I worked for Tektronix from 78-94 in the 400 series O-scopes. 200 series scopes were built in our area. KW is Kay Waldon (I knew her). 02181 is the employee who calibrated it. Some people signed with their employee # some with their initials. Gold pins were first machine inserted then soldered. Tek made many of its own custom parts mainly because of electrical values. Square package IC's were tek made and we called them spider chips. After an Engineering revision many of us technicians would just draw it into our manuals instead of grabbing a new one. The dashed lines coming from switches would go up top to a table with dots showing rotatory cam timing when the contacts were closed. 200 series scopes were calibrated with the boards laid out flat with cables. After calibration cables removed and scope was close up.
The reason for the transformer location is to keep it as far away as possible from the CRT beam path to avoid magnetic interference with the scan. Probably also carefully oriented and mu-metal shielded.
For the love of Pete, have a look at those schematics! Good Lord, that is an example of a great engineer who really thought out what a troubleshooting tech would want to have available to him/her when working on this unit. Clear, concise, and the waveform standards for each circuit is a thing of beauty. I would love to have an engineering team like that at my firm. Don't misunderstand me, I have a brilliant team, and they are very clever, but this is old school magic. Thanks for sharing, and I will be having a little meeting with my boys and showing this video to them. Cheers mate!
If you ever get a chance again, I'd love to see a teardown of the classic Tek rotary range cam switches with the gold fingers pressing to the board. Thing of beauty and a joy forever as someone said...
the traces are so bendy and wide so that the data running through them at the speed of light doesn't get carried out of the curve and crashes into components. You know, like when you're in a car and you're too fast and trying to make a sharp turn.
A friend serviced these in the 80's and said they were easily Tek's least reliable product back then. I don't remember what the specific weaknesses were but I doubt there are many in good working order today. So what you have is likely quite rare. One common issue with Tek scopes of the 70's and 80's is some of the custom chips were relatively short lived and Tek's spares were quickly consumed. Tek refused to pay to have more made (and later sold their custom chip division to Maxim who promptly abandoned all the low volume parts). Once certain Tek scopes have a custom chip failure the only source for a replacement IC was to salvage one from other non-working scope. But, of course, most of those died from the same problem. The net effect was a lot of expensive Tek scopes became unrepairable junk when they were only 5 - 10 years old. Other manufactures have done a better job both with the quality of their custom chips and managing their stock of spares. In some cases they at least spin a revised board with the same form fit and function using currently available components. Tek couldn't even be bothered to do that.
Man, I just love the screen on this. The images on it at the beginning are just so crisp and pleasant to look at. One of my favorite teardowns of yours, here!
That has got to be the most impressive (and cute) bit of 70s tech I've ever seen. You can't keep it as a shelf queen, get a cheap audio amp and microphone and run it in the background during your tapings.
Hello; Nice review of this scope! I just had to point out more beauty. The transistors and this odd IC on the bottom PCB are socketed. There are individual gold plated metal sleeves through PCB hole with a tiny rubber or vinyl gasket on top that the individual leads of the IC or transistor pins to plug into! Also the scope input has about a 1 meter length of COAX cable coming out near the rear case screws with a nice compact probe with removable hook! It that wraps around the vinyl channel on the back for storage. Very nicely designed!
That's true. Textronix had sockets for all semiconductors with more than 2 contacts. I have some old Tek scopes and they all have that and some (1969 mfg date) did even have fully gold plated PCBs. What a luxury...
If you look closely, you'll find that all the transistors and IC's are socketed! The sockets are recessed into the board. Vintage Tektronix equipment truly reeks of quality.
At 9:04 you point to a blue object and say "capacitor" but from my experience those are inductors. You should aslo note that all of the transistors are socketed too. This design draws heavily from the 7000 series scopes. The Tek 224 scopes were sold in to the late 80s and had 60Mhz of BW. These 213 scopes were sold to automotive service locations because you could see a lot of the wave forms needed for some of the newly developed microprocessor controlled cars.
