Author Topic: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes  (Read 79778 times)

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Offline Hydrawerk

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #100 on: August 03, 2016, 12:11:00 am »
That might be the worst introduction video I've ever seen as well.
Not sure why. The video was OK for me.

There is a real video of the scope, not a CAD simulation:
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Online Someone

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #101 on: August 03, 2016, 01:27:03 am »
That might be the worst introduction video I've ever seen as well.
Not sure why. The video was OK for me.
Looks like they're making good use of the higher resolution screen, the cursors are very tidy and informative.
 

Online tautech

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #102 on: August 03, 2016, 01:54:45 am »
That might be the worst introduction video I've ever seen as well.
Not sure why. The video was OK for me.
Little to do with the vid, I've already flagged diesel as a stalker.

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Offline linearphase

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #103 on: August 03, 2016, 02:08:49 am »
I agree after seeing the video, I'm impressed.
 

Offline JPortici

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #104 on: August 03, 2016, 02:20:05 am »
Damn that looks good

I'll draw a parallelism with cheap android phones and mid-top of the line models

"but the camera 16 MPixel here too"
"but the processor is the same speed"
and that sort of bullcrap

Look at those cursors, the gui and how it is laid out. that's the attentions to details one expects from tek, this is where a noticeable part of your money went.

*** I have never used anything newer than the TPS2000C from tek and i say this is a gigantic improvement. ***
 

Online jjoonathan

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #105 on: August 03, 2016, 02:21:32 am »
Tek isn't the only one fond of low production-value videos with bass-boosted whooshing noises: https://youtu.be/f2R7zi7psbw?t=12
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #106 on: August 03, 2016, 05:13:19 am »
It can be seriously argued that TEK never made good digital scopes. The last independent number I saw indicate that TEK had about 50% of the worldwide digital scope market. If that still holds true they sell as many scopes as all other manufacturers put together.

 :wtf:

That's nonsense, at no point had Tek anywhere near 50% of global the DSO market. Tek had a leading position in the market for analog scopes (where if I remember right they managed to reach some 62% at some point) but that changed quickly when digital scopes became increasingly widespread, a market that was (and still is) dominated by HP (then Agilent, then Keysight) and LeCroy.

Quote
While this does not prove they make the best scopes it does mean that Majority of people who believe they do!

Yeah, like people who believe smoking is good for them.   |O

And it's a shame that the belief of all these people doesn't help Tek to increase its dwindling sales, while for some reason despite all this people believing Tek is the best they still rather spend their money scopes made by someone else.  :palm:

Be careful with that stuff you're smoking, dude!
« Last Edit: August 03, 2016, 05:35:13 am by Wuerstchenhund »
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #107 on: August 03, 2016, 05:33:08 am »
That might be the worst introduction video I've ever seen as well.
Not sure why. The video was OK for me.
Looks like they're making good use of the higher resolution screen, the cursors are very tidy and informative.

I agree, at least from the video the UI looks quite well done.

Overall I'd say it's a nice entry-level scope with interesting features for the edu market. The only real point criticize I saw is the WiFi dongle, which for an edu scope shouldn't be so easy removable (i.e. it should be secured mechanically, or behind a cover, or better yet internally) as it will inevitably disappear.
 

Offline linearphase

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #108 on: August 03, 2016, 07:16:59 am »
It can be seriously argued that TEK never made good digital scopes. The last independent number I saw indicate that TEK had about 50% of the worldwide digital scope market. If that still holds true they sell as many scopes as all other manufacturers put together.

 :wtf:

That's nonsense, at no point had Tek anywhere near 50% of global the DSO market. Tek had a leading position in the market for analog scopes (where if I remember right they managed to reach some 62% at some point) but that changed quickly when digital scopes became increasingly widespread, a market that was (and still is) dominated by HP (then Agilent, then Keysight) and LeCroy.

Quote
While this does not prove they make the best scopes it does mean that Majority of people who believe they do!

Yeah, like people who believe smoking is good for them.   |O

And it's a shame that the belief of all these people doesn't help Tek to increase its dwindling sales, while for some reason despite all this people believing Tek is the best they still rather spend their money scopes made by someone else.  :palm:

Be careful with that stuff you're smoking, dude!


