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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

OSCILLOSCOPE TEKTRONIX TYPE 546 YEAR 1964.














One of my favorite instrument when coming to repair CRT TUBE TELLYES WAS absolutely the
TEKTRONIX TYPE 546.

 Entirely based on tubes technology is a monument of highest engineering combined with top level hand made wiring.

 With an heavy load of Steel was my friend sustaining in a job which todays isn't anymore..... long time ago.

 Anyway...................CRT.

 The TEKTRONIX TYPE 546 is a 50MHz scope that takes letter-series and 1-series plug-ins. It has two identical timebases and , when used with the 1A1, 1A2, or 1A4, has the ability to display one input with one time scale and another input with a different time scale. The effect is similar to a dual-beam scope assuming that the input signals are repetitive. This "Sweep Switching" feature differentiates the 547 from the TEKTRONIX TYPE 546 .

The TEKTRONIX TYPE 546 uses the Tektronix 154-0478-00 CRT.
The Tektronix 546 is like a 547, but without synchronized alternating timebases. It uses letter-series and 1-series plug-ins. Functionally, it is like a 545B, but with tunnel diode triggering and 50MHz vertical bandwidth. There is also a rackmount version, the RM546.
The TEKTRONIX TYPE 546 is less common than the 545 or 547.
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation.[2]
Several charities are or were associated with Tektronix, including the Tektronix Foundation and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington.
The company was honored at the 2008 Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for development of monitoring systems for ATSC & DVB transport streams.
HISTORY
The company traces its roots to the electronics revolution that immediately followed World War II. The company's founders C. Howard Vollum and Melvin J. "Jack" Murdock invented the world's first triggered oscilloscope in 1946, a significant technological breakthrough. Tektronix was then incorporated in 1946 with its headquarters at SE Foster Road and SE 59th Street in Portland, Oregon. In 1947 there were 12 employees, and 250 in 1951. By 1950 the company began building a manufacturing facility in Washington County, Oregon at Barnes Road and the Sunset Highway and expanded the facility by 1956 to 80,000 square feet (7,000 m²). The company then moved its headquarters to this site following an employee vote.

 Also in 1956 a large piece of property in nearby Beaverton became available with the closing of the Bernard Airport, and the company's employee retirement trust purchased the land and leased it back to the company. Construction on this current campus began in 1957 and on May 1, 1959 Tektronix moved into its new Beaverton headquarters. Its IPO, when it publicly sold its first shares of stock, was on September 11, 1963. In 1974 the company acquired 256 acres (1.0 km²) in Wilsonville, Oregon where they built a facility for their imaging group. By 1976 the company employed nearly 10,000, and was the state's largest employer.

 For many years, Tektronix was the major electronics manufacturer in Oregon, and in 1981 U.S. payroll peaked at over 24,000 employees. Tektronix also had operations in Europe, South America and Asia. European factories were located in St. Peter Port on the island of Guernsey (then in the European Free Trade Association), Hoddesdon (North London, UK) and Heerenveen, The Netherlands (then in the European Common Market).

 For many years, Tektronix operated in Japan as Sony-Tektronix, a 50-50 joint venture of Sony Corporation and Tektronix, Inc; this was due to Japanese trade restrictions at the time. Since then, Tektronix has bought out Sony's share and is now the sole owner of the Japanese operation.

 Some former Tektronix employees left to create other successful Silicon Forest spin-off companies, including Mentor Graphics, Planar Systems, Floating Point Systems, Merix Corporation and Anthro Corporation. Even some of the spin-offs have created spin-offs, such as InFocus.

 Tektronix instruments have enjoyed a leading position in the test and measurement market for decades, basically beginning with the firm's first cathode ray oscilloscopes. Much like Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix had a company policy of designing equipment of the very highest quality. Their equipment was quite expensive, but usually unmatched in performance, quality, and stability. Most test equipment manufacturers built their oscilloscopes with off-the-shelf, generally available components. But Tektronix, in order to get an extra measure of performance, used many custom-designed or specially-selected components. They even had their own factory for making ultra-bright and sharp CRT tubes. Later on they built their own integrated circuit manufacturing facility in order to make ICs of their own design with many times the performance of generally available components.
A Tektronix model 475A portable analog oscilloscope, a very typical instrument of the late 1970s. Tektronix instruments contributed significantly to the development of computers and communications equipment and to the advancement of research and development in the high-technology electronics industry generally.

 On November 21, 2007, Tektronix was acquired by Danaher Corporation for 2.85 billion USD. Prior to the acquisition, Tektronix traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TEK, the nickname by which Tektronix is known to its employees, customers, and neighbors. On October 15, 2007 Danaher Corporation tendered an offer to acquire Tektronix for $38.00 a share in cash, which equated to a valuation of approximately $2.8 billion. The deal closed five and a half weeks later, with 90 percent of TEK shares being sold in the tender offer. Also, as part of its acquisition by Danaher, the Communications Business division of Tektronix was spun off into a separate business entity under Danaher, Tektronix Communications.

Employee relations

The early Tektronix was often described as exemplary in its employee relations practices. Rules were played down and trust and reliance on each individual's judgment were emphasized. Vacation and health benefits were unusually liberal, and a generous profit sharing plan returned 35% of corporate pretax profits to employees. This worked well for Tektronix employees during the years that profits were substantial.

Slump

In the 1980s, Tektronix found itself distracted with too many divisions in too many markets. This led to decreasing earnings in almost every quarter. A period of layoffs, top management changes and sell-offs followed. In 1994, Tektronix spun off its printed circuit board manufacturing operation as a separate company, Merix Corp., headquartered in Forest Grove, Oregon. Eventually, Tektronix was left with its original test and measurement equipment. Upon his promotion in 2000, the current CEO, Richard H. "Rick" Wills, carefully limited corporate spending in the face of the collapsing high-tech bubble. This led the way for Tektronix to emerge as one of the largest companies in its product niche, with a market capitalization of $3 billion as of April 2006.

Problems with Terminology and the like..........For those involved in electronics, one of the nice things is the straightforward terminology used. Resistors resist the passage of current, capacitors have the capacity to store an electric charge, transformers transform voltages, valves control the flow of current, amplfiers amplify, oscillators oscillate, modulators modulate and so on. Couldn't be easier. It is a great help that with a subject which can be very complex we have such an explicit terminology, one that makes it all that much easier to grasp what is going on. The situation could well have been very different. In many fields there seems to be a perverse tendency to use confusing language to make things sound more complex than they really are. There is also the exclusiveness syndrome - those in the know anxious to keep outsiders at bay by using obscure terminology. But then, by and large, those who first investigated electrical phenomena were anxious that there should be ready public understanding of what they had discovered. And we subsequently had the great help of the British Standards Institute, which devoted quite a lot of consideration to terminology as well as to units and symbols etc. The symbols we use are also mostly clear, and convey a visual impression of the functions performed by components. What could be more appropriate than the inductor or capacitor symbol, or the traditional resistor zigzag? Pity that the latter has been largely superseded by the rather nondescript box, which doesn't give any visual impression of function. Pity too about the demise of c/s. But we do have the BSI to thank for the adoption of capacitor in place of condenser - the devices don't condense anything! The BSI had less success with its one-time recommendation that we should use the word sender instead of transmitter. Can't say that I have any particular preferences about this one: transmitter is appropriate enough. There have been some interesting debates in the past, in particular about the word television which, in the early days, was frowned upon because of its mixture of Greek and Latin origins. But television is nice and clear. What about transistor? This seems to go against what has been said so far. But we all know what a transistor does, though its way of doing it is actually quite a complex busness. The term stands for transfer resistor, because those who originally investigated the properties of semiconductor (another nice, to -the -point term) materials were struck by the fact that the device can transfer a current from a low resistance to a high -resistance circuit. We don't tend to think of transistors as doing that nowadays! It cannot be other than helpful to use terminology that's to the point. More's the pity that this is not the established practice in other, related fields. I think in particular of computing. There is little problem about the hardware, which is largely electronic anyway. Computers compute, and use memories, processors and controllers to do so. Store might have been preferable to memory, and was widely used in the early days. We can all grasp what a gate does without having to know much about its precise way of doing it. A lot of the more recent terminology stems from the semicon- ductor industry, and is reasonably clear and to the point. The problems seem to arise in the software and usage side, where clear, relevant terminology would have been a great help. But no, we have to put up with less than clear terminology, largely I suspect because the subject developed at such an extraordinary rate, without anyone giving much thought to niceties of expression. So you don't switch on a computer, you boot it up for heaven's sake. A computer doesn't stop working, it crashes. Those natty little symbols on the screen are icons, which is a word of rather more recondite origin. And so on and on. It seems that a lot of this originated in the US computer industry, with its rather hot -house ethos. They could have done with the BSI to give them some sensible guidance. Computer use, which is a lot easier than it once was and is now by -and -large user friendly, can nevertheless be less helpful than it could and should be. I think in particular of those confusing messages and questions that appear on the screen - the ones you ignore or just click on to get them out of the way. When our PC crashes, there is nothing you can do other than switch it off the brute way. When it comes back on again, it has the cheek to tell you that it wasn't switched off correctly! We have to put up with it, but it would be nice if someone could introduce a bit more common sense and devise a more straightforward terminology. Or is it too late?

TEKTRONIX Notable employees

The following notable individuals currently work for Tektronix, or have previously worked for Tektronix in some capacity. This list includes persons who are notable for reasons unrelated to their Tektronix careers.

See also

TEKTRONIX References:

Tekscope Museum Archived 2016-03-09 at the Wayback Machine "Classic Tektronix Scopes - Timeline" Retrieved 3 January 2018.
Mistreanu, Simina (March 31, 2014). "Miller Duris, former Hillsboro mayor, Washington County chair, had a passion for softball, community service". The Oregonian. p. A2. Retrieved 8 April 2014.

OPB Oregon Experience, "The Spirit of Tek", Oregon Public Broadcasting, 2 April 2015. Retrieved 3 January 2018.

Mokhoff, Nicolas. (11/20/2006). RF design contest marks oscilloscope's birth. EETimes. Retrieved on December 9, 2007.

"Tektronix, The Early Days by Frank Hood". www.vintagetek.org.

Hiscochs, Peter D. (2009). Oscilloscope Development 1943-57 (PDF). Ryerson University: Peter D. Hiscochs. p. 33.

Tektronix Equipment, The Museum of Vintage, "Tektronix: The Entrepreneurial Period 1946-1954", 2012-01, vintagetek.org Portland, OR

"Tektronix, Inc., contributes as state’s largest employer". Hillsboro Argus, 19 October 1976.

Murdock, Jack "Melvin Jack Murdock Autobiography", 23 March 1934. Retrieved 3 January 2018.

Heppen, Rev. M.J. "Jack Murdock devoted his life to human concerns", Vintage Tek, 1971. Retrieved 3 January 2018.

Levering, R, et al The 100 best companies to work for in America, by Robert Levering, Milton Moskowitz, Michael Katz and Donald R. Katz; Penguin Group; USA; 1987. Retrieved 3 January 2018.

"Bio" (PDF). www.vintagetek.org.

Manaton, Michael E. (August 4, 1994). "Tektronix began 'Silicon Forest' boom". The Oregonian (MetroWest edition).

"545". 2012-11-25. TekWiki. Retrieved 2013-02-14.

"321". 2012-11-23. TekWiki. Retrieved 2013-02-14.

Tektronix Scopes, The Museum of. "The 564". Alan Bain. Retrieved 2013-02-14.

Oscilloscopes, Tektronix (1967). Catalog. Beaverton, OR: Tektronix. pp. 35–38.

Beste, Bill. "Bill's Tektronix 453 and 454 Info Pages". Bill Beste. Archived from the original on 2013-02-06. Retrieved 2013-02-14.

Peter Neville, The Finance Industry in Guernsey[permanent dead link], March 2005, accessed 2010-06-21

Release, Tektronix. "Tektronix Completes Acquisition of Sony / Tektronix". 2002-10-01. Teixktron. Retrieved 2013-02-14.

Scopes, Tektronix Support. "7000 Series Oscilloscope History". TEKTRONIX. Tektronix. Retrieved 2013-12-14.

[1], Bitsavers, Retrieved on 8 August 2017.

Jeff Dorsch, Katie Hottinger (1994-04-11). "Tek spin-off IPO seeks $34M - $41M". Electronic News. Retrieved 2008-07-03.

Danaher to buy Tektronix for $2.85B Archived 2007-10-26 at the Wayback Machine CNNMoney, accessed October 15, 2007.

"Danaher Closes Subsequent Offering Period for Tektronix; Acquires Over 90% of TEK Shares". Tektronix website. Tektronix. 2007-11-21. Archived from the original on 2007-11-22. Retrieved 2007-11-26.

Products, Oscilloscope. "Oscilloscope Products". 2012. Tektronix. Retrieved 2013-02-16.

Rogoway, Mike (February 1, 2016). "Tektronix revamps logo, updates strategy". The Oregonian.

Rogoway, Mike (July 5, 2016). "Fortive spinoff complete, Tektronix has new owner". The Oregonian/OregonLive. Retrieved 5 July 2016.

"7000 Series Oscilloscope History - Tektronix". www.tek.com.

Johnson, Barry. "Tektronix 5000 Series Oscilloscopes & Plug-ins". www.barrytech.com.

Johnson, Barry. "Tektronix Older Vintage Oscilloscopes & Plug-ins". www.barrytech.com.

"Tektronix 400 Series Products". tekmuseum.ebaman.com.

"Tektronix 300 Series". tekmuseum.ebaman.com.

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