Tube test gear may still have its charms, but nobody who ever recorded a waveform this way ever wanted to do it again after experiencing the delights of dumping digital memory to a printer.
@@gyrgrls Please notify me when you perfect your time machine; 1960's me has a list of desired toys. (We better use precious metals so as to not disrupt the timeline.)
I had the privilege of testing Polaroid Type 410 (ISO 10,000) instant film when I was in 7000-series engineering. It was quite impressive although by that time not as necessary because the nuclear labs were buying our new 7104 1GHz mainframe on whose screen one could easily view a single-shot event at the maximum time-base speed, 200ps/div. Ordinary Polaroid was fast enough to photograph those 7104 traces.
I grew up and took university classes at a tektronix campus in Oregon. The professor was an Iranian ex-Pat who worked on the engineering and finance side. He was a wonderful professor and we toured the local facilities on the weekends. He taught me more about financial modeling on the operations side than I ever wanted to know. Great guy and a great company. His wife turned me on to tube audio amps. To this day i still love tubes for audio. A good dinner and a glass of wine with your favorite bands on vinyl,CD or streaming is wonderful. Big brute force tube amps are fun. I have 2 sets of tube monos all class A at 100w and 250 watts that were made right here. In 15 years, I lost 1 input tube and a fuse. Everything else tests fine after 20+ hours of listening time a week. Never,have I lost a pre-amp tube and those pre-amps only get turned off and unplugged for trios lasting longer that 4 days. Tubes are really great. I own SS amps too, but simply preset tubes for most music.
Hi my name is Don I am 54 years old and I have been working with and deep study of tube type and solid state electronics since I was about 5 years old yes 5 years old! and it makes me feel really good to know of some one who is so dedicated to electronics like you keep up the good work.
After watching several dozens of your videos...and becoming a patron, its rare to hear you talk so glowingly about a piece of equipment. I'm glad it found it's forever home, and that you appreciate it like you do. Most people would probably turn it into a plant stand.
I worked for McDonald's as a maintenance tech for 22 years. I was told about Tektronix Company Store for employees and the general public back in '95. I would go for chairs, file cabinets and wire shelving. There was always a long line to get in at 2:00 on Tuesdays. I would always try to be there early because at the head of the line were all the retired engineers. They were a vast store-house of knowledge like you, and were glad to answer any questions I had. It was in Beaverton Oregon, but I haven't been there in a long time. Keith L.
1974 in Adak Alaska, I was a 622 electronics tech for the Navy taking care of the Sosus system. Great memories dragging around a 555 to calibrate the Western Electric components for keeping tabs on our friendly Russian submarines. I remember the smell of the very warm tubes. Thank you. We never turned them off for stability. The WECO gear ran on 400 Hz as to not get artifacts on the displays, kinda cool.
Simply an amazing piece, a true master piece !!! And what a gift Paul, it is in the best hands it could be in!!! Plase keep it as safe as you can and try to get some spare tubes just in case to keep this wonder running for 100 more years ...and thank you so much to share this beauty with us
I'm coming in here late in the game (about 6 years late) as I have finally retired and have time to spend on my interests, not to mention the extra time because of the corona virus. I first started using Tek scopes back in 1968 in my electronics class during 11th and 12th grades in Boulder Colorado which was fortunate to have a couple of scopes donated by IBM. I used a 547 and a 564 storage scope, but the 547 was the real workhorse scope. During my electronics career, I never had to work on a tube scope but did a little on some 465s. I always found their quality to be top notch and also their documentation. Much like what I experienced in the Navy riding an FBM submarine working on inertial navigation systems. Much later in my career working for the USAF in Nevada working on gear in places I cannot even mention. I just love this channel and spend lots of hours watching electronics geeks porn and reliving my past. Thank you Paul for your truly excellent videos. Between your videos and some audiophile channel videos I may never watch TV again. 😊
I have an old Tektronics scope built it 1966. Looks exactly like this / same style. . . ... Been in back of the garage for 15 years untouched. Turned it on, worked perfectly, every function. It's nice to find someone else who appreciates these thingss.
You are probably one of the few who would be capable of discussing gear of this caliber i learn so much from your Im retired ,just think of all the ones that get inspired by you
Mr. Harkins, rare is the day I don't watch at least an hour of Mr. Carlson's lab. He's the "Mr. Rogers" of us grown up nerds. "Inspired" doesn't begin to describe what his show does for me. It took me decades of part-time messing around to eventually get my ASE, General Ham License, private pilot's license, Captain's License, and now, at 53, I'm messing around with my other passion...electronicalisticisms. Best ten bucks a month i've ever spent being a Patron of this young man.
If I ever had some fantastic vintage gear, Mr. Carlson is the only man who I know would have a loving home for it! I felt that now the oscilloscope is finally come home! :-)
Accepting one large box from the USP delivery man in the Summer of '88, my 545B was possibly the heaviest cardboard box I carried into my basement, struggle trumped by pure joy upon its arrival. A fine elder man named Jack Berg at JB Electronics in Chicago sold me this from his ad in the back of Radio Electronics Magazine, my "summer job" money. His enthusiasm and patience over the phone helping me troubleshoot a few minor issues and send replacement tubes resembled your enthusiasm and patience. The whole experience was a great introduction to the most affordable scope I could find at the time, en route to greater life-long electronics learning.
I have just a very basic understanding of Electronics yet I am so drawn into your videos, there must be something deep in our human conscious that draws us.
At age 16 I worked for only a few days for an ex-Tektronix Engineer who opened his own electronics TV repair business. Unfortunately was still in high school and he was over 1.5 hours away and was just to difficult getting much work time in, was mostly drive time and could not afford to continue an apprenticeship with him. He was a brilliant man in his own right. And consequently choose another vocation, but always liked electronics having built kit Radio Shack Crystal Radios and other projects by age 7. Thanx for the video amazing unit indeed.
You remind me of my Mentor, Charlie Wilson, of Lubbock, Texas, who helped me to love elegant electronic design, such as Tektronix instruments, in the early 1970s. I mourn his untimely passing in the mid 80s, and often want to call and tell him of each revelation I achieve in my continuous education. You seem to carry on his spirit -- keep on truckin'... Cheers, Dave
Love that version! My dad had a R556 with some really nice calibrated plugins from NASA and I remember using the hell out of it as a kid! It was as amazing as that one for sure. It also had the blue phosphor interestingly enough, but it was a little different. Keep up the amazing quality content!
Wow what an amazing piece of art. The power regulator I believe solves a sixty year old mystery for me. When I was a student I worked in a lab which analysed rocks using a Watson victor arc spectroscope. It was huge all vacuum tubes and always powered on. It was supplied through a voltage regulator which was a heavy steel box with a cover full of holes. Inside I could see a very bright vacuum tube among a few other normal ones. No one knew how it worked It seems it was a saturating controller or possibly a motor driven variac using a 2AS-15. As the voltage sensor.
Yes. Although the tubes would age gracefully, the scopes required only occasional calibration. The regulated filament supply was to help avoid drift, greatly reducing the frequency of calibrations. Now we have solid-state more and more units, with the input stages often housed in assemblies similar to crystal ovens.
I repaired Tektronix scopes of that era for 20 years ((530x and 540x mostly) and I can tell you nothing is built like they are. A lot of the circuitry was developed by Tek engineers and it was absolutely brilliant. Peter Wright wrote a book on audio preamp design iin the early 2000's and he lauded the designers of these instruments for their meticulous work. I can vouch for the reliability of these instruments, we ran them 8-12 hours a day for 6 days a week and they ran for years before needing any attention.
I'm so glad you added that "video correction" to your narrative. I was LISTENING to you... and realized that the word you were looking for was CURRENT... LOL Then I realized that there was a video correction... and was VERY impressed! Good job!
