Out in Front: December 7, 1995

Until about four years ago, a digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) that took 2G samples/sec in real time on each channel was a breakthrough product for which you’d pay almost $20,000. Now, with Tektronix’s introduction of the TDS 380, the price for a two-channel unit drops to $4495, including a floppy-disk drive and the ability to calculate FFTs. The scope’s bandwidth is 350 MHz, 30% less than that of the more expensive 2G-sample/sec/channel real-time DSOs, which also have greater acquisition-memory depth. Concurrent with the TDS 380 rollout, Tektronix is announcing two other low-cost, real-time-sampling, two-channel DSOs: The 200-MHz-bandwidth TDS 360 ($2995) takes 1G sample/sec/channel, and the 100-MHz-bandwidth TDS 340 ($2495) takes 500M samples/sec/channel. -- by Dan Strassberg

Tektronix Inc, Beaverton, OR. (800) 426-2200.