Preserving our past: oscilloscope history

Last week I visited an intriguing museum – VintageTek – that opened its doors in 2011 with the express purpose of honoring the history of the oscilloscope. Founded by two retired Tektronix engineers and staffed entirely by volunteers, most who also retired from Tektronix, the museum has perhaps the world’s largest collection of working analog oscilloscopes from the ’40s and ’50s. Okay, I can’t validate it’s the world’s largest collection, but I struggle to imagine another place with so many actual working oscilloscopes from this vintage. The museum is focused on analog oscilloscopes manufactured from 1945 to 1985, before the digital scope era took over.


One of the founders, Stan Griffiths, began collecting Tektronix oscilloscopes over 25 years ago. He has built his collection up to 1,500 instruments. In fact, Stan is a pro at restoring and fixing vintage oscilloscopes. That’s because he spent the majority of his career in Tek’s service center repairing the scopes that he now restores. He’s even written a book to help other collector’s restore their scopes – Oscilloscopes: Selecting and Restoring a Classic.
Remarkably, although the museum was originally envisioned as a place to display Stan’s large collection, he actually has only 15 of his own scopes on display. Once the museum began to form, donations of equipment, parts, volunteer labor, and, thankfully, cash began to flow in. VintageTek has an official Tektronix repair station, complete with all the “Black Beauties” (capacitors) it needs to keep its scopes in fine shape.
Ed Sinclair is the other founder of the museum, and the driving power behind its creation. He spent his career selling and supporting Tektronix customers, and has a clear love for oscilloscopes. During our tour, Ed and Stan shared a few stories from their career, which I’ll share in my next blog post.

 
I was thankful to see such an important part of engineering history being preserved. If you find yourself in Portland, Oregon, you should stop by VintageTek. Or visit its Web site at www.vintagetek.org.

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Gina Bonini is a technical marketing manager for Tektronix. She has worked extensively in various test-and-measurement positions for more than 15 years, including product planning, product marketing, and business and market development. She holds a BSChE from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MSEE from Stanford University.