Great video! Thanks. I actually had one of these expensive room heaters that doubled as an oscilloscope in 1980. I remember counting over 87 tubes in the main unit and about 18 tubes in the power supply. When I turned it on my lights would dim. It seemed like it was working just fine though. In those days I worked at Hewlett Packard (1975-2006) and a friend that also worked there gave me that scope. I also got to use HP scopes which were much smaller by then. I worked in the Electronic Maintenance Department and got to work on a lot of equipment, mostly HP test gear and personal computers and printers. It was a great experience because it was in the golden age of personal computer advancements and technology.
Fantastic machine !!! the state of the art .. what else .....never never again that it's a pity !!! i'm 60 y old and i remember the Kudelski Nagra electronique and Stelavox and Studer / Revox And Ampex !!! oh my god !!! !!! some time i made a dream : please come back one minute just for my joy .... But nothing today just SMD composents just a bullshit of money !!! where is my passion where is my soul ???? i'm rest with my remembers Thanks a lot Mister for this video Thanks for the share !!! Eric from France God bless you and your family
When I was going to high school in the early 70's we had two of these donated to our school by the Air Force as surplus. At the time we were using Heatkit OL1 units that a previous class from the 1960's put together and were not very good even by the standars of the day. The donated Tektroinx still had the DOD asset tags on them and the first time we used them were amazed on how well they worked. I still remember my teacher clling them the "Cadillac" of electronic equipment.
I am just watching this now and I am thinking that is a very clever regulation circuit Tek created for the filament voltage. The engineers at Tek were brilliant.
I was never aware of the 555. Very amazing! I was only aware of the 535/545/547 series...Wonderful example of some tremendous engineering from a bygone era.
I was a technician/instructor for RCA Service Co from 1954 to 1987. Such nostalgia for sure. In the 70's, I researched Tektronix oscilloscopes, and I was blown away at their circuitry. So I agree with what you and the author of this DIY video are saying. I doubt there are many companies as dedicated as Tektronix. It's no wonder that their scopes are found in most technical manufacturers, all over the world. Did Tektronix invent the "Trigger" Scope? I do not know, but it would not surprise me if they did.
I own a Tectronix 160a made in 1956 its a scope with a wave form generator and pulse generator with a separate power supply. I believe this was one of there first but I was very impressed with the craftsmanship as well. There is not one component in it not stamped " Made in USA". Really bum's me out to see we no longer make great products anymore since free trade came in to play. Thank you for showing us that piece of history
I once owned a 647; the Nuvistor one. Bought it from John's radio in Bradford, England. Same kind of construction and it came with a small reel of the silver solder. After using it for a few years, I put it away for 20 years in its transit case, and it still worked for the guy who bought it from me. Next to indestructible :-)
I had the pleasure of using a 555 back when I was in school. Aside from the quality of the components and construction, I belive the tube longevity was a result of the filament regulation. A lot of vacuum tube failures are a result of voltage surge on start up. I've worked with transmitting tubes that had regulated filament voltage for the same reason, but not using the saturated reactor method. Great video.
I love my 545B, I've had it 40+ years now. During my apprenticeship, the 545 in the lab was known as the 'Winter Warmer' because it acted as a 635 Watt fan-heater and kept the lab cosy. It was kept on all day long to maintain stability. I haven't run mine for over 30 years now, I only keep it as a memento of my youth.
I own one of the 555 Tek Scopes. When he turned his on the loud noise was recognizable. When I turned mine on the lights in my house would dim as well. Represents great old fashioned American Technology. Mostly long gone.
Wow, I had a stupid grin on my face as that monster lit up and the traces appeared. I believed it would power up fine but to actually witness the tubes lighting up... it was something else, wow. Thank you for sharing a treasure like this, something that most of us might never see.
I used to work for the UK Post Office, Calibration Services department. We had many of these types of scopes across our benches. I was always in awe of the construction quality and robustness and the fact that they really were built to be maintained. Thanks for your videos, I learn a lot and am entertained by the variety of kit you demonstrate. Best. Matt
I really appreciated watching this video. I have a Tek 545B and a Lavois 265, which was a virtually identical copy of the 545A, and was involved in the famous lawsuit. I used them for a lot of years and always marvelled at the flawless construction of these beasts. My favourite plug-in, was the diode checker. With it, I could check every parameter of a diode and I also used to use it to check the junctions on transisters that I sometimes used as diodes. Thanks for taking the time to explain these fantastic pieces of equipment to an whole new generation. Bob
When I worked at NCR, they always kept the test room very cool. They had a couple big Tektronix scopes like yours and the board repair techs used to get them and turned them around backwards and used them to keep warm.
i had one of those in the 80;s i can confirm they are great for heating the garage. love your channel paul. i can sit and watch you playing with all this old gear i used to have. i am in the UK and used to go to a auction once a month where a lot of ex government lab gear was sold off. i used to have a lot of plug ins for those scopes.. nice to see it still working.
I used to have this model. It was stunning inside, so many valves, and the rectifier valves in the external power supply were huge. I bought it for £45 in a junk shop in Bolton, Lancashire in England in the early 1990's. It had stickers on the side from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena California. How it got from the JPL to a junk shop in the UK is a mystery. Mine had a spare spool of silver solder inside (top right if I remember). The action of the switches were great, smooth and solid after so many years. I think I spent more time staring at the inside with the glowing valves just in awe of the engineering than I did looking at the front when using it.
You are so right about the Type 555 being a true masterpiece! I keep one right next to my workbench and use it on a regular basis. It's been my favorite scope for decades. I had a long-time, long-distance friendship with one of the principle design engineers responsible for the 555 and it was really cool to get repair help and general information about the unit from someone who was literally responsible for the scope's creation. It's an elegant design and more pleasing to operate than any other scope I've ever had. I got my first 555 back in the 70s and hope to always have one in my shop. And thank you for posting such an excellent video! You have introduced a truly fine instrument to a lot of folks who might never have seen one otherwise!
This 555 has found it's rightful home. I love those porcelain wafers, I've never seen such things before. I'm with you on tube reliability Mr Carlson, a well designed tube circuit will be reliable if it's operated in the environment it was designed for. I guess this is the truth for solid state circuits too. Thanks for another fascinating video.
Wow! I thought that my Tektronix 502A was impressive with its 43 valves and a fan! At least its power unit is built in! You're right, it is beautifully built and mine had a little coil of spare solder inside.
Your videos are amazing and circuit theory is almost 100% perfect. I spent most of my electronics career calibrating and repairing Tek scopes. I started in 1965 on the 500 series scopes and built muscle hefting them around for routine maintenance. We had several hundred pieces on six month cal cycles and I was very familiar with the smell of hot tubes. We also had quite a few other pieces of test equipment mfg by Tektronix. Our service manuals took up a whole wall and the parts inventory took a whole room. When I retired we just getting into the 2000 series scopes. Nostalgia.
I know of the quality of Techtronics having owned a 545B back in the distant past, I would often run it With the covers off just to admire the craftsmanship that went into it. Love your channel.
Tektronix had to make CRTs due to their former supplier providing them with rejects. So they made their own CRTs and made them better than anyone/everyone else and made better scopes than anyone else. Then they really took of and greatly superseded all of the competition. They were way ahead of their time in many respects. Thanks for this video. Fabulous set of scopes you have there Mr. Carlson.
Paul, I just wanted to make a silly comment and comparison. With todays digital and microprocessor based oscilloscope's using millions of transistors maybe your title should be: With only 100 tubes Tektronix made this really cool work of art back in the day. Compared to other tube electronics back in the same time period yes 100 tubes was a lot. I think you will agree it takes millions of transistors to do the same thing now-a-days. Very nice entertaining and informative video. As always you do a great job on your video's. You go straight to the point without a lot of extraneous jibber-jabber. Thank you for sharing your talent and knowledge with the rest of us.
bit late but a modern DSO functions completely different to that. sure it shows the same thing but the working principle is totally different with an analog to digital converter taking samples of the Signal and showing these.