No not smoking anything here- too old for that. Judging by your comments you appear to be something of an industry expert. I didn't represent that TEK currently has 50% DSO market share. I could not possibly know that. What I said was the last time I saw a market share report, and I only saw 1 independent report, that was the number I saw. I do know there was essentially NO DSOs made at that time except those made by HP, TEK, a few Lecroy some by Gould and some by Nicolet. That tells me this was before Lecroy seriously entered the scope market. I don't recall when that was but maybe the mid 80's. Now the market is loaded with cheap Chinese imports and I would expect that they would dominate the unit volume but probably not the dollar volume. Since TEK became a part of Danaher in 2007 sales are no longer reported externally so no one outside of TEK/ Danaher really knows what their sales are. Indeed even employees below top management were not provided with sales information except in a general sense. I did hear some numbers from time to time that were " leaked". They seemed lower that what I though they should be. I can tell you that in my territory though I did annual market share analysis. I do not claim absolute precision but I had been in the territory for 31 years so I pretty much knew what everyone had. In my last year (2011) with TEK I estimated scope market share at around 40%. At that time I do not have responsibility for low end scopes- those below about $15K and so my numbers did not include them. My Agilent counterpart agreed with this analysis. He admitted that we were kicking his ass. I did not even know who the Lecroy guy was... Your stated market share in analog agrees with numbers I have heard, but did not see. I do not know how other territories or other parts of the world fared. If you have current market share estimates those would be interesting.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2016, 07:27:10 am by linearphase »
 

Offline pascal_sweden

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #109 on: August 03, 2016, 07:28:17 am »
The FFT demonstration in the video showed 2K points at the bottom. So would it really be only 2K points for FFT? That's a joke! =)
 

Offline linearphase

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #110 on: August 03, 2016, 07:39:27 am »
I think you can select record lengths for FFT. But I doubt seriously if you can choose 20M. That would take a while to run. Then again these are not intended to be used for serious characterization. Assuming 20 K point FFT even with a 100Mhz full span your bins would be 5KHz apart. Good enough for the kinds of applications this would be used for.

You seem to be violently opposed to this scope. Did you have some kind of bad experience in the past?
 

Offline pascal_sweden

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #111 on: August 03, 2016, 07:48:02 am »
I am sorry to read that you have that impression. If that is the case, then I want to apologize for my negative tone.

The reason that I am a bit negative about this low-end scope, is that I am a man of facts, and I believe that any manufacturer can make a decent revenue even with fair pricing of the equipment.

Currently Tektronix does not live up to fair pricing for the low-end scopes.
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #112 on: August 03, 2016, 08:30:22 am »
Damn that looks good

Look at those cursors, the gui and how it is laid out. that's the attentions to details one expects from tek, this is where a noticeable part of your money went.

Have you looked at the R&S HMO series of 'scopes? They do all that sort of stuff even better and have far more capabilities (eg. Serial decoding).

Looking at that video this Tek seems aimed squarely at education. What University teacher isn't going to be asking for more budget after watching that?

(...and will the next generation of students go straight into their first jobs not knowing that "ground-clip is bad"?)

« Last Edit: August 03, 2016, 08:34:57 am by Fungus »
 

Offline ADT123Topic starter

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #113 on: August 03, 2016, 09:19:58 am »
Interesting that the 2 & 4 channel models look so different.  Different sized enclosures, layout of the controls etc.  I guess they must have decided its cheaper to make 2 different models rather than just design a 4 channel one and leave off 2 channels.
Disclaimer: I have worked for Pico Technology for over 30 years and designed some of their early oscilloscopes. 

We are always recruiting talented hardware and software engineers! Happy to answer Pico related questions when time permits but here as electronics is a hobby
 

Offline Jay_Diddy_B

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #114 on: August 03, 2016, 09:47:59 am »
Hi,

It would be interesting to know if Tektronix offers educational discounts on these scopes, if you are equipping a lab or two.

I survived my University education using a Telequipment D1016. We didn't have any automated measurements, we used the graticule.

It wasn't DPO, it had a real phosphor.

It was 15 MHz bandwidth. I don't think my education suffered.

Telequipment was acquired by Tektronix.

Regards,
Jay_Diddy_B




« Last Edit: August 03, 2016, 10:00:20 am by Jay_Diddy_B »
 

Offline JPortici

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #115 on: August 03, 2016, 10:10:10 am »
Damn that looks good

Look at those cursors, the gui and how it is laid out. that's the attentions to details one expects from tek, this is where a noticeable part of your money went.

Have you looked at the R&S HMO series of 'scopes? They do all that sort of stuff even better and have far more capabilities (eg. Serial decoding).

Looking at that video this Tek seems aimed squarely at education. What University teacher isn't going to be asking for more budget after watching that?

(...and will the next generation of students go straight into their first jobs not knowing that "ground-clip is bad"?)