Wonderful piece of technology; hats off to Tektronix and the engineers who had the vision to develop such a amazing scope with a Multimeter. "Incredible"
I have one of these, from the estate of a recently deceased TV engineer. SN is 8043101, so it's a bit earlier than yours based on SN. Can confirm the BNC connector is non standard, in mine, the test probe is hard wired into the unit from the back somewhere. Also mine is 90-136vac (48-62hz 8w) so I can't power it up without a stepdown transformer. I remember this kicking around his shop some years ago... I got the impression it was not working, I'd like to restore it to fully functional, so thanks for the tip about the service manual, I have downloaded it already.
The vertical range switch uses gray plastic cams to switch small PCB mounted contacts. They used cam switches in a lot of scopres. I believe that the metallic thing Dave pointed to at 23:46 is the detent spring.
I owned one of these scopes, and you are correct. The BNC on the back is not original. The original probe was not detachable, and wrapped around the cord management cavity in the back of the case.
its better then a lot of new hand held models , in terms of clarity of picture and easy use . this is perfect for someone to get in too field of electronics , measures everything needed . I would gladly use this even today , but cant find them
I have and still use a couple of models similar to these. A 221, and a 214 (storage). The BNC on the teardown was a mod to the scope as Dave pointed out. Originally the scope lead was connected internally.
I used these things when they first came out. It was well after that 1973 copyright date on the PCB. Late 70s, I guess. I hated these things. It was so enticing to be able to carry a scope around, but it was so limited it just ended up being frustrating. They were a lot more reliable than the big Tek scopes of that period, though. Does anyone else remember the joys of taking a pile of 7000 series plugins, and trying to find one where all the cheapy little switches actually worked? This little gold plated 2-through-hole pin sockets, used to connect the boards, were pretty standard in 1970s Tek products. I think those exact parts might be Tek specials, but we used to buy similar things off the shelf, to use in multi-board things we made ourselves. Remember that almost everything required multiple boards back then, so interconnects had a much higher profile than they do today.
One of the best jobs I ever had was working in a lab where we had well over 100 assorted 7000 series modules, all in service, all in cal. The lab manager collected them from other departments, as we actually used them. We had the short racks all over the lab, as well as the scopes that fitted them.
That's a nice bit of kit apart from the bandwidth. Nice to see this vintage stuff. It seems a regular thing on your teardowns of Tektronic equipment, they really put so much thought into the layout and servicing ability. I had a 50MHz Tecktronics scope given to me about 12 years ago but had to sell it for financial reasons, boy do I regret that, now I have a Velleman 60MHz PC scope, not nearly as much fun to mess with. Thanks Dave.
ungratefulmetalpansy I've heard the reason for 45 degree traces is that it's easier to calculate parasitics for them than arc routing. Don't ask me to cite my source though...TH-cam comments ain't Wikipedia!
Good job Dave! Very nice (=clear, well edited, well photographed) videography. And you are GENTLE to the device during the teardown ... nothing wrong with Mike's destructive approach (his teardowns are fun, too) ... but your kid-gloves treatment is refreshing.
Thanks. I do put a bit of effort into the camera work to ensure everything is framed correctly, enough depth of field for angled PCBs, good macro shots, colour balanced etc.
Nice video, Dave; gave me the nostalgic feeling, I grew up with this type of electronics, the astable 2-transistor circuit was the first I ever built in my life, and I think I still have a handful of 741 opamps somewhere (I reluctantly swithced to the TL071 when the 741 went out of production) :-)
I have one of these! The original probe is hardwired, which is pretty annoying. I was surprised to see the BNC on yours until you pointed out that it was a bodge. I've had this one since 1991 or so, and the battery still holds a charge somehow. Not for long, mind you. Nice one, Dave.
Hi Mr.Tpenegineer. I´m the man who made the mods in schematics. If you need original diagrams please send me your email. I made two mods. One is because when the scope is off there is a battery consumption about 2 mA.. With the mod consum is 0, and battery life is bigger.when scope is stored for a long time. The second one is a continuity tester with buzzer. It would be great if you could study the schematics and tell me because tektronix made this design with the battery. Best regards Miguel
I do have a schematic of such "character generator". Picture is exactly the same as the Tektronix but it's a discrete TTL design so you can watch how the "magic" actually happens. Entire board of TTL logic is needed to replace this single Tektronix chip.