Love old Tek equipment (they're works of art and exquisite craftsmanship) and have a ton of it. 4 mainframe scopes with 4 plug in's, 2 - 3 plug in, 465's, 647's, TM-500 stuff and over 30 plug in's for the mainframe scopes such as 7704, 7104 and 2, -7854 DSO's and a 676 curve tracer. HP stuff too, meters, VTVM's, frequency and function generators, RF generators (3) up to 13GHz, a 1959 130B, X,Y scope in working condition. RCA senior Voltohmest, analog VTVM, with a whopping 7" mirror display (I love this meter for checking scratchy pots), Systron Donner frequency counter (Nixie tube) and a Fairchild 7000 , Nixie tube, 5 1/5 digit DMM, Fluke DMM's, Hp power supplies, 6200B, etc X3. Govt liquidators was selling this stuff for a song, several years back. The 7104 mainframe cost the govt $30,000, I bought it for $50 and the calibration sticker was still good! I also bought metrology equipment, Voltage standards, oscilloscope calibration gear (much of it in wood cabinets that people passed up because they thought it was old - It very common for metrology equipment to be in a wooden case), tube tester, capacitor analyzer and conditioner. Theres lots more, Genrad decade resistor, decade capacitor boxes and inductor boxes. Hp attenuator, Weller, SMT workstation, Temperature controlled soldering iron, 5 Hexacon soldering irons from 40 to 200W. My go to scopes are the 465B with the penthouse and I have 2 spares for parts. I've run my own electronic musical equipment repair business since 1965. Specializing in vintage tube equipment restoration (but I work on digital stuff as well). On my main bench (I have 2 - one for amplifiers and the other for small pedals, tape decks. Bausch and Lomb stereo zoom microscope, I probably forgot half of the gear I have acquired since 1963. I really enjoy your site!
Excellent video, thanks for sharing. I am a young electronics enthusiast and I don't think I will ever have the chance to come across a brilliant piece of equipment like this... but thanks to you I got a glimpse of what it would feel like. I really appreciate all the hard work you put in to your videos. Thank you!
I found the explanation for the filament regulator facinating . I used this model years ago when I worked for Space General. Never realised the complexity inside...... Good video....
It must be a pleasure to own and use a piece of equipment that is so masterfully designed and executed. I can't help but think that I am glad it found its way into your hands. If any of your equipment could talk I bet they would be glad to have you as their owner/brethren.
That is truly beautiful. Regulated filament supply, such precision. And twice the price of an RCA CT100!!! My daily driver is a Tek 453 and I am very happy with it. You have a big future in making these videos.
Thanks Colin! I have been working on my next video since Christmas... "on and off." Should be up very soon. The Tek 453 is a great machine! Seems like all the older stuff they made was incredible.
Mr Carlson's Lab Bad news/good news. My Tektronix 453 (untouched but well used in the 10 years I owned it) finally developed a fault, and I really needed it as my Philips 3230 just wasnt fast enough for the job at hand. The fault turned out to be an open 75K resistor in the 12V regulator, also a nearby electrolyic spewed its guts from old age. Now I am tempted to replace all the electrolytics. Do you think Rubicons are OK? Long live Tektronix! Love your presentations.
Just a little over 1 day of tearing it down for scrap, you could probably get a good part of an 8 ball of cheap grade C dumpster crack after all is said and done. Thankfully people like you exist that appreciate the engineering effort and keep these things well preserved.
We had one that was laying around unused about 15 years ago in hospital physics lab, superb condition too. I got it for free, wrestled it back in to my house and in the end just didn't have the room. Sold it on ebay for only £20, but went to an avid collector, so happy to know it was going somewhere worthwhile. (Although the guy did say his wife wsn't going to be best pleased....). Such a lovely scope..just way too big :)
What a beautifully handcrafted piece of equipment! I'd bet it could withstand an EMP, whether natural or manmade! A blast from the past worth preserving, and a reminder of when a buck was still silver and the country was strong!
To be fair, this cost as much as a house did back then. Innovation and quality driven by the demands of the cold war military-industrial complex, I can't get enough of this stuff! I own a type 549 myself! Sometimes, I like to take off the covers just to admire the construction. The Allen Organ company also made all-tube products that are known to run reliably for decades without tube failures, also easily containing a hundred or more tubes. They continued using all-tube power amplifiers after they went to transistorized tone generation circuits. I own many of them, and they are built with far higher quality than consumer grade equipment. The story goes that Jerome Markowicz, founder of Allen Organ, consulted extensively with RCA to engineer their products for maximum reliability and tube life.
Great video. Nice to see someone that knows what saturable reactors are. I have two of those scopes. One to use and one for parts. My user is a little sick right now though. It has a wobbly power supply that I cant run down. Lukilly, I have a full set of manuals printed off from microfisch. No kidding about the room heater though.
@@MrCarlsonsLab you're channel is awesome. Thank you for sharing everything that you do. I only work with electronics on a basic level but I'm really enjoying soaking up the knowledge from your content wherever possible and it's not over my head. But it sure makes want to go grab an oscilloscope lol. Fascinating. I love your vintage repair stuff too. The B-29 radio is awesome.
Friggin amazing. Unreal quality. Creativity Ultimate engineering from over 50 years ago. Some proud talented and thoughtful sobs designed and built these things.
Thank you Mr Carlson, your videos are truly inspiring. My passion has always been electronics and watching someone as professional and proficient as yourself, and with such attention to detail has made me pick up the soldering iron again, and I'm loving it. This video though inspired me to buy an old Tek 564 just because it had been sitting loved on eBay for weeks. Thanks again ;)
Just found your channel last night and have been picking through what you have to offer. As a college student with an interest in vacuum tubes (especially in audio equipment) I'm absolutely loving getting to see all of the old equipment here, not to mention how knowledgeable you are about not only the method of operation, but repair as well. Thanks so much for making these videos!
Interesting video. When I hired on as a civil service avionic tech for the air force in 1972, I remember seeing these O scopes sitting in the test equipment cage mostly collecting dust. The first scope I remember using was the 453.
Enjoyed your video. I restore vintage radios and amps as well as anything else with tubes that catch my fancy. To make it more fun, I use all vintage test equipment as well. VTVM, an RCA 5mHz scope, VT Signal gen etc. The only modern thing I use is my soldering iron, which has a controller I built. I love this stuff! Thanks for taking time to do this vid for us to enjoy!
What a great video! I read that Tektronics had very strict requirements for any vacuum tubes used in their products. This brings back great memories for me.
Used a scope only once or twice during my career as an Instrumentation Tech. I was just probably amused by the dancing trace. Awesome scope. My Old frequency meter is built similarly with slide out plug in modules with spare metal tubes inside that looks as if they were just installed. Never been used. I love these vintage stuff. They don't build them this way anymore. Everything is "disposable".
+Greenfield 54 I agree, quality now has taken a back seat to greed. One day it will return.... when people learn that a one year operating time from their electronic equipment is not at all acceptable.
Totally agree with you. Love it. You've probably heard it but the word Tektronix is synonymous with "intellectual integrity". I have always like that comparison.
Wow thats is some superb engineering. I get that same chill down my spine looking at this as I do when I look at other works of engineering from that age. Thank you ever so much for making this video, as a teenager who will hopefully soon be studying to become a EE (got one year left of HS) these kinds of videos really amaze me with the depth, thought and design that go into things like these. Can't wait to see what else you realize on your channel.
not enough, you need a flash ADC, microcontrollers usually has successive approximation types, also a significant horsepower, maybe the arduinomega? with a flash ADC? hehe. anyway, you can''t beat, for instance a RIGOL 1052, the performance/price ratio is simply unbeatable.
I absolutely loved this video. The explanation and the coverage of the different aspects is very well done. Even my father that does not speak english loved it! Congratulations.
I remember as a kid dad bringing one of these home from work, after they disposed of it. I had a good play with it but as an 7yr old boy could not understand the full function of the unit. Dad later on started disassembling the scope to spark my interest in electronics. Sadly that destroyed the scope. Makes me think how silly that was to destroy such a thing . The trolley became a wood work bench in the garage. I remember how amazingly put together it was. Never seen anything like it to this day. Wish I still had it today untouched as I can now use it :D ...
