News and New Products

Manufacturer upgrades DSO lines

By Dan Strassberg -- EDN, 11/13/2003

Tektronix has upgraded a large number of its oscilloscopes, turning into mainstream units products the company only recently thought of as top-of-the-line instruments. The changes make room for even higher performance scopes at the top of the line (see “Tektronix pushes real-time-DSO bandwidth to 7 GHz,” EDN, Oct 30, 2003, pg 22).

At $1495, the PowerUser package (Option TSY) provides TDS5000 Series users with performance and analysis capabilities at a price less than 20% of the sum of the prices of the same options if you purchased them individually. The package includes longer memory, advanced analysis capabilities, additional RAM, a CD-RW drive, a printer and a touchscreen interface. In addition, probes are now standard with the TDS5104.

A new, $495 option BND provides TDS3014B, TDS3034B, and TDS3054B users with powerful analysis and documentation capabilities and greater portability at a 75% savings compared with the prices of the individual options if you purchased them separately. Each unit includes a lithium-ion battery, a soft carrying case, a communications module, OpenChoice software, an advanced-analysis module, and a limit-setting module.

OpenChoice packages—previously available only on the company's highest performance scopes—enable customers to seamlessly integrate external PCs with TDS3000B, TDS2000, and TDS1000 Series scopes to simplify documentation and analysis. TDSPCS1 software aids in visualizing, analyzing, documenting, printing, and sharing measurements, waveforms, and scope settings on PCs using Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) Excel and Word toolbars or the OpenChoice Desktop application. A CompactFlash mass-storage card, available with TDS1000 and 2000 scopes, allows quick data transfer between the scope and the PC or between scopes.

Tektronix Inc, 1-800-426-2200, www.tektronix.com.