However, I wouldn't fault Tek and the "rookies" too much on some of
these issues. Don't forget that the 7000-series and TTL grew up
together, so they were working on the bottom of the learning curve.
I have a feeling that Tek was pushing the specs and doing a lot of
selecting and having to interface to logic other than TTL just to
make use of a complex TTL function to save on a lot of circuitry.
When you're building 200 and 500 MHz scopes with a new 10 MHz and 100
MHz TTL technology, you're having to make do sometimes.
The 7D01 was stuck in that same problem slot. Here you have a little
plug-in that you expect to run at high speed and the fastest logic
you have available for that task is ECL, some of the most power-
hungry stuff on the face of the earth. Logic chips have come a long
way since then. At least Tek had the innovation to try to work with
one of the more robust supplies in the mainframe and build an
efficient switcher into the 7D01 to get their logic supply. When the
7K series was developed, I don't think that Tek had envisioned some
of the things they ended up trying, such as logic analysis or digital
storage.
I banged heads just a few months ago with one guy who was ripping the
TM500-series to pieces. I'll defent TM500 to the hilt. That was an
even more innovative design than the 7K scopes and what a broad and
functional product line that was! There were instruments in there
that had no equal back then, and even still today (FG504, AA501,
SG505, AM503 and the entire oscilloscope calibration constellation).
Tek's portable Neonatal monitor was usually preferred over any other
model in a hospital. Tek's television products were second to none
(specifically the signal and test generators) although I think most
TV stations deferred to other brands of monitors for whatever
reason. Even today, Tek seems to have had the best color laser
printers around.
The business side of Tek may have gotten in their way. There were
plenty of bone-headed moves that hurt -- like IDG insisting upon
sticking with bistable storage and waiting too long to use
semiconductor memory instead, losing their graphics market after
establishing Plot 10 software as the graphics standard.
Dean