One of my professors at University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering referred to these things as "Stanley Steamers". We had plenty of them around the labs, and all of them were calibrated regularly, all of them still worked, and I never heard of anyone replacing a tube in one!
Quite a pedigree. You know of course, that ENIAC, the first truly programmable electronic computer (with a zillion vacuum tubes), WAS DESIGNED AND BUILT AT THE MOORE SCHOOL!
I had one of these 30 years ago... But I had only the power supply and the scope itself. The size, weight, power hunger and especially the noise made me decide to give it away to someone else. These things are build wonderful but I'm still glad that I don't have to move that thing around any more....
Very informative demo of these great Teks scopes. Took tube theory in EE class back in the 60s. Worked with a lot of Tektronix and HP scopes working for telecommunication giants over the years. he 555 is built like the Cadillacs back in the 50s. ($2600 in '59 is about $26,000 today (give or take a few).. and the new ones will be probably assembled in China. That 2AS-15 is a unique thermionic diode. and works as you explained. The failsafe device in this tube is this filament tensioning spring that makes the connection from plate to cathode if the filament opens up.
What an amazing piece of technology! I'm surprised it was still working after all these years. I wonder if we can expect today's equipment to be so long lived. Thanks for the clear explanations, tube electronics is often a bit baffling to the untrained eye.
I grew up in the 1950's very near the Tek plant on Barnes road in SW Portland, which was the old Pioneer to North Plains to Portland back in the 1840's . My parents would point out the plant when we went to the local family cemetery every memorial day or when visiting friends on the weekends. To think that scope was built in that building and would up in eastern Canada.... Small world!!
I was a repair and calibration tech for Tektronix in the 1970s. For EVERY piece of gear that came into the shop, its first stop was the wash rack. The gear was hosed down with soap using a sprayer nozzle virtually identical to the ones you see at the self-serve car washes, in a well lighted and mostly enclosed metal "sink" that had a large lazy Susan in the middle so that the gear could readily be rotated during the procedure. It'd then be rinsed off, and then blown out with compressed air. The next stop was the dryers, which were large heating cabinets that ran about 130 or so degrees (IIRC), and they'd stay in there for at least two days. The only rule was, any gear that had transformer cans, had to be positioned so that the opening in the can faced down to avoid any chance of a large amount of water pooling up inside and not drying out completely over the two days. Consequently, none of the techs ever had to deal with the "smell of dusty tubes," it was all squeaky clean before we did anything to it, even before we powered it on for the first time. I never saw or even heard of a case of something being damaged from the wash. Made it nice to work on the old tube gear given there were a lot of them still operating that had long been in dusty and dirty shops. Tektronix had its own ceramics shop to make the strips, so they were the only ones who used them-- and they also made it a breeze to work on. The ceramics shop eventually grew into making ceramic CRTs, another thing you were not likely to see in any of the competition's equipment, and they made their own bistable storage tubes, quite an achievement at the time. Tek gear was designed to be maintained, in the 7000 series for example, every transistor is socketed as well as all the ICs. And the 7000 series "digital" readout chips were actually analog, designed by Tek to "steal" the beam away from the trace momentarily and move it into the corners to draw the readout characters. The 7000 series displays are not raster scanned, they're actually drawn, which gives them their unique look.
Thanks for sharing your story! That was a great read.
No, I don't believe so-- as far as I know the water was right out of the tap and not treated. I suppose there could have been a water softener, I don't recall now, but I doubt it was distilled. And it was blow-dried off before putting it into the drier, mineral deposits weren't an issue.
Absolutely-- if you drop it in a puddle, that's what I'd do. With a phone though, you might want to open it up to clean the inside, which isn't always so easy...
@@racitup4114 Not really the same as a laptop or phone has a battery inside so there is always voltage flowing around circuits. As someone who deals with liquid damage Macs, water and electronics that are powered is not good at all.
Thanks for sharing that story!
As a former Tektronix employee I’m always delighted to hear praise for our gear.
Is this the same tektronix that is nowadays building solid-state Bowling machine electronic parts for the Brunswick and AMF machines? I'm kind of thinking not, but stranger things have happened..
Tektronix built mostly Test & Messurement equipment, but as only a tiny part of what they once were, anything is possible. For years they were the largest employer in Oregon, 24,000 people, now less than 4,000 and shrinking.
It’s like Yoda comrnenting on your brand of light saber.
👍
@@dougtaylor7724 I love that comment, I am going to have to commandeer it.
We had one in the corner of the lab where I started working in the late 1970s. The "old timers" who used to use them said the after turning on the lights in the morning, you would turn on the 555. The go make coffee, drink a cup, chat with you buddies, and take your second cup back to the bench, because by then your 'scope had thermally stabilized. You could warm your sandwich up at lunch time be just placing it on the top !
A true engineering marvel !!
Wow, I am a old engineer and I have owned a 555. The explanation of the filament regulator was excellent. Seeing the tubes with labels to, as that meant they were matched pairs. That family of scopes had issues with the HV rectifier tubes and I still own a drawer full of 15000 volt silicon diodes to replace them. Their yours if you like.
I worked at Hirst Research Centre in Wembley from 1968 until 1975. We had 545's and 547's, and one 555 (there were more in other labs) which I got to use quite a lot. They were all still in use when I left and very reliable.
I had the privilege to repair these beauties and all the other Tek Osciloscopes of the day between 1978 & 1999 at Tek UK. The best job in the universe and to this day keep up with my fellow colleagues who I call my extended family. A time to celebrate but sadly never to return.
Thanks for sharing your story!
Yeah, it was a swell place to work. It was my first good job and I didn't know how good I had it until I went to work for a computer company whose techs had to scrounge for equipment-- was really spoiled by working at a tech bench that had everything you could possibly want, all the right tools for the job. Eventually I moved into software, and I guess it was a good thing as all the hardware engineers I knew back then were getting laid off once the IBM PC and its clones arrived, and we were no longer making computer systems of our own designs and the company I worked at after Tek. Software was the right place to be at that point, and I enjoyed doing it (still do to this day). But I do value my experience at Tek. I also tell the story of one point in the 1970s where Tek did a salary survey and figured out we were underpaid-- I remember many of us getting a SIZEABLE increase all at once to bring things up to what was competitive. I've never seen or heard of that being done anywhere else. And the profit share program was nice as well. Yep, they're one of a kind.
Syncopator,
Sounds like they REALLY appreciated their employees!
@@jacknedry3925 I take it you haven't yet worked for Google in Mountain View, California, or Johns-Mansfield in Denver. Both are awesome places to work (and I was a janitor). I since pulled a temp stint at Bourns in Riverside, California doing janitorial. There was this stray cat living in the parking lot. We called him "trimpot".
I saw my first Tektronix, in the late 60'S. So, I got the schematic; and it took a long time to get it all. But I wanted to know EVERY thing; and what it did. It was one of the most exciting electronics; in my 33 yrs of working with electronics at RCA; and subbing on my own for 12 yrs. Total was 45 yrs. Wow, what you said brought tears of nostalgia. I loved that Oscilloscope.
Thank you Paul. You are truly a "Cut-Above".
Former Tek engineer here (7000 series). I'm not sure when we stopped drawing the schematics by hand, it could have been just before I joined the company in 1978. The draftsmen were incredible and had excellent senses of humor. There are various cartoons scattered about the schematics from the hand-drawn era, the Wizard being one of the most common. I often wonder how many 500-series 'scopes from that era helped send Apollo to the moon and back.
The silver solder was used to provide compatibility with the silver-clad ceramic material of the terminal strips. Common tin-lead solder would leach the clad silver and compromise the terminal strips' reliability.
So glad this beautiful piece of electrical engineering history will be cared for by a true connoisseur of classic electronics test gear.
My friend had one of these, mostly working. He collected scopes and test equipment. The trace on these things are really uniquely coloured, as you can see in the video. It's quite a piece of equipment.
Actually while I am bored with most common circuit descriptions and usually turn it off. That circuit is mind blowing. Simple and effective! Took me deeper than I ever thought I wanted to go into the old tektronics scope.