All the 200 Series Tek scopes are interesting. In addition to the 213 scope/dmm combo, of particular note is the 214 500 kHz 2 channel storage scope and the 221 5 MHz scope. All of these little gems used a NiCd type battery.
This thing is crazy. At that time, PCB designer had a university degree and all he needed for his work was big piece of cardboard, schematic, all the components, pencil and a needle... Anyone can make a PCB nowadays - with some CAD and without any knowledge of electronics at all...
I heard that those character generators have compensation of "inertia" associated with the sweeps, otherwise the trace will overshoot and round-off characters. It's not as simple as increasing the X to go sideways, stop X and go Y to go up.
I love vintage Tek scopes - I have a 465B at home which I still use, but the all the models from this era are lovely machines. I would love to get my hands on one with a Blue P11 phosphor CRT one day :-)
I have a 214 which I still use for vehicle diagnostics, mainly ignition, ABS and alternators, I have a fluke portable 100mhz but this is more convenient and instant.
OK, I'll admit it. I used one at Motorola back in the day designing early Cellular base station stuff. In the lab it was all the big TEK stuff on a scope cart, but in the field we didn't want to lug one of those beasts around so we would shout, "who has one of those 'tiny tek's' I can borrow?" Ahhh, the memories!
When I saw the design date, I thought about Apollo too! Just think, when this was being developed, we were still flying to the Moon and crossing the Atlantic ocean at Mach 2. Damn good solid engineering in use there. Spending a bit more money on a device has made it last for 40 years. I wonder if today's Tek gear will still be usable in 2054?
I have a Sony/Tek 314 that I bought to help in the repair & restoration of my Tek 7403. Unfortunately, it was buggered so I had to do without. Now, maybe I can use the 7403 to help repair the 314!! Nice little analogue storage 'scope that runs from AC mains or 12 / 24 V DC. No internal battery and no DMM but hey!
Hi Dave, you wanted to know how long these were produced, they were introduced in 1975 and ceased production in 1988. That is not bad of a run for these little scopes!
the square one is a Diff/Variable/Inv. Amplifier the MK5007p is a 4 digit counter decoder display driver TEK 155 0114 is Seven Segment Character Generator
I've been waiting for this teardown from the day you first opened up the mail. I love and appreciate the effort that went into the design of this thing. I have to wonder if these were a successful line of gear or were they just toys.
I thought it was gorgeous anyway... but then you pressed the DMM button and I think I pissed myself! It's amazing how it just looks like a Tektronix... but tiny... I want one! (Sorry, vintage Tektronix fanboy, here)
I almost bought one of these at a local electronics junk place... however they asked $50 for it and as much as it is nice and "cute" it is worthless in today's world. Thumbs up for Tek for the nice work on that one.
I have a Tek 321... the thing is ancient and "portable" but damned if it isn't still fully functional, and as well calibrated as I have any ability to test...
We had a customer today who asked what kind of fluid did you use to add electricity to his car 27 years old. Guy had no clue that a car has a battery in it. I bet he would buy blinker fluid. It was super funny.
Ahh i love stuff like this, with the exception of the custom chips, its fully serviceable. Im guessing too it would of had a SLA battery? Also i have a couple of CROs myself, and i will always prefer the look of a CRT based scope to a LCD one. Just a personal preference really
If that is over 40 years old I can't begin to think how old my scope is :D it doesn't even have any normal looking ic's it has it's ic's in a cylinder can type package!
It looks like the original owner removed but never replaced the battery pack...big mistake! It's not really portable if you have to hunt around for an outlet! Original batteries are no longer available, but you can find comparably sized replacements that will work (with a little finesse). I have a 212, which is the 213's dual trace brother. Still works great after all these years. It doesn't have that cool digital multimeter, though. Might be time to surf e-bay...