I think that lecroy does that too (though i never even laid eyes on one in the real world so i might be wrong)

the point of my post was why would someone spend two, three times the money for an instrument that, from a first glance at the spec sheet, is the same as another one
 

Online tautech

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #116 on: August 03, 2016, 10:23:23 am »
the point of my post was why would someone spend two, three times the money for an instrument that, from a first glance at the spec sheet, is the same as another one
I can see instructors using the UI features to upload a course wirelessly  for students to access in the GUI later then grab all the WiFi dongles and lock them in his/her desk. Often lab scopes are Kensington locked to benches with only a mains supply with no LAN and I find this WiFi feature quite unique.
Tutor prepares course, uploads to DSO's, done.....no paper and no printing.  :-+
Institutions will be quite enamoured with these new Teks.
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Online nfmax

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #117 on: August 03, 2016, 10:57:38 am »
the point of my post was why would someone spend two, three times the money for an instrument that, from a first glance at the spec sheet, is the same as another one
From what little I know it would be a poorly-run educational establishment that paid even half the listed price, for a multi-unit buy.
 

Offline pascal_sweden

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #118 on: August 03, 2016, 11:15:10 am »
If they managed to get the basics right first, then they could add the bells and whistles like this educational stuff and Wifi.

But they haven't managed to get the basics right, and they only focused on the bells and whistles, which in practice nobody uses and cares about anyhow.

A good book with illustrations about the basics of a digital storage oscilloscope would serve so much better.
The students can keep that book as a reference, and don't lock themselves into a scope with built-in tutorials.
 

Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #119 on: August 03, 2016, 11:31:54 am »
the point of my post was why would someone spend two, three times the money for an instrument that, from a first glance at the spec sheet, is the same as another one
From what little I know it would be a poorly-run educational establishment that paid even half the listed price, for a multi-unit buy.
Their ridiculous list price clearly has a lot of headroom to discount. Their build cost isn't going to be far off similar Chinese models.

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Offline Wuerstchenhund

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #120 on: August 03, 2016, 12:38:49 pm »
Judging by your comments you appear to be something of an industry expert.

Let's just say I got around a bit. Based on your comments I guess you've been in sales for Tek? If so then I'm the type of person that sits opposite you (customer). Aside other things, I specify and buy test equipment (lots of it, really) for a larger number of technology labs spread around Europe and the US.

We also maintain very good contacts to other labs, facilities and to some extend Universities and technical training schools which are used to gather and process independent market figures for our own use, far away from manufacturers' Kool-Aid. What we don't capture (and don't care for, honestly) are sales to individuals like one-man shops or hobbyists.

I'm not involved in data gathering/processing, though.

Quote
I didn't represent that TEK currently has 50% DSO market share. I could not possibly know that. What I said was the last time I saw a market share report, and I only saw 1 independent report, that was the number I saw.

I do know there was essentially NO DSOs made at that time except those made by HP, TEK, a few Lecroy some by Gould and some by Nicolet. That tells me this was before Lecroy seriously entered the scope market.

Which LeCroy did in 1981 and back then there wasn't really a large market for DSOs anyways. My data doesn't go so far back but irrespective of Teks marketshare being 50% or not it's a lot easier to become dominant in an emerging market than in an established one, which is what the DSO market is today.

Quote
Now the market is loaded with cheap Chinese imports and I would expect that they would dominate the unit volume but probably not the dollar volume.

I doubt that they dominate the unit volume, at least not for units sold under their own brands. The hobbyist market seems to love them but in the commercial field they are still pretty much non-existent.

Quote
Since TEK became a part of Danaher in 2007 sales are no longer reported externally so no one outside of TEK/ Danaher really knows what their sales are. Indeed even employees below top management were not provided with sales information except in a general sense. I did hear some numbers from time to time that were " leaked". They seemed lower that what I though they should be. I can tell you that in my territory though I did annual market share analysis. I do not claim absolute precision but I had been in the territory for 31 years so I pretty much knew what everyone had. In my last year (2011) with TEK I estimated scope market share at around 40%. At that time I do not have responsibility for low end scopes- those below about $15K and so my numbers did not include them. My Agilent counterpart agreed with this analysis. He admitted that we were kicking his ass. I did not even know who the Lecroy guy was... Your stated market share in analog agrees with numbers I have heard, but did not see. I do not know how other territories or other parts of the world fared.

That's pretty much the opposite from what I have seen and also what our data shows. Tek sales have been dwindling since at least 2004, and in 2011 I very much doubt their market share was even close to 40%, much  less so for the mid-range and high-end segments, both areas where Tek hasn't really been competitive for ages. Things were a bit better in the low-end, predominantly thanks to the edu segment, which Tek courts in the hope that it hooks more people to their brand.