One way to think about the cost of a complete upper level Tektronix scope system, amplifiers, cart, probes, and mainframe, is that it would cost about the same as a nice suburban home. This held true until about the late 70s ~ early 80s when real estate values went nuts-high. My teen and young adult years were in the back yard of Tek starting in the late 60s. I got to see the scopes being made and got to meet many of the fine engineers that created this stuff.. In that period, the last of the tube units were still being made, and the new generation solid state product was coming to market, the 5000/7000 series mainframes, and the TM500 auxiliary instruments. It was amazing what they created, and now over 50 years later, I still use a lab full of analog instrumentation by Tek in the pursuit of making a living. I have dozens of major Tek instruments still working and keeping cal, at from 35 to 50 years old. Magnificent technical achievement was the norm at Tek until the founders died. That dual beam is a gem... I use my later period dual beam all the time, a 400MHz R7844, accompanied by a 7834 400MHz storage scope, a7704 with P7001 digitizer, and a 2247A portable. We also use TM500 scopes for general waveform monitoring. My 7704/P7001 was the personal property of its inventor, the father of digital oscilloscope processing, Hiro Moriyasu.
Great story, thanks for sharing that!
As a calibration tech worked on many 500 series o-scopes. In the early 80's when they were scrapped employees could purchase them for about 25 dollars. After awhile the lawyers said it was a legal liability and I rolled dozens off the loading dock into dumpsters.
Well that was a blast of nostalgia! My little company bought a used Tek 555 in 1968, and we were damn smug about having such a nice oscilloscope. As we could, we acquired several different plug-ins. I recall that Polaroid made an adapter that clamped onto that round bezel, allowing you to make hard copies of the waveforms using (IIRC) Polaroid 5" x 7" cut film. You could set the oscilloscope to Single-shot, open the camera shutter, trigger the scope, close the shutter and pull the film through the squeegee rollers. A minute later, you could see if you caught the event, or needed to try again. Tube test gear may still have its charms, but nobody who ever recorded a waveform this way ever wanted to do it again after experiencing the delights of dumping digital memory to a printer.
And now, we just whip out our cheap Canon Powershots to capture the trace. :)
@@gyrgrls Please notify me when you perfect your time machine; 1960's me has a list of desired toys. (We better use precious metals so as to not disrupt the timeline.)
I had the privilege of testing Polaroid Type 410 (ISO 10,000) instant film when I was in 7000-series engineering. It was quite impressive although by that time not as necessary because the nuclear labs were buying our new 7104 1GHz mainframe on whose screen one could easily view a single-shot event at the maximum time-base speed, 200ps/div. Ordinary Polaroid was fast enough to photograph those 7104 traces.
I grew up and took university classes at a tektronix campus in Oregon. The professor was an Iranian ex-Pat who worked on the engineering and finance side. He was a wonderful professor and we toured the local facilities on the weekends. He taught me more about financial modeling on the operations side than I ever wanted to know. Great guy and a great company. His wife turned me on to tube audio amps.
To this day i still love tubes for audio. A good dinner and a glass of wine with your favorite bands on vinyl,CD or streaming is wonderful. Big brute force tube amps are fun.
I have 2 sets of tube monos all class A at 100w and 250 watts that were made right here. In 15 years, I lost 1 input tube and a fuse. Everything else tests fine after 20+ hours of listening time a week.
Never,have I lost a pre-amp tube and those pre-amps only get turned off and unplugged for trios lasting longer that 4 days.
Tubes are really great. I own SS amps too, but simply preset tubes for most music.
Hi my name is Don I am 54 years old and I have been working with and deep study of tube type and solid state electronics since I was about 5 years old yes 5 years old! and it makes me feel really good to know of some one who is so dedicated to electronics like you keep up the good work.
After watching several dozens of your videos...and becoming a patron, its rare to hear you talk so glowingly about a piece of equipment. I'm glad it found it's forever home, and that you appreciate it like you do. Most people would probably turn it into a plant stand.
I worked for McDonald's as a maintenance tech for 22 years. I was told about Tektronix Company Store for employees and the general public back in '95. I would go for chairs, file cabinets and wire shelving. There was always a long line to get in at 2:00 on Tuesdays. I would always try to be there early because at the head of the line were all the retired engineers. They were a vast store-house of knowledge like you, and were glad to answer any questions I had. It was in Beaverton Oregon, but I haven't been there in a long time. Keith L.
1974 in Adak Alaska, I was a 622 electronics tech for the Navy taking care of the Sosus system. Great memories dragging around a 555 to calibrate the Western Electric components for keeping tabs on our friendly Russian submarines. I remember the smell of the very warm tubes. Thank you. We never turned them off for stability. The WECO gear ran on 400 Hz as to not get artifacts on the displays, kinda cool.
Thanks for sharing your story Warren!
Simply an amazing piece, a true master piece !!! And what a gift Paul, it is in the best hands it could be in!!! Plase keep it as safe as you can and try to get some spare tubes just in case to keep this wonder running for 100 more years ...and thank you so much to share this beauty with us
I'm coming in here late in the game (about 6 years late) as I have finally retired and have time to spend on my interests, not to mention the extra time because of the corona virus. I first started using Tek scopes back in 1968 in my electronics class during 11th and 12th grades in Boulder Colorado which was fortunate to have a couple of scopes donated by IBM. I used a 547 and a 564 storage scope, but the 547 was the real workhorse scope. During my electronics career, I never had to work on a tube scope but did a little on some 465s. I always found their quality to be top notch and also their documentation. Much like what I experienced in the Navy riding an FBM submarine working on inertial navigation systems. Much later in my career working for the USAF in Nevada working on gear in places I cannot even mention. I just love this channel and spend lots of hours watching electronics geeks porn and reliving my past. Thank you Paul for your truly excellent videos. Between your videos and some audiophile channel videos I may never watch TV again. 😊
Thanks for taking the time to write Stewart!
I have an old Tektronics scope built it 1966. Looks exactly like this / same style. . . ... Been in back of the garage for 15 years untouched. Turned it on, worked perfectly, every function.
It's nice to find someone else who appreciates these thingss.
cucking funt Thanks!
it's sounds like you don't really appreciate it if you don't use it for 15 years.. I would love to have something like that.
Hm..... sell it to someone that can use it?
Robert Shine I know right!? Or just give it away to someone who will use it.. otherwise it's just junk sitting around
You are probably one of the few who would be capable of discussing gear of this caliber i learn so much from your Im retired ,just think of all the ones that get inspired by you
Thanks Charles!
Mr. Harkins, rare is the day I don't watch at least an hour of Mr. Carlson's lab. He's the "Mr. Rogers" of us grown up nerds. "Inspired" doesn't begin to describe what his show does for me. It took me decades of part-time messing around to eventually get my ASE, General Ham License, private pilot's license, Captain's License, and now, at 53, I'm messing around with my other passion...electronicalisticisms. Best ten bucks a month i've ever spent being a Patron of this young man.
If I ever had some fantastic vintage gear, Mr. Carlson is the only man who I know would have a loving home for it!
I felt that now the oscilloscope is finally come home! :-)
Accepting one large box from the USP delivery man in the Summer of '88, my 545B was possibly the heaviest cardboard box I carried into my basement, struggle trumped by pure joy upon its arrival. A fine elder man named Jack Berg at JB Electronics in Chicago sold me this from his ad in the back of Radio Electronics Magazine, my "summer job" money. His enthusiasm and patience over the phone helping me troubleshoot a few minor issues and send replacement tubes resembled your enthusiasm and patience. The whole experience was a great introduction to the most affordable scope I could find at the time, en route to greater life-long electronics learning.
I have just a very basic understanding of Electronics yet I am so drawn into your videos, there must be something deep in our human conscious that draws us.
Beautiful instrument, absolutely love it, real testament to the engineers that this fired up without any issues.
At age 16 I worked for only a few days for an ex-Tektronix Engineer who opened his own electronics TV repair business. Unfortunately was still in high school and he was over 1.5 hours away and was just to difficult getting much work time in, was mostly drive time and could not afford to continue an apprenticeship with him. He was a brilliant man in his own right. And consequently choose another vocation, but always liked electronics having built kit Radio Shack Crystal Radios and other projects by age 7. Thanx for the video amazing unit indeed.
