sad, sad

[John Larkin]

From this week's EE Times:

"Scopes were HP's, and now Agilent's, legacy. Industry lore tells how
Bill and Dave emerged from a Palo Alto garage in 1938 with an audio
scope and sold an early version to Walt Disney for the film Fantasia.
Their work laid the foundation for Silicon Valley, for
entrepreneurialism, for the rise of technology. But first and
foremost, they were scope guys."


So these guys, totally ignorant of what Bill and Dave actually did,
are still eager to claim their legacy.

John

 

[Tim Wescott]

From this week's EE Times:

"Scopes were HP's, and now Agilent's, legacy. Industry lore tells how
Bill and Dave emerged from a Palo Alto garage in 1938 with an audio
scope and sold an early version to Walt Disney for the film Fantasia.
Their work laid the foundation for Silicon Valley, for
entrepreneurialism, for the rise of technology. But first and
foremost, they were scope guys."


So these guys, totally ignorant of what Bill and Dave actually did,
are still eager to claim their legacy.

John

Oscilloscope, oscillator -- eh, what's the difference? If I were
Hewlett or Packard I'd probably be rolling over in my grave at the
thought of my name being attached to the cheesy computers instead of the
good instruments.

IIRC it was Tektronix that made the first "modern" o-scope with a real
trigger circuit, courtesy of Howard Vollum's radar experience in WWII --
but I'm going from memory and I'm probably biased seeing as I'm from the
Portland area.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Was it the oscillator with a light bulb ?

Gibbo

Yup.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/earlyinstruments/0002/0002history.html

A misogynist would blame it on publishing being a pink-collar ghetto,
but I'd just call it incompetence.



Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[John Fields]

From this week's EE Times:

"Scopes were HP's, and now Agilent's, legacy. Industry lore tells how
Bill and Dave emerged from a Palo Alto garage in 1938 with an audio
scope and sold an early version to Walt Disney for the film Fantasia.
Their work laid the foundation for Silicon Valley, for
entrepreneurialism, for the rise of technology. But first and
foremost, they were scope guys."


So these guys, totally ignorant of what Bill and Dave actually did,
are still eager to claim their legacy.

 

[Frank Bemelman]

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/earlyinstruments/0002/0002history.html

A misogynist would blame it on publishing being a pink-collar ghetto,
but I'd just call it incompetence.

Main Entry: scope
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian scopo purpose, goal, from Greek skopos; akin to Greek
skeptesthai to watch, look at -- more at SPY
1 : INTENTION, OBJECT
2 : space or opportunity for unhampered motion, activity, or thought
3 : extent of treatment, activity, or influence
4 : range of operation: as a : the range of a logical operator : a string in
predicate calculus that is governed by a quantifier b : a grammatical
constituent that determines the interpretation of a predicate or quantifier

 

[John Larkin]

Oscilloscope, oscillator -- eh, what's the difference? If I were
Hewlett or Packard I'd probably be rolling over in my grave at the
thought of my name being attached to the cheesy computers instead of the
good instruments.

IIRC it was Tektronix that made the first "modern" o-scope with a real
trigger circuit, courtesy of Howard Vollum's radar experience in WWII --
but I'm going from memory and I'm probably biased seeing as I'm from the
Portland area.

Tek was founded in 1946, but I'm not sure when they made their first
scope; my Tek history book is at home. I do have a 1955 HP catalog
here, and there are no scopes in it.

John

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Tek was founded in 1946, but I'm not sure when they made their first
scope; my Tek history book is at home. I do have a 1955 HP catalog
here, and there are no scopes in it.

John

According to this web page, the 501 was Tek's first (unsuccessful)
product, and the 511 was the one that flew. There's a copy of an Ad
from _Electronics_ in April 1948 that has the 511.

http://www.tekscope-museum.de/Museum/Timeline/timeline.html#ad

And from September 1948.
http://www.tekscope-museum.de/Museum/Timeline/septad511.jpg

Almost 800 1948 dollars. I imagine the surplus availability and
post-WWII manufacturing capacity for 5CP1 etc. was pretty substantial.

P.S. They call it "portable"- it's only 65lbs, after all.

From the article above, it sounds like there was plenty of competition
for Tek in 1947-48 time period.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Guy Macon]

From this week's EE Times:

"Scopes were HP's, and now Agilent's, legacy. Industry lore tells how
Bill and Dave emerged from a Palo Alto garage in 1938 with an audio
scope and sold an early version to Walt Disney for the film Fantasia.
Their work laid the foundation for Silicon Valley, for
entrepreneurialism, for the rise of technology. But first and
foremost, they were scope guys."

So these guys, totally ignorant of what Bill and Dave actually did,
are still eager to claim their legacy.

I looks like they are abandoning the calculator market to TI...

 

[Guy Macon]

Was it the oscillator with a light bulb ?

Yup. And newbie EEs have been trying to use the same circuit
with various solid-state devices replacing the bulb ever since.

 

[ChrisGibboGibson]

Yup. And newbie EEs have been trying to use the same circuit
with various solid-state devices replacing the bulb ever since.

I still have one that I built at school about 25 years ago. Even now I think
it's ingenious.

Gibbo

 

[Nicholas O. Lindan]

Yup. And newbie EEs have been trying to use the same circuit
with various solid-state devices replacing the bulb ever since.