And frankly, that's not surprising. Unlike their analog scopes, Tek DSOs were rarely anything to write home about. Entry-level scopes with ridiculously low memory, mid-range and high-end scopes that were limited in performance and capabilities compared to its competitors while in general being painfully slow ("like wading through molasses" is a term often associated with TDS5000/6000/7000/70000 scopes, and rightfully so). Then there are some annoying limitations (like the DPO "high-speed" mode where measurements are disabled, or the mentioned memory sizes), and some really daft ideas (like the LCD shutter on early TDS scopes). To make matters worse, instead of coming up with some innovative new products Tek pretty much continued to push their stale products in a warmed-up form.

Tek may have had some interesting scopes like the 11000 Series back in the mid-'80s, and later introduced the lunchbox format and came up with intensity grading (on which HP and LeCroy worked as well), but that was back in the '90s. Technical advances of DSO technologies since then happened elsewhere (which isn't surprising because Tek has long lost most of its talent, not just thanks to the mind-numbing DBS).

Today Tek is widely considered the bottom-of-the-barrel of the big brand scope manufacturers. The only ones buying Tek (aside from the edu market thanks to strong incentives) are people that don't know what else is out there, often with fond memories from back in the analog scope days (or they just spend someoneone else's money and thus don't care). And even then the preferrence only lasts until they have tried a modern Tek scope and scopes from other manufacturers.

Of all the labs we support, only one still buys Tek scopes, and this only for contractual reasons (limited to specific pieces of kit). We occasionally invite Tek for evaluations we do before making a procurement decision, but they regularly don't get the sale simply because their products weren't good enough and the pricing too unflexible.

Mind you that this is limited to scopes, not other categories of test instruments. And not all current Tek products are as poor as their scopes. And in regards to scopes, at least that new TBS2000 looks like a decent and well thought out unit, at least based on the data that is available so far. I'm sure the edu market will love it.

Quote
If you have current market share estimates those would be interesting.

Sure it would be interesting, we're often asked by manufacturers to provide access to our data. But that's not gonna happen.
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #121 on: August 03, 2016, 12:41:05 pm »
I think that lecroy does that too

Not in this price class, in which LeCroy merely sells rebadged Siglent SDS1000CML/CFL  scopes (LeCroy WaveAce).

They do on their mid-range and high-end scppes, though.
 

Online nctnico

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #122 on: August 03, 2016, 01:24:54 pm »
Judging by your comments you appear to be something of an industry expert.

Let's just say I got around a bit. Based on your comments I guess you've been in sales for Tek? If so then I'm the type of person that sits opposite you (customer). Aside other things, I specify and buy test equipment (lots of it, really) for a larger number of technology labs spread around Europe and the US.

We also maintain very good contacts to other labs, facilities and to some extend Universities and technical training schools which are used to gather and process independent market figures for our own use, far away from manufacturers' Kool-Aid. What we don't capture (and don't care for, honestly) are sales to individuals like one-man shops or hobbyists.
For one man shops the Tektronix scopes are totally uninteresting so far. I did buy a Tektronix scope for a customer a couple of years ago but that was just for political reasons and purely based on brand recognition and me being able to 'drive' it without needing to learn a new user interface. I have owned&used Tektronix scopes (DSOs) for nearly 2 decades but there is nothing in Tektronix' line-up I would buy nowadays. Still if the TBS2000 gets decent protocol decoding for a sane price it will be a very interesting scope compared to what the competition is currently offering.

edit: better wording
« Last Edit: August 03, 2016, 02:35:19 pm by nctnico »
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Offline nowlan

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #123 on: August 03, 2016, 01:39:45 pm »
The back shot shows it has ethernet socket. I think the wifi dongle is liable to go missing in a classroom. Hopefully generic chinese ones can replace it.
https://youtu.be/rL1t-ZbG3pA?t=267

---
tbs2072 via tek.com
 70mhz us$1200
100mhz us$1460

I forget how much a discount schools can get, but I know mine will call the local office, rather than resellers.

---
R&S look to be catering to education with their low end scopes.
HMO1072 Digital Oscilloscope (70 MHz bandwidth, 2 channels) $1095

---
Having said that, I have seen siglent & hantek at school when budget just wasnt there.
 
 

Offline Fungus

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Re: New Tektronix TBS2000 oscilloscopes
« Reply #124 on: August 03, 2016, 01:44:31 pm »
The back shot shows it has ethernet socket. I think the wifi dongle is liable to go missing in a classroom. Hopefully generic chinese ones can replace it.

At this price you'd think WiFi would be built in - they're really pushing it as a selling point and it's only $1 in extra hardware. Adding the extra USB port at the back probably costs them nearly that much.
 


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