You remind me of my Mentor, Charlie Wilson, of Lubbock, Texas, who helped me to love elegant electronic design, such as Tektronix instruments, in the early 1970s.
I mourn his untimely passing in the mid 80s, and often want to call and tell him of each revelation I achieve in my continuous education.
You seem to carry on his spirit -- keep on truckin'...
Cheers,
Dave
+David Cole
Thanks for the kind words Dave! Charlie sounds like he was a great guy. I do have a soft spot for proper design.
Love that version! My dad had a R556 with some really nice calibrated plugins from NASA and I remember using the hell out of it as a kid! It was as amazing as that one for sure. It also had the blue phosphor interestingly enough, but it was a little different. Keep up the amazing quality content!
Wow what an amazing piece of art.
The power regulator I believe solves a sixty year old mystery for me. When I was a student I worked in a lab which analysed rocks using a Watson victor arc spectroscope. It was huge all vacuum tubes and always powered on. It was supplied through a voltage regulator which was a heavy steel box with a cover full of holes. Inside I could see a very bright vacuum tube among a few other normal ones. No one knew how it worked It seems it was a saturating controller or possibly a motor driven variac using a 2AS-15. As the voltage sensor.
That regulated heater supply is so simple and yet so incredibly clever. Great video Paul.
Yes. Although the tubes would age gracefully, the scopes required only occasional calibration. The regulated filament supply was to help avoid drift, greatly reducing the frequency of calibrations. Now we have solid-state more and more units, with the input stages often housed in assemblies similar to crystal ovens.
I repaired Tektronix scopes of that era for 20 years ((530x and 540x mostly) and I can tell you nothing is built like they are. A lot of the circuitry was developed by Tek engineers and it was absolutely brilliant. Peter Wright wrote a book on audio preamp design iin the early 2000's and he lauded the designers of these instruments for their meticulous work.
I can vouch for the reliability of these instruments, we ran them 8-12 hours a day for 6 days a week and they ran for years before needing any attention.
Allen Wright, not Peter.
@@Dont_Gnaw_on_the_Kitty_1 - You're absolutely right, my memory is not as sharp as it once was.
I'm so glad you added that "video correction" to your narrative. I was LISTENING to you... and realized that the word you were looking for was CURRENT... LOL Then I realized that there was a video correction... and was VERY impressed! Good job!
Great video! Thanks. I actually had one of these expensive room heaters that doubled as an oscilloscope in 1980. I remember counting over 87 tubes in the main unit and about 18 tubes in the power supply. When I turned it on my lights would dim. It seemed like it was working just fine though. In those days I worked at Hewlett Packard (1975-2006) and a friend that also worked there gave me that scope. I also got to use HP scopes which were much smaller by then. I worked in the Electronic Maintenance Department and got to work on a lot of equipment, mostly HP test gear and personal computers and printers. It was a great experience because it was in the golden age of personal computer advancements and technology.
Thanks for sharing your story Stephen.
Fantastic machine !!! the state of the art .. what else .....never never again that it's a pity !!!
i'm 60 y old and i remember the Kudelski Nagra electronique and Stelavox and Studer / Revox And Ampex !!! oh my god !!! !!! some time i made a dream : please come back one minute just for my joy ....
But nothing today just SMD composents just a bullshit of money !!! where is my passion where is my soul ???? i'm rest with my remembers
Thanks a lot Mister for this video Thanks for the share !!!
Eric from France
God bless you and your family
When I was going to high school in the early 70's we had two of these donated to our school by the Air Force as surplus. At the time we were using Heatkit OL1 units that a previous class from the 1960's put together and were not very good even by the standars of the day. The donated Tektroinx still had the DOD asset tags on them and the first time we used them were amazed on how well they worked. I still remember my teacher clling them the "Cadillac" of electronic equipment.
I am just watching this now and I am thinking that is a very clever regulation circuit Tek created for the filament voltage. The engineers at Tek were brilliant.
I was never aware of the 555. Very amazing! I was only aware of the 535/545/547 series...Wonderful example of some tremendous engineering from a bygone era.
This was my scope for twenty years at RCA Labs, back in the day. All scopes came with a small roll of silver solder.
I was a technician/instructor for RCA Service Co from 1954 to 1987. Such nostalgia for sure. In the 70's, I researched Tektronix oscilloscopes, and I was blown away at their circuitry. So I agree with what you and the author of this DIY video are saying.
I doubt there are many companies as dedicated as Tektronix. It's no wonder that their scopes are found in most technical manufacturers, all over the world.
Did Tektronix invent the "Trigger" Scope? I do not know, but it would not surprise me if they did.
They came with a lifetime supply of "silver-bearing" solder. This was because of some connections that were directly soldered to ceramic strips!
I own a Tectronix 160a made in 1956 its a scope with a wave form generator and pulse generator with a separate power supply. I believe this was one of there first but I was very impressed with the craftsmanship as well. There is not one component in it not stamped " Made in USA". Really bum's me out to see we no longer make great products anymore since free trade came in to play. Thank you for showing us that piece of history
Wow, what a technologie that is from 1959, thanks very much for sharing !
I once owned a 647; the Nuvistor one. Bought it from John's radio in Bradford, England. Same kind of construction and it came with a small reel of the silver solder. After using it for a few years, I put it away for 20 years in its transit case, and it still worked for the guy who bought it from me. Next to indestructible :-)
I had the pleasure of using a 555 back when I was in school. Aside from the quality of the components and construction, I belive the tube longevity was a result of the filament regulation. A lot of vacuum tube failures are a result of voltage surge on start up. I've worked with transmitting tubes that had regulated filament voltage for the same reason, but not using the saturated reactor method. Great video.
+Bill Moran
Thanks for comment Bill!
I watched those classic Tektronix documentaries regarding the tubes, ceramic strips and it’s impressive to se a machine this old to function.
I love my 545B, I've had it 40+ years now. During my apprenticeship, the 545 in the lab was known as the 'Winter Warmer' because it acted as a 635 Watt fan-heater and kept the lab cosy. It was kept on all day long to maintain stability. I haven't run mine for over 30 years now, I only keep it as a memento of my youth.
I own one of the 555 Tek Scopes. When he turned his on the loud noise was recognizable. When I turned mine on the lights in my house would dim as well. Represents great old fashioned American Technology. Mostly long gone.
The quality in Tektronix gear was impeccable. Many thanks.
+MrShobar
Glad you enjoyed, and I do agree. Not many pieces of test gear are built like this today.
Wow, I had a stupid grin on my face as that monster lit up and the traces appeared. I believed it would power up fine but to actually witness the tubes lighting up... it was something else, wow. Thank you for sharing a treasure like this, something that most of us might never see.
+Redemptus Renatus
Your welcome! Glad you enjoyed.
I used to work for the UK Post Office, Calibration Services department. We had many of these types of scopes across our benches. I was always in awe of the construction quality and robustness and the fact that they really were built to be maintained. Thanks for your videos, I learn a lot and am entertained by the variety of kit you demonstrate. Best. Matt
Thanks Matt, glad you're enjoying!
I really appreciated watching this video. I have a Tek 545B and a Lavois 265, which was a virtually identical copy of the 545A, and was involved in the famous lawsuit. I used them for a lot of years and always marvelled at the flawless construction of these beasts. My favourite plug-in, was the diode checker. With it, I could check every parameter of a diode and I also used to use it to check the junctions on transisters that I sometimes used as diodes.
Thanks for taking the time to explain these fantastic pieces of equipment to an whole new generation.
Bob
Thanks for your comment Bob!
When I worked at NCR, they always kept the test room very cool. They had a couple big Tektronix scopes like yours and the board repair techs used to get them and turned them around backwards and used them to keep warm.
i had one of those in the 80;s i can confirm they are great for heating the garage. love your channel paul. i can sit and watch you playing with all this old gear i used to have. i am in the UK and used to go to a auction once a month where a lot of ex government lab gear was sold off. i used to have a lot of plug ins for those scopes.. nice to see it still working.
