Products > Test Equipment
Why did Tektronix stop making the great scopes?
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slugrustle:

--- Quote from: Howardlong on January 27, 2024, 08:45:40 pm ---
--- Quote from: slugrustle on January 27, 2024, 03:48:41 am ---My coworker loves the MSO 6 series he's been using at work lately.  I haven't used it myself, but the TPP1000 (10x, 1Ghz, 10MΩ, <4pF, 300V) and TPP0502 (2x, 500MHz, 2MΩ, 12.7pF, 300V) passive scope probes look simply incredible.  I don't know how they do it.  At first, I assumed the 1GHz probes were active, but then I pulled the datasheet.

I'm really happy with my Siglent SDS2000X+ scope, but man, I wish it could use the passive Tek probes.

--- End quote ---

The TPP0250/0500/1000 10x probes all have 3.9pF loading, and will only work with compatible scopes with TekVPI standard, so you're tied to Tek.

TekVPI uses a one-wire interface and each probe has a serial number, so the scope remembers the calibration parameters once you've run a cal. I've always assumed that there's some kind of smart equalisation goes on in the scope front end that's proprietary to Tek, and that's how they manage to get a 3.9pF load.

By the way, the internal construction of the TPP1000 TekVPI connector is definitely different to that of the TPP0250 and TPP0500, so if you have any ideas thatg you could fool a 250MHz probe to work at 1GHz you have some work to do.

So in short, while I agree these passive probes have great loading characteristics, the compromise is that they'll only work with certain compatible Tek scopes.

--- End quote ---

Oh, completely understood.  There's no way to get those kinds of loadings and bandwidths on a passive probe without some really fancy software-involved compensation, and only Tek scopes have the interface and software to do it.  So I'm sticking with my Siglent scope and ordinary probes.  It's still cool technology though!
floobydust:
After 5 years (at 2012) evil Danaher Corp. had canned half the Tek employees, 5 rounds of layoffs, 1,000 people out the door.
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2012/12/tektronix_five_years_after_sal.html
This is how a mega-conglomerate makes money, clear-cutting yet replanting nothing.
I could go on about the president of Tektronix at the time Amir Aghdaei, formerly VP of Fluke, a Danaher slasher now CEO of some dental :o Envista Holdings $8M/year compensation, as yet another MBA decimator of great brands. The worm moves on when things go sour.

I thought one of Tek's missteps was going full in on Power PC for the CPU choice, and it's kind of a slow dog and lagged for clock speed, memory and features.
Then I remember their scopes had a built-in spectrum analyzer focusing on cellphone communications use, and it was not useful yet very expensive. Went with Agilent that year.
abeyer:

--- Quote from: floobydust on January 27, 2024, 09:41:51 pm ---I thought one of Tek's missteps was going full in on Power PC for the CPU choice, and it's kind of a slow dog and lagged for clock speed, memory and features.

--- End quote ---

Given how much heavy lifting ends up in the asics or fpgas on modern digital scopes, that seems like a pretty minor concern. Not to mention that if you ignore the 30 year old freescale designs for the land that time forgot automotive industry and actually look at modern ones (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power10#Design)... I'd be impressed by a scope that needs more compute than that.
johansen:

--- Quote from: miguelvp on December 24, 2014, 01:02:07 am ---Can't find the 2465B list price but the 2467B with a different CRT cost in 1990 was $13,045

Source:
http://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/2467

So think of how cheap they are now taking into account inflation (around $24,100 in 2014 money)

--- End quote ---

13 grand in 1990 was the hospital bill for 3 standard no complication pregnancies. As in the full 9 months not just the hospital bill.

Its like 150 today.

24 grand will barely buy me a bathroom remodel. In 1990, half of a house.
coppercone2:
damn machines are not doing their job to give us more free time and make our lives cheaper to maintain
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