The Tektronix 7000 Oscilloscope series

The Tektronix 7000 series is a wonderful addition to any test bench. They are solidly made and often have interesting circuitry. The wide range of plug-ins provide a study upgrade path. If there is one complaint, it is the use of Tek custom ICs. However, given the choice of some piece of unknown 'scope and a Tek 7000, isn't the choice perfectly clear? I'll never understand how someone can buy a random brand when they could have bought a used Tek. Tektronix also has a FAQ for their 7000 series. It tells you about the year of introduction of each mainframe and plugin and not much more.

I have some preliminary notes on interfacing to the 7000 series .

A note on hamfest prices: at a hamfest you more often than not have no means to test what you are getting. And so, the prices reflect that fact. Guaranteed working (and calibrated) instruments will cost more.

The creation of ebay's test equipment category has resulted in a lot of 7000 equipment on the market. Prices have been falling; as a result, the prices in this table should be taken with a large box of (kosher) salt.

Here's my mapping from mainframe numