#1180 HP Oscilloscope RIP

Episode 1180
All things must come to an end

[PapasDino]

Modern version of tearing apart and old TV set for parts to build a Novice transmitter! Great way to start building a good junk box.

[johnwest]

In the early 1970's, at the HP scope division in Colo. Spgs, the R&D group used Teks to do their design work. I think the copper-nickel-gold boards had heavy gold on them, well worth sending in for gold scrap if you snip off the parts first. Same with the large chassis-mount connectors for card edges. In the early '70's, just before the price became free floating, gold was still bought and sold for $35 an ounce, so they used a decent plating of it until the price shot up when price control was dropped.

My buddy gathered scrap bds and connectors (free) for about 5 years till the gold price was floated. He then waited another 3 or 4 years as the US gold price climbed, then had the gold recovered from the bds and connectors and bought a house with it up in the foothills at the base of Pikes Peak.

[Chris_Grossman]

I'm curious to see what the impedance of the delay line turns out to be. The high speed / high voltage transistors from the sweep amplifier output stages might also be good to snag.

[pglick]

Probably too late now but Curious Marc loves HP anything and fixes it.

[andywlala]

That looks like it might share some mechanical components with the 3580A spectrum analyzer. I have one that works electrically, but could use some mechanical help (especially around the front of the crt.) Curious how to reach out and see if we have stuff we could trade…

[vincei]

I have a 26GHz Tek spectrum analyzer that needs a recap. I haven't opened it yet and examined how much damage the leaking caps have done but based on the power consumption of the unit alone and its slightly flaky behavior I may take it apart and repurpose some of the RF components in it. It is sad to do but there's life in another life if you see what I mean.

[frankowalker]

It's always a bit sad when you have to finally retire a piece of equipment.

[Dennis-ucgm]

When I worked for a defense company in the early 80's we had nothing but that major brand of O scopes. One day a really good sales guy got us to buy a couple of these. All I can say is HP makes a lot of really good test equipment but O scopes ? ..not so much.🙂

[bumohamedubualooy]

a gold mine for some through hole parts, build something with some of the functioning modules

[mnoxman]

Is it me or are Tektronix scopes almost universally loved?

[adrianvonino]

I would totally love to know more about that delay line: what's it made of, how does it work, what's it good for, etc. I'm a bit too young for this stuff (only 36 years), so this kind of equipment is not what I'm used to. Thanks

[dougnbfs]

The gold recyclers are drooling over those boards
Don't throw them away, you'll get good money for them, even if you don't depopulate them
At a shop I used to work at I had one of those scopes that I used to use, then I 'upgraded' to a Tek 465m that we got from the local air force base surplus
Good times :)

[_hackwell]

I own a 1741A O scope with a persistence memory CRT. And the CRT has seen better days but I still want to restore it as it's an interesting bit of kit

[swc]

HV transformer is a must save in my opinion alongside HP custom parts esp the big ceramics... not easy to come by these days and they do fail. Especially the HV trans

[grubboy]

Curious Marc would have loved that scope 😄

[acestudioscouk-Ace-GACE]

A lot of high quality components and craftsmanship went into this era of kit. Not to mention intricate design. Thanks for an interesting video and good to know that some parts will be recycled.

[ericksonengineering]

I was an EE at HP Medical Waltham in the 70s. We could get any test equipment you wanted except Tek scopes. I used a 250MHz HP scope. It wasn't terrible.

[Industrialvrn]

Когда думаешь что только в СССР инженера делали странные технические решения ... то глядя на это ХП тоже понимаешь что у наших в принципе все было нормально ...

[jstro-hobbytech]

I'm from newfoundland originally and I haven't heard the drunken sailor sea shanty since I was child haha too funny

[thetechgenie]

I hated HP oscilloscopes as had the misfortune of using them at university and at first job and thankfully next job used Tektronix and Lecroy oscilloscopes for years and didn’t look back. Sharper screen better UI, cheaper when it comes to buying active probes and just better overall better then the HP oscilloscopes and then their DSO’s were even worst I actually got rid of it as consistently freezes up and had issues and bought a Lecroy Wave Pro to replace it and a Tektronix TDS. Both were superior and more importantly reliable. Oscilloscopes for complex waveforms and trigger. Early HP DSO oscilloscopes are the reason some older engineers and technicians hated DSO’s

Shame about HP is they made the best logic analyzers around to date. Just their oscilloscopes they cut corners and not built nearly as well. Nowadays of course Keysight make the best DSO’s. It when they made the 8000 series is when HP started making proper DSO’s and getting it together. They made great acquisition board but used the cheapest components as far as the PC board goes like buggy VIA chipset, slow processor and just overall poor performance as far as the PC sides goes. Then the UI was garbage.