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Re: What's this Tek item?
Stan or Patricia Griffiths
Wow, I need to pay more attention to eBay! You got a REAL STEAL on this
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stuff, and yes, I know what it is. The Tek S-3260 is a very large computer controlled system for testing integrated circuits. It is vintage about 1975 or so. Some of the options for the S3260 included a 568 scope with 3S6 and 3T6 sampling plugins for making some very fast risetime measurements on the IC under test. The S3260 was capable of handling large scale ICs with up to 64 pins in its largest configuration (they may have even made larger ones than that). Any way, the 568/3T6/3S6 is only a two channel sampling system so how do you look at 64 IC pins with only two channels? The answer is that you multiplex the two channels to all 64 pins. How do you do that without losing all the fast capability of the sampling system? The answer is that you locate the sampling heads (S1's in this case) as physically close to the IC pins as you can and dedicate one S1 to each IC pin and multiplex the S1's to the two 3S6 channels. The multiplexing is done in groups of up to four sampling heads plugged into a 286 Sampling Head Multiplexer. If your system needs more than four sampling heads multiplexed, you can multiplex up to four 286's with one 288, for a total of up to 16 sampling heads. Still not enough sampling heads? OK, you can slave up to three 287's to one 288, each one loaded with four 286's, with each of those 286's loaded with up to four sampling heads, for a grand total of 64 sampling heads multiplexed. All of this is explained with pictures on page 251 of your 1973 Tektronix Catalog . . . The multiplexers (286's, 287's, and 288's) are not particularily valuable today (except as maybe an addition to my collection!) since they are only one component of a large S3260 system and you don't have the rest of it, like the DEC PDP-11 computer, the Tek 1340 Interface Units, and the necessary software to control it all. The S1's however, are the gold at the end of this rainbow! The 1989 Tek Catalog lists S1 Sampling Heads available from Tek new at a cost of $1695 each! (And you got 23 of them for $2.25 . . . ! ! not to mention the 286's, etc.) Anyway, those same sampling heads are useful in the 3S2, 7S11, 7S12 and a few other sampling plugins. So, if those sampling heads actually work, you should be able to get at least 1000 times your money back . . . but you would really need to check them out first to expect that kind of return. You say you don't know how to check them out? OK, so I will give you ten times your money right now and I'll check them out . . . how about that! 8-) I took a look at the picture of the stuff you bought and I actually counted 55 sampling heads in the picture. You could always complain to the seller that you thought you were getting everything shown in the picture and you expect to recieve all 55 sampling heads . . . ! ! (Then you should be able to get 2000 times your money ! ! ) Surely this detailed explanation is worth one sampling head and not just a crumby old useless S3260 compensator card, right? Stan w7ni@... tomg@... wrote: Hi, all. I just purchased a "Tektronix Multiplexer Control Unit", |
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