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Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: tkamiya on August 19, 2018, 10:03:44 pm

Title: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: tkamiya on August 19, 2018, 10:03:44 pm
I used to see these all the time back in my time in Japan - around 70s and 80s.  This particular piece of equipment look like an oscilloscope with oversized display with too few buttons.  There is an input for X and Y, and Z typically in back of it.  It basically functions identically to any scope in XY mode.  Except this is A LOT bigger.  Feed an X and an Y voltage and dot at the center moves to whatever X and Y represents.

Does anyone know what this is called?

It's not a vector scope.
It's really not a raster scope.
XY scope didn't find much.

Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: DC1MC on August 19, 2018, 10:08:31 pm
Like this http://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/604 (http://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/604) ?

Or those: http://vectorvgapro.com/XY_Displays.html (http://vectorvgapro.com/XY_Displays.html)

Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: tkamiya on August 19, 2018, 10:15:17 pm
Yes.  That one, I found....  but I recall these things were all over the place.  How can I search for them?  Is there a generic name?
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: elecman14 on August 19, 2018, 10:25:42 pm
I would look for "XY Display". This link has a small list of them: http://vectorvga.com/PDFs/XY_Displays.pdf (http://vectorvga.com/PDFs/XY_Displays.pdf)
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: DC1MC on August 19, 2018, 10:29:48 pm
Not really, I used to find them searching for waveform monitor and vectorscope on fleabay.
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: Andy Watson on August 19, 2018, 10:45:21 pm
Were they associated with Radar ? Perhaps a PPI display ?
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: The Soulman on August 19, 2018, 11:13:59 pm
I should have known the name,but I forgot..  :palm:
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: Alex Eisenhut on August 20, 2018, 01:13:04 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektronix_4010

Maybe?
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: vk6zgo on August 20, 2018, 01:48:30 am
I used to see these all the time back in my time in Japan - around 70s and 80s.  This particular piece of equipment look like an oscilloscope with oversized display with too few buttons.  There is an input for X and Y, and Z typically in back of it.  It basically functions identically to any scope in XY mode.  Except this is A LOT bigger.  Feed an X and an Y voltage and dot at the center moves to whatever X and Y represents.

Does anyone know what this is called?

It's not a vector scope.
It's really not a raster scope.
XY scope didn't find much.

When I worked at a TV studio, we had a few of these which were called "vector displays", as distinct from
"Vector scopes", because they didn't have the decoding circuitry, but needed to obtain x & y signals from some other device (often a picture monitor).
The audio guys used the same device (but with a different graticule), to check stereo phase.
These ones had quite a small display, but I have seen the bigger ones on a few occasions
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: james_s on August 20, 2018, 03:21:13 am
Vector monitor is the correct term, or X-Y display. A number of classic arcade games used vector monitors too, Atari called them Quadrascan.
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: The Soulman on August 20, 2018, 08:29:04 am
The audio guys used the same device (but with a different graticule), to check stereo phase.

Yes, and they had a specific name.   :-//
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: tv84 on August 20, 2018, 03:09:16 pm
The audio guys used the same device (but with a different graticule), to check stereo phase.

Yes, and they had a specific name.   :-//

Phasescope.

(https://ebayimages.pairsite.com/drco/TEKTRONIX-764-DIGITAL-AUDIO-PHASE-SCOPE-B13-N2.jpg)
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: woodchips on August 20, 2018, 06:30:18 pm
Try Kikusui 5121A alignment scope, that is the one I have. About 10KHz bandwidth, if you want a real one look for an HP143A, 20MHz.
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: tkamiya on August 21, 2018, 05:21:22 pm
Seems what I am looking for is becoming very rare and hard to get.  I can see vector scopes everywhere but looking at its input, it does not seem to do what I wantl

What I really want to do is to render an image from HP8568/HP8566 and HP85662A on a larger screen.  Aforementioned setup has X, Y, Z, and BLANK output.  Most oscilloscopes lack BLANK, it seems.  None of mine has it.  I even thought of buying a new scope just to use it as a XYZB to VGA converter, but that doesn't seem to be a good fit either.  I have never done FPGA so that's not a viable route. 

Seems vector type anything is popular among vintage video game cloud.  Maybe they got'em all? 

HOW ELSE can I get this done??  Maybe go all the way IN and replace this CRT with VGA in 85662 and tap the output?  That'll be about $700.  Ouch.
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: woodchips on August 21, 2018, 05:52:06 pm
All analogue scopes have a blank, or brightup, input. No idea about digital, don't use them.

As I said, you need an HP143A. The 8566 etc need about 5MHz bandwidth to paint the XY display.

Try for a 7603, or the equivalent HP scope, 182? They have a larger screen.
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: james_s on August 21, 2018, 07:34:47 pm
Seems what I am looking for is becoming very rare and hard to get.  I can see vector scopes everywhere but looking at its input, it does not seem to do what I wantl

What I really want to do is to render an image from HP8568/HP8566 and HP85662A on a larger screen.  Aforementioned setup has X, Y, Z, and BLANK output.  Most oscilloscopes lack BLANK, it seems.  None of mine has it.  I even thought of buying a new scope just to use it as a XYZB to VGA converter, but that doesn't seem to be a good fit either.  I have never done FPGA so that's not a viable route. 

Seems vector type anything is popular among vintage video game cloud.  Maybe they got'em all? 

HOW ELSE can I get this done??  Maybe go all the way IN and replace this CRT with VGA in 85662 and tap the output?  That'll be about $700.  Ouch.


The vector monitors used in video games have magnetic deflection and use standard CRTs, the same type used in TVs. They are generally not fast enough to work with a signal intended to drive an electrostatic CRT. Large screen electrostatic deflection vector monitors are just an incredibly specialized item that was never produced in large numbers. There are vector to VGA conversion devices that *might* cut it, or many digital scopes have a VGA monitor output however the XY mode on most digital scopes is next to useless.

You might try pointing a video camera at the screen you want to capture, it's possible that it will flicker badly and look horrible but it may end up being passable depending on the scan rates. If it does produce reasonable results then you could get a scope camera mount for your instrument and fabricate something to attach a video camera instead of the original film camera. Once you have a standard video image you can send it to any kind of modern monitor you want.
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: AutogolazzoJr on August 22, 2018, 06:24:57 pm
It's a vector monitor. The ones from video games are very similar to the raster monitors, but they have coils with lower inductance.
They are pretty cool:
(https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0807/28/wells-gardner-6100-color-vector-monitor-working_1_bd17635baff5c7c71e7fefd0fdce3c19.jpg)
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: tkamiya on August 22, 2018, 07:01:36 pm
That's VERY nice!! 

Yes, I remember from my childhood, most games used vector displays.  It would be very nice if this can be done with LCD but more I think about it, harder it gets.  It would require fast DAC and a bank of dual port memory.  Write from one side and read from the other.  Too bad there isn't a cheap module like going the other way around.
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: tkamiya on August 22, 2018, 09:12:12 pm
MONITOR SCOPE was the word I was looking for!

Of course it didn't help me find it on eBay. 
Title: Re: I don't know what this is called.... XY scope?
Post by: james_s on August 22, 2018, 10:11:09 pm
It was never most games, only a small fraction were vector games, but some like Tempest and Asteroids were enormously popular.

The same graphics can today be drawn on an LCD monitor but to convert from vector to raster means capturing the signal at high speed and using it to draw a framebuffer.