Thanks Bob, glad you're enjoying the channel!
I used to have this model. It was stunning inside, so many valves, and the rectifier valves in the external power supply were huge. I bought it for £45 in a junk shop in Bolton, Lancashire in England in the early 1990's. It had stickers on the side from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena California. How it got from the JPL to a junk shop in the UK is a mystery. Mine had a spare spool of silver solder inside (top right if I remember). The action of the switches were great, smooth and solid after so many years. I think I spent more time staring at the inside with the glowing valves just in awe of the engineering than I did looking at the front when using it.
They sure are fascinating, and are from an era where quality wasn't second. I don't know if I mentioned this in the video, this scope is from Boeing.
You are so right about the Type 555 being a true masterpiece! I keep one right next to my workbench and use it on a regular basis. It's been my favorite scope for decades. I had a long-time, long-distance friendship with one of the principle design engineers responsible for the 555 and it was really cool to get repair help and general information about the unit from someone who was literally responsible for the scope's creation. It's an elegant design and more pleasing to operate than any other scope I've ever had. I got my first 555 back in the 70s and hope to always have one in my shop. And thank you for posting such an excellent video! You have introduced a truly fine instrument to a lot of folks who might never have seen one otherwise!
This 555 has found it's rightful home. I love those porcelain wafers, I've never seen such things before. I'm with you on tube reliability Mr Carlson, a well designed tube circuit will be reliable if it's operated in the environment it was designed for. I guess this is the truth for solid state circuits too.
Thanks for another fascinating video.
Glad you enjoyed Sophie!
Wow! I thought that my Tektronix 502A was impressive with its 43 valves and a fan! At least its power unit is built in!
You're right, it is beautifully built and mine had a little coil of spare solder inside.
I love your enthusiasm for well built and engineered electronics and the dedication you have to analog electronic gear :)
Very cool scope. You have to appreciate the tube tech! In some ways it was more advanced than modern electronics. Thanks for the vid!
Glad you enjoyed!
Your videos are amazing and circuit theory is almost 100% perfect. I spent most of my electronics career calibrating and repairing Tek scopes. I started in 1965 on the 500 series scopes and built muscle hefting them around for routine maintenance. We had several hundred pieces on six month cal cycles and I was very familiar with the smell of hot tubes. We also had quite a few other pieces of test equipment mfg by Tektronix. Our service manuals took up a whole wall and the parts inventory took a whole room. When I retired we just getting into the 2000 series scopes. Nostalgia.
Martin MartinL Thanks for the nice comment Martin! Sounds like you have a very interesting history as well.
The heater voltage regulation circuit is beautiful ... once you realise it's effectively a thermostatic control it makes perfect sense. Awesome.
I know of the quality of Techtronics having owned a 545B back in the distant past, I would often run it With the covers off just to admire the craftsmanship that went into it. Love your channel.
Tektronix had to make CRTs due to their former supplier providing them with rejects. So they made their own CRTs and made them better than anyone/everyone else and made better scopes than anyone else. Then they really took of and greatly superseded all of the competition. They were way ahead of their time in many respects. Thanks for this video. Fabulous set of scopes you have there Mr. Carlson.
Thanks for your comment!
Paul, I just wanted to make a silly comment and comparison. With todays digital and microprocessor based oscilloscope's using millions of transistors maybe your title should be: With only 100 tubes Tektronix made this really cool work of art back in the day. Compared to other tube electronics back in the same time period yes 100 tubes was a lot. I think you will agree it takes millions of transistors to do the same thing now-a-days. Very nice entertaining and informative video. As always you do a great job on your video's. You go straight to the point without a lot of extraneous jibber-jabber. Thank you for sharing your talent and knowledge with the rest of us.
bit late but a modern DSO functions completely different to that. sure it shows the same thing but the working principle is totally different with an analog to digital converter taking samples of the Signal and showing these.
Love old Tek equipment (they're works of art and exquisite craftsmanship) and have a ton of it. 4 mainframe scopes with 4 plug in's, 2 - 3 plug in, 465's, 647's, TM-500 stuff and over 30 plug in's for the mainframe scopes such as 7704, 7104 and 2, -7854 DSO's and a 676 curve tracer. HP stuff too, meters, VTVM's, frequency and function generators, RF generators (3) up to 13GHz, a 1959 130B, X,Y scope in working condition. RCA senior Voltohmest, analog VTVM, with a whopping 7" mirror display (I love this meter for checking scratchy pots), Systron Donner frequency counter (Nixie tube) and a Fairchild 7000 , Nixie tube, 5 1/5 digit DMM, Fluke DMM's, Hp power supplies, 6200B, etc X3. Govt liquidators was selling this stuff for a song, several years back. The 7104 mainframe cost the govt $30,000, I bought it for $50 and the calibration sticker was still good! I also bought metrology equipment, Voltage standards, oscilloscope calibration gear (much of it in wood cabinets that people passed up because they thought it was old - It very common for metrology equipment to be in a wooden case), tube tester, capacitor analyzer and conditioner. Theres lots more, Genrad decade resistor, decade capacitor boxes and inductor boxes. Hp attenuator, Weller, SMT workstation, Temperature controlled soldering iron, 5 Hexacon soldering irons from 40 to 200W. My go to scopes are the 465B with the penthouse and I have 2 spares for parts. I've run my own electronic musical equipment repair business since 1965. Specializing in vintage tube equipment restoration (but I work on digital stuff as well). On my main bench (I have 2 - one for amplifiers and the other for small pedals, tape decks. Bausch and Lomb stereo zoom microscope, I probably forgot half of the gear I have acquired since 1963. I really enjoy your site!
Excellent video, thanks for sharing. I am a young electronics enthusiast and I don't think I will ever have the chance to come across a brilliant piece of equipment like this... but thanks to you I got a glimpse of what it would feel like. I really appreciate all the hard work you put in to your videos. Thank you!
I found the explanation for the filament regulator facinating . I used this model years ago when I worked for Space General. Never realised the complexity inside...... Good video....
It must be a pleasure to own and use a piece of equipment that is so masterfully designed and executed. I can't help but think that I am glad it found its way into your hands. If any of your equipment could talk I bet they would be glad to have you as their owner/brethren.
That is truly beautiful. Regulated filament supply, such precision. And twice the price of an RCA CT100!!! My daily driver is a Tek 453 and I am very happy with it. You have a big future in making these videos.
Thanks Colin! I have been working on my next video since Christmas... "on and off." Should be up very soon. The Tek 453 is a great machine! Seems like all the older stuff they made was incredible.
Mr Carlson's Lab Bad news/good news. My Tektronix 453 (untouched but well used in the 10 years I owned it) finally developed a fault, and I really needed it as my Philips 3230 just wasnt fast enough for the job at hand. The fault turned out to be an open 75K resistor in the 12V regulator, also a nearby electrolyic spewed its guts from old age. Now I am tempted to replace all the electrolytics. Do you think Rubicons are OK? Long live Tektronix!
Love your presentations.
Colin Lark Hi Colin, Rubicons are great, so are Nichicon, and Panasonic. Good luck getting it running again!
Just a little over 1 day of tearing it down for scrap, you could probably get a good part of an 8 ball of cheap grade C dumpster crack after all is said and done. Thankfully people like you exist that appreciate the engineering effort and keep these things well preserved.
We had one that was laying around unused about 15 years ago in hospital physics lab, superb condition too. I got it for free, wrestled it back in to my house and in the end just didn't have the room. Sold it on ebay for only £20, but went to an avid collector, so happy to know it was going somewhere worthwhile. (Although the guy did say his wife wsn't going to be best pleased....).
Such a lovely scope..just way too big :)
Thanks for sharing your story!
What a beautifully handcrafted piece of equipment! I'd bet it could withstand an EMP, whether natural or manmade!
A blast from the past worth preserving, and a reminder of when a buck was still silver and the country was strong!
Glassfet equipment is pretty much immune to EMP. The EMP induces current in conductors which damages or destroys semiconductor junctions.
To be fair, this cost as much as a house did back then. Innovation and quality driven by the demands of the cold war military-industrial complex, I can't get enough of this stuff! I own a type 549 myself! Sometimes, I like to take off the covers just to admire the construction.
The Allen Organ company also made all-tube products that are known to run reliably for decades without tube failures, also easily containing a hundred or more tubes. They continued using all-tube power amplifiers after they went to transistorized tone generation circuits. I own many of them, and they are built with far higher quality than consumer grade equipment. The story goes that Jerome Markowicz, founder of Allen Organ, consulted extensively with RCA to engineer their products for maximum reliability and tube life.
Great video. Nice to see someone that knows what saturable reactors are. I have two of those scopes. One to use and one for parts. My user is a little sick right now though. It has a wobbly power supply that I cant run down. Lukilly, I have a full set of manuals printed off from microfisch. No kidding about the room heater though.
I love old HV equipment. I could watch your videos all day! Keep it up!
That is just pure artwork inside! Beautiful!
It really is!
@@MrCarlsonsLab you're channel is awesome. Thank you for sharing everything that you do. I only work with electronics on a basic level but I'm really enjoying soaking up the knowledge from your content wherever possible and it's not over my head. But it sure makes want to go grab an oscilloscope lol. Fascinating. I love your vintage repair stuff too. The B-29 radio is awesome.
Friggin amazing. Unreal quality. Creativity
Ultimate engineering from over 50 years ago. Some proud talented and thoughtful sobs designed and built these things.
Thank you Mr Carlson, your videos are truly inspiring. My passion has always been electronics and watching someone as professional and proficient as yourself, and with such attention to detail has made me pick up the soldering iron again, and I'm loving it. This video though inspired me to buy an old Tek 564 just because it had been sitting loved on eBay for weeks. Thanks again ;)
Glad to be that inspiration Scotty!
Just found your channel last night and have been picking through what you have to offer. As a college student with an interest in vacuum tubes (especially in audio equipment) I'm absolutely loving getting to see all of the old equipment here, not to mention how knowledgeable you are about not only the method of operation, but repair as well. Thanks so much for making these videos!
+Future_JPL
Your welcome, glad your enjoying the channel!
Interesting video. When I hired on as a civil service avionic tech for the air force in 1972, I remember seeing these O scopes sitting in the test equipment cage mostly collecting dust. The first scope I remember using was the 453.
Enjoyed your video. I restore vintage radios and amps as well as anything else with tubes that catch my fancy. To make it more fun, I use all vintage test equipment as well. VTVM, an RCA 5mHz scope, VT Signal gen etc. The only modern thing I use is my soldering iron, which has a controller I built. I love this stuff! Thanks for taking time to do this vid for us to enjoy!
Glad your enjoying Chris!
What a great video! I read that Tektronics had very strict requirements for any vacuum tubes used in their products. This brings back great memories for me.
+Thema inproblem Thanks for the nice comment!
Used a scope only once or twice during my career as an Instrumentation Tech. I was just probably amused by the dancing trace. Awesome scope. My Old frequency meter is built similarly with slide out plug in modules with spare metal tubes inside that looks as if they were just installed. Never been used. I love these vintage stuff. They don't build them this way anymore. Everything is "disposable".
+Greenfield 54
I agree, quality now has taken a back seat to greed. One day it will return.... when people learn that a one year operating time from their electronic equipment is not at all acceptable.
Thank you for a great explanation of the saturable reactor concept. Great video.
Totally agree with you. Love it. You've probably heard it but the word Tektronix is synonymous with "intellectual integrity". I have always like that comparison.
I actually haven't heard of that... But I like it! Thanks for the comment!
Mr Carlson's Lab
Most of those are Telefunken and Amperex 6DJ8 gold pins and those are worth tons of money.
Mike Samra I do admit, there are quite a few in some of my scopes.
6DJ8 is that ECC88/E88CC? Yeah, those are in high demand.
After seeing a few of your video's...your my new hero...some stuff is over my head, but learning lots, thank you for your posts!!!
+Catfish Fry (Catfishfry)
Your Welcome! Thanks for the kind words!
Wow thats is some superb engineering. I get that same chill down my spine looking at this as I do when I look at other works of engineering from that age. Thank you ever so much for making this video, as a teenager who will hopefully soon be studying to become a EE (got one year left of HS) these kinds of videos really amaze me with the depth, thought and design that go into things like these. Can't wait to see what else you realize on your channel.
Glad you enjoyed. Thanks for your comment!
I used these in the late 60's. Great piece of equipment
A true blast from the past... I wonder how many people alive today would be able to design such an analog beast.
They would use an arduino of course!
not enough, you need a flash ADC, microcontrollers usually has successive approximation types, also a significant horsepower, maybe the arduinomega? with a flash ADC? hehe.
anyway, you can''t beat, for instance a RIGOL 1052, the performance/price ratio is simply unbeatable.
@@buddhafollower, another great video subject... GO FOR IT!
I absolutely loved this video. The explanation and the coverage of the different aspects is very well done. Even my father that does not speak english loved it! Congratulations.
Oh that sweet smell of dust on hot tubes! :) Love it! I have a 545 and I could use it as a heater. In half an hour my room will be warmed up.
$2,600 in 1959 would be the equivalent of $22,606.19 in 2018 (USD).
Fascinating videos, sir!
I remember as a kid dad bringing one of these home from work, after they disposed of it. I had a good play with it but as an 7yr old boy could not understand the full function of the unit. Dad later on started disassembling the scope to spark my interest in electronics. Sadly that destroyed the scope. Makes me think how silly that was to destroy such a thing . The trolley became a wood work bench in the garage. I remember how amazingly put together it was. Never seen anything like it to this day. Wish I still had it today untouched as I can now use it :D ...
That's one nice oscilloscope.
Gotta love how it looks, thanks for showing this.
Glad you enjoyed Gordon!
I used to repair and calibrate these great scopes when I worked for RCA Laboratories.
One of my professors at University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering referred to these things as "Stanley Steamers". We had plenty of them around the labs, and all of them were calibrated regularly, all of them still worked, and I never heard of anyone replacing a tube in one!
Quite a pedigree.
You know of course, that ENIAC, the first truly programmable electronic computer (with a zillion vacuum tubes), WAS DESIGNED AND BUILT AT THE MOORE SCHOOL!
amazing technology. I have a philips scope from the same era. I found it in a scrap metal bin a few years ago,took it home and it works perfect.
superrodder2002 Odd how people just throw away a perfectly good piece of equipment. Good on you for saving it! Thanks for the comment!
I had one of these 30 years ago... But I had only the power supply and the scope itself. The size, weight, power hunger and especially the noise made me decide to give it away to someone else. These things are build wonderful but I'm still glad that I don't have to move that thing around any more....
Very informative demo of these great Teks scopes. Took tube theory in EE class back in the 60s.
Worked with a lot of Tektronix and HP scopes working for telecommunication giants over the years.
he 555 is built like the Cadillacs back in the 50s. ($2600 in '59 is about $26,000 today (give or take a few)..
and the new ones will be probably assembled in China.
That 2AS-15 is a unique thermionic diode. and works as you explained. The failsafe device in this tube
is this filament tensioning spring that makes the connection from plate to cathode if the filament opens up.
SuperCarver2011 Thanks for the comment!
What an amazing piece of technology! I'm surprised it was still working after all these years. I wonder if we can expect today's equipment to be so long lived.
Thanks for the clear explanations, tube electronics is often a bit baffling to the untrained eye.
Glad you enjoyed!
Wow.... its literally art.... beautiful inside
I grew up in the 1950's very near the Tek plant on Barnes road in SW Portland, which was the old Pioneer to North Plains to Portland back in the 1840's
. My parents would point out the plant when we went to the local family cemetery every memorial day or when visiting friends on the weekends. To think that scope was built in that building and would up in eastern Canada.... Small world!!