Close Shave For An Old Oscilloscope Saved With A Sticky Note

When you tear into an old piece of test equipment, you’re probably going to come up against some surprises. That’s especially true of high-precision gear like oscilloscopes from the tim…

Hackaday Links: September 1, 2024

Why is it always a helium leak? It seems whenever there’s a scrubbed launch or a narrowly averted disaster, space exploration just can’t get past the problems of helium plumbing. We&#82…

TDS 744A Scope Teardown Fixes Dodgy Channel

There are a lot of oscilloscopes from around the 1990s which are still very much desirable today, such as the Tektronix TDS 744A which [DiodesGoneWild] got his grubby mitts on. This is a 500 MHz, 4…

Tektronix’s Ceramic CRT Production And The Building 13 Catacombs

As a manufacturer of test equipment and more, Tektronix has long had a need for custom form factors with its CRT displays. They initially went with fully glass CRTs as this was what the booming tel…

Inside A Current Probe

[The Signal Path] had two Tektronix AC/DC current probes that didn’t work. Of course, that’s a great excuse to tear them open and try to get at least one working. You can see how it wen…

OScope Advert From 1987 Rocks It

We can’t remember ever seeing a late-night TV ad for oscilloscopes before but, for some reason, Tektronix did produce a video ad in 1987. You can see it below and enjoy the glorious music and…

USB Meets Core Memory In A Vintage ‘Scope

It’s normal today for even relatively modest instruments to have some form of computer control capability over Ethernet or USB. But five decades ago this was by no means a given, and when Tek…

Laser-Engraving Hairlines: When A Line Isn’t A Line

When is a line not a line? When it’s a series of tiny dots, of course! That’s the technique [Ed Nisley] used to create a super-fine, colored hairline in a piece of clear plastic —…