![[Watch Party] RoV Pro League 2024 Winter | with Moowan ( Bacon Time Vs Talon )](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CCEDhu6dPN8/mqdefault.jpg)
I worked for Tektronix from 78-94 in the 400 series O-scopes. 200 series scopes were built in our area. KW is Kay Waldon (I knew her). 02181 is the employee who calibrated it. Some people signed with their employee # some with their initials. Gold pins were first machine inserted then soldered. Tek made many of its own custom parts mainly because of electrical values. Square package IC's were tek made and we called them spider chips. After an Engineering revision many of us technicians would just draw it into our manuals instead of grabbing a new one. The dashed lines coming from switches would go up top to a table with dots showing rotatory cam timing when the contacts were closed. 200 series scopes were calibrated with the boards laid out flat with cables. After calibration cables removed and scope was close up.
I just love reading this, please more stories.
My 214 is signed with initials JH.
Thanks for sharing history
@@RiyadhElalami 😄
fantastic stuff!, love the 70's electronics :D
especially those gold top ceramic chips :D
The reason for the transformer location is to keep it as far away as possible from the CRT beam path to avoid magnetic interference with the scan. Probably also carefully oriented and mu-metal shielded.
For the love of Pete, have a look at those schematics! Good Lord, that is an example of a great engineer who really thought out what a troubleshooting tech would want to have available to him/her when working on this unit. Clear, concise, and the waveform standards for each circuit is a thing of beauty. I would love to have an engineering team like that at my firm. Don't misunderstand me, I have a brilliant team, and they are very clever, but this is old school magic. Thanks for sharing, and I will be having a little meeting with my boys and showing this video to them. Cheers mate!
If you ever get a chance again, I'd love to see a teardown of the classic Tek rotary range cam switches with the gold fingers pressing to the board. Thing of beauty and a joy forever as someone said...
the traces are so bendy and wide so that the data running through them at the speed of light doesn't get carried out of the curve and crashes into components.
You know, like when you're in a car and you're too fast and trying to make a sharp turn.
A testament to the innovative design at Tektronix and the longevity of their products.
Loving that, I can almost smell those antique electrons from here !
Wish I could give this more than one thumbs up !
A friend serviced these in the 80's and said they were easily Tek's least reliable product back then. I don't remember what the specific weaknesses were but I doubt there are many in good working order today. So what you have is likely quite rare. One common issue with Tek scopes of the 70's and 80's is some of the custom chips were relatively short lived and Tek's spares were quickly consumed. Tek refused to pay to have more made (and later sold their custom chip division to Maxim who promptly abandoned all the low volume parts).
Once certain Tek scopes have a custom chip failure the only source for a replacement IC was to salvage one from other non-working scope. But, of course, most of those died from the same problem. The net effect was a lot of expensive Tek scopes became unrepairable junk when they were only 5 - 10 years old. Other manufactures have done a better job both with the quality of their custom chips and managing their stock of spares. In some cases they at least spin a revised board with the same form fit and function using currently available components. Tek couldn't even be bothered to do that.
Man, I just love the screen on this. The images on it at the beginning are just so crisp and pleasant to look at. One of my favorite teardowns of yours, here!
Custom Tektronx chips looks absolutely gorgeous!
The BNC is a popular user mod on those. The orig models had non-replaceable built in probes! direct cabled, no connectors.
That has got to be the most impressive (and cute) bit of 70s tech I've ever seen. You can't keep it as a shelf queen, get a cheap audio amp and microphone and run it in the background during your tapings.
Hello; Nice review of this scope! I just had to point out more beauty. The transistors and this odd IC on the bottom PCB are socketed. There are individual gold plated metal sleeves through PCB hole with a tiny rubber or vinyl gasket on top that the individual leads of the IC or transistor pins to plug into! Also the scope input has about a 1 meter length of COAX cable coming out near the rear case screws with a nice compact probe with removable hook! It that wraps around the vinyl channel on the back for storage. Very nicely designed!
Looks like all ICs are socketed, using individual through-board contacts
That's true. Textronix had sockets for all semiconductors with more than 2 contacts. I have some old Tek scopes and they all have that and some (1969 mfg date) did even have fully gold plated PCBs. What a luxury...
Even the transistors!!! that's awesome.
If you look closely, you'll find that all the transistors and IC's are socketed! The sockets are recessed into the board. Vintage Tektronix equipment truly reeks of quality.
At 9:04 you point to a blue object and say "capacitor" but from my experience those are inductors. You should aslo note that all of the transistors are socketed too. This design draws heavily from the 7000 series scopes. The Tek 224 scopes were sold in to the late 80s and had 60Mhz of BW. These 213 scopes were sold to automotive service locations because you could see a lot of the wave forms needed for some of the newly developed microprocessor controlled cars.
Wonderful piece of technology; hats off to Tektronix and the engineers who had the vision to develop such a amazing scope with a Multimeter. "Incredible"
I've waited so long for the teardown of that scope! Thanks Dave!
I have one of these, from the estate of a recently deceased TV engineer. SN is 8043101, so it's a bit earlier than yours based on SN. Can confirm the BNC connector is non standard, in mine, the test probe is hard wired into the unit from the back somewhere. Also mine is 90-136vac (48-62hz 8w) so I can't power it up without a stepdown transformer. I remember this kicking around his shop some years ago... I got the impression it was not working, I'd like to restore it to fully functional, so thanks for the tip about the service manual, I have downloaded it already.
The vertical range switch uses gray plastic cams to switch small PCB mounted contacts. They used cam switches in a lot of scopres. I believe that the metallic thing Dave pointed to at 23:46 is the detent spring.
I love the PCB design!
I owned one of these scopes, and you are correct. The BNC on the back is not original. The original probe was not detachable, and wrapped around the cord management cavity in the back of the case.
its better then a lot of new hand held models , in terms of clarity of picture and easy use . this is perfect for someone to get in too field of electronics , measures everything needed . I would gladly use this even today , but cant find them
Amazing, old stuff but the inside looks quite new. The design and component manufacture was advanced at that time.
I have and still use a couple of models similar to these. A 221, and a 214 (storage). The BNC on the teardown was a mod to the scope as Dave pointed out. Originally the scope lead was connected internally.
I used these things when they first came out. It was well after that 1973 copyright date on the PCB. Late 70s, I guess. I hated these things. It was so enticing to be able to carry a scope around, but it was so limited it just ended up being frustrating. They were a lot more reliable than the big Tek scopes of that period, though. Does anyone else remember the joys of taking a pile of 7000 series plugins, and trying to find one where all the cheapy little switches actually worked?
This little gold plated 2-through-hole pin sockets, used to connect the boards, were pretty standard in 1970s Tek products. I think those exact parts might be Tek specials, but we used to buy similar things off the shelf, to use in multi-board things we made ourselves. Remember that almost everything required multiple boards back then, so interconnects had a much higher profile than they do today.
One of the best jobs I ever had was working in a lab where we had well over 100 assorted 7000 series modules, all in service, all in cal. The lab manager collected them from other departments, as we actually used them. We had the short racks all over the lab, as well as the scopes that fitted them.
That's a nice bit of kit apart from the bandwidth. Nice to see this vintage stuff.
It seems a regular thing on your teardowns of Tektronic equipment, they really put so much thought into the layout and servicing ability. I had a 50MHz Tecktronics scope given to me about 12 years ago but had to sell it for financial reasons, boy do I regret that, now I have a Velleman 60MHz PC scope, not nearly as much fun to mess with.
Thanks Dave.
That scope is a wild lil piece of history! Great vid & teardown!
Tektronix is amazing!! My step brother's, Step dad, LMFAO, works for them (Tektronix), in design, pretty cool job!
The MK5007 is not a custom part. It is a 4-digit counter circuit which was quite typical of meters of the day using 7-segment displays.
Cute. I hope you put it together carefully and placed it on your finest shelf.
so simple yet so practical gotta love the 70 stuff.
that feeling when an advertisement video is about to start before the content, then for some reason doesn't and the actual video starts :3
I love the rounded traces in this.
It's a different sight than the 45 Degree traces that i have seen in everything else.
ungratefulmetalpansy I've heard the reason for 45 degree traces is that it's easier to calculate parasitics for them than arc routing. Don't ask me to cite my source though...TH-cam comments ain't Wikipedia!
ektronix was in advance on their time. This scope was built on 1973.. It's unbelievable.
Good job Dave!
Very nice (=clear, well edited, well photographed) videography.
And you are GENTLE to the device during the teardown ... nothing wrong with Mike's destructive approach (his teardowns are fun, too) ... but your kid-gloves treatment is refreshing.
Thanks. I do put a bit of effort into the camera work to ensure everything is framed correctly, enough depth of field for angled PCBs, good macro shots, colour balanced etc.
FINALLY I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS TO BE TORN DOWN
Nice video, Dave; gave me the nostalgic feeling, I grew up with this type of electronics, the astable 2-transistor circuit was the first I ever built in my life, and I think I still have a handful of 741 opamps somewhere (I reluctantly swithced to the TL071 when the 741 went out of production) :-)
I have one of these! The original probe is hardwired, which is pretty annoying. I was surprised to see the BNC on yours until you pointed out that it was a bodge. I've had this one since 1991 or so, and the battery still holds a charge somehow. Not for long, mind you. Nice one, Dave.
I've used this Oscilloscope in the 80's, later it got contact problem in the Volt/Div selector, I opened the hosuing and fixed it!
That's the cutest scope I've ever seen
Hi Mr.Tpenegineer.
I´m the man who made the mods in schematics.
If you need original diagrams please send me your email.
I made two mods.
One is because when the scope is off there is a battery consumption about 2 mA..
With the mod consum is 0, and battery life is bigger.when scope is stored for a long time.
The second one is a continuity tester with buzzer.
It would be great if you could study the schematics and tell me because tektronix made this design with the battery.
Best regards
Miguel
Ah, thanks for the background on that!
I do have a schematic of such "character generator". Picture is exactly the same as the Tektronix but it's a discrete TTL design so you can watch how the "magic" actually happens. Entire board of TTL logic is needed to replace this single Tektronix chip.
Sob... It's so beautiful! Dave, I hope you didn't damage it in the teardown?!!
Wee tektronix scope. So cute, especially compared to its older brothers
It's interesting how after 40 years the basic packaging of the discretes have not changed at all.
All the 200 Series Tek scopes are interesting. In addition to the 213 scope/dmm combo, of particular note is the 214 500 kHz 2 channel storage scope and the 221 5 MHz scope. All of these little gems used a NiCd type battery.
And don't forget the 212!
I can imagine that designing something like this without CAD would be mind boggling.
I love the tiny little 213. It's the smaller and older brother to my Tek/Sony 336 DSO.
Socketed transistors! Awesome.
The curved traces make it art.
This thing is crazy. At that time, PCB designer had a university degree and all he needed for his work was big piece of cardboard, schematic, all the components, pencil and a needle... Anyone can make a PCB nowadays - with some CAD and without any knowledge of electronics at all...
I heard that those character generators have compensation of "inertia" associated with the sweeps, otherwise the trace will overshoot and round-off characters. It's not as simple as increasing the X to go sideways, stop X and go Y to go up.
I love vintage Tek scopes - I have a 465B at home which I still use, but the all the models from this era are lovely machines. I would love to get my hands on one with a Blue P11 phosphor CRT one day :-)
That little cute scope is older than me :D, how I wish I could have that scope,,very nice Teardown as always sir Dave, thumbs up for you.
I have a 214 which I still use for vehicle diagnostics, mainly ignition, ABS and alternators, I have a fluke portable 100mhz but this is more convenient and instant.
OK, I'll admit it. I used one at Motorola back in the day designing early Cellular base station stuff. In the lab it was all the big TEK stuff on a scope cart, but in the field we didn't want to lug one of those beasts around so we would shout, "who has one of those 'tiny tek's' I can borrow?" Ahhh, the memories!
22:14 that is a beautiful spider-package chip...!
The MK5007P is not really a custom chip; just a generic counter chip with both BCD and 7 segment outputs.
I know a guy who still uses this thing when he has field work. He is an old school analog engineer.
Why I really like this guy: "whoa look at this big ass cap"
When I saw the design date, I thought about Apollo too! Just think, when this was being developed, we were still flying to the Moon and crossing the Atlantic ocean at Mach 2. Damn good solid engineering in use there. Spending a bit more money on a device has made it last for 40 years. I wonder if today's Tek gear will still be usable in 2054?
i have used a tek222 digital storage-scope, which has the same basic case design and it still works. thanks.
I bought one! I Could not resist :D
I have a Sony/Tek 314 that I bought to help in the repair & restoration of my Tek 7403. Unfortunately, it was buggered so I had to do without. Now, maybe I can use the 7403 to help repair the 314!! Nice little analogue storage 'scope that runs from AC mains or 12 / 24 V DC. No internal battery and no DMM but hey!
Hi Dave, you wanted to know how long these were produced, they were introduced in 1975 and ceased production in 1988. That is not bad of a run for these little scopes!
That's cool. Wouldn't mind owning on of those myself.
I still use both the 211 and the 212 for quick trouble shooting. The 212 is dual channel.
The money shot... Love it
the square one is a Diff/Variable/Inv. Amplifier
the MK5007p is a 4 digit counter decoder display driver
TEK 155 0114 is Seven Segment Character Generator
I've been waiting for this teardown from the day you first opened up the mail. I love and appreciate the effort that went into the design of this thing. I have to wonder if these were a successful line of gear or were they just toys.
I believe it was a very successful product. There really wasn't anything else like it.
IIRC NASA used quite a few of these.
Were some of the ICs and transistors in recessed sockets of some kind? looks quite neat, haven't come across that style before.
I used these in the late 70's when I worked at ASEA in Lilydale!, long before it became ABB!
that dirt in there is older than me :D
Well, most dirt are older than anyone alive or ever been alive.
thanks for the wordup on the shirt
still a few left
I thought it was gorgeous anyway... but then you pressed the DMM button and I think I pissed myself!
It's amazing how it just looks like a Tektronix... but tiny...
I want one! (Sorry, vintage Tektronix fanboy, here)
I almost bought one of these at a local electronics junk place... however they asked $50 for it and as much as it is nice and "cute" it is worthless in today's world. Thumbs up for Tek for the nice work on that one.
This is so cool! I have one of these! The 203 I think, no multimeter.
I have a Tek 321... the thing is ancient and "portable" but damned if it isn't still fully functional, and as well calibrated as I have any ability to test...
The writing shown in 5:37 is probably the date it got recalibrated.
We had a customer today who asked what kind of fluid did you use to add electricity to his car 27 years old. Guy had no clue that a car has a battery in it. I bet he would buy blinker fluid. It was super funny.
Nice. From a time where they made good schmatics and docs. Like older avionics there where good dokumented.
I have a Thandar SC110A 10MHz scope. Runs on 4 C size batteries.
I try to find a 213 for my bench, it´s so cute, as i love odd gear :)
Great one, Dave!!
Ahh i love stuff like this, with the exception of the custom chips, its fully serviceable. Im guessing too it would of had a SLA battery?
Also i have a couple of CROs myself, and i will always prefer the look of a CRT based scope to a LCD one. Just a personal preference really
OMG! That thing is as old as me! Well, the original design date... :)
+Joanna Hammond I was just having that same exact thought
10:18 They actually make that (and even better) schematics, but not publishing them to the community. Unfortunately...
I think the silk screen graphics were actually silk screened on this!
Heh, I have a 214 and it works beautifully!
Love those ceramic IC packages. That design with the offset gold stripe just talks to me. The plastic DIPs are do Bland in comparison.
i wish i had that tektronix 213 scope
What a cute little oscilloscope :3
If that is over 40 years old I can't begin to think how old my scope is :D it doesn't even have any normal looking ic's it has it's ic's in a cylinder can type package!
It looks like the original owner removed but never replaced the battery pack...big mistake! It's not really portable if you have to hunt around for an outlet! Original batteries are no longer available, but you can find comparably sized replacements that will work (with a little finesse). I have a 212, which is the 213's dual trace brother. Still works great after all these years. It doesn't have that cool digital multimeter, though. Might be time to surf e-bay...
Interesting as always.
Nice piece of history, do you plan on reassembling it?
Ho so cute, Dave you should take it together in a mini time lapse video.
regards form Méx.
Good video, many thanks Dave!
Thank Deane Kidd.