And leaving the rest of the circuit vacuum tubes?

 

[Tim Wescott]

Yup. And newbie EEs have been trying to use the same circuit
with various solid-state devices replacing the bulb ever since.

If you find the right bulb it works very well -- I can imagine this as
being hell on purchasing department/engineering department relations,
however.

The bulb doesn't get warm enough to actually light; I suspect that to
_really_ do it right you'd use nichrome in an inert atmosphere rather
than Tungsten (but I'd have to do some serious testing and consultation
before I signed off on that).

 

[Guy Macon]

And leaving the rest of the circuit vacuum tubes?

Making new transistorized products that have the same basic circuit
topology (with sertain stanbdard changes) is something that any EE
used to be able to do. When they got to the classic HP Osc., they
found that getting rid of the monode (light bulb) was a *lot* harder
than getting rid of the other vacuum tubes.

 

[Ratch]

You might be interested in this link. Ratch
http://www.eetimes.com/anniversary/designclassics/scopes.html

 

[Mike]

From this week's EE Times:

"Scopes were HP's, and now Agilent's, legacy. Industry lore tells how
Bill and Dave emerged from a Palo Alto garage in 1938 with an audio
scope and sold an early version to Walt Disney for the film Fantasia.
Their work laid the foundation for Silicon Valley, for
entrepreneurialism, for the rise of technology. But first and
foremost, they were scope guys."


So these guys, totally ignorant of what Bill and Dave actually did,
are still eager to claim their legacy.

Years ago, I worked at a company with a buyer who would only buy HP
equipment. He insisted on buying HP scopes, even though they couldn't
trigger. On anything. Even line voltage was too much for them. They were
pathetic.

Over the years, I had to use various HP scopes, and they all shared that
common trait. The trigger circuit seemed to be nonexistent. The controls
were little more than placebo knobs: if you believed hard enough, you'd
think they worked. Otherwise, not.

I bought my first HP scope in 1995 - the first HP scope I ever tried that
could actually trigger on anything less than lightning. It was a pretty
good scope, and I'm pretty sure it was the first competent scope HP ever
made. Anything prior to that was just a catalog filler, and I'm sure nobody
who ever had a job to do actually bought them.

At least, I sure hope not.

-- Mike --

 

[Tim Shoppa]

Yup. And newbie EEs have been trying to use the same circuit
with various solid-state devices replacing the bulb ever since.

One of my favorite footnotes:

Note 5: What else should be expected when trying to replace a
single light bulb with a bunch of electronic components? I can
hear Figure 39's #327 lamp laughing.

I've had some good luck with CdS photocells driven by LED's. Clarex
sells these as "Audiohm" devices, although they work fine for RF into
at least the few MHz region.

Of course that note came a few pages after this one:

Note 4: History records that Hewlett and his friend David Packard
made a number of these type oscillators. Then they built some other
kinds of instruments.

Tim.

 

[Rich Grise]

Years ago, I worked at a company with a buyer who would only buy HP
equipment. He insisted on buying HP scopes, even though they couldn't
trigger. On anything. Even line voltage was too much for them. They were
pathetic.

Over the years, I had to use various HP scopes, and they all shared that
common trait. The trigger circuit seemed to be nonexistent. The controls
were little more than placebo knobs: if you believed hard enough, you'd
think they worked. Otherwise, not.

I bought my first HP scope in 1995 - the first HP scope I ever tried that
could actually trigger on anything less than lightning. It was a pretty
good scope, and I'm pretty sure it was the first competent scope HP ever
made. Anything prior to that was just a catalog filler, and I'm sure
nobody who ever had a job to do actually bought them.

At least, I sure hope not.

I can beat that one. When I was in the USAF, at one base some genius had
decided to buy a waterproof military HP scope. It not only didn't trigger,
but the knobs were not only not placebos - they had these resilient rubber
seals around the shafts, to keep water out. Of course, there's some friction
between the rubber and metal, so you'd have to turn the knob past the point
you wanted, and hope that you got the right distance that it's going to
spring back.

I quipped to somebody, "It wouldn't even make a boat anchor - the SOB would
float!"

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Bob Stephens]

Hmm.. I used to use a customer's HP scope - 100 MHZ dual trace a 1740A?
It seemed to trigger pretty well - course you had to know where to kick it



Bob

 

[James T. White]

Years ago, I worked at a company with a buyer who would only buy HP
equipment. He insisted on buying HP scopes, even though they couldn't
trigger. On anything. Even line voltage was too much for them. They were
pathetic.

Over the years, I had to use various HP scopes, and they all shared that
common trait. The trigger circuit seemed to be nonexistent. The controls
were little more than placebo knobs: if you believed hard enough, you'd
think they worked. Otherwise, not.

I've used HP's analog scopes (1740, 1741 and 1725) and never had any complaints
about their triggering.

 

[John Fields]

If you find the right bulb it works very well -- I can imagine this as
being hell on purchasing department/engineering department relations,
however.

The bulb doesn't get warm enough to actually light; I suspect that to
_really_ do it right you'd use nichrome in an inert atmosphere rather
than Tungsten

---
Frayed knot...

Nichome (Nichrome V) has a tempco of 0.00013, while tungsten's is
0.004403, so you'd suffer a loss of sensitivity of some 97% if you
switched!

Check this out: http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_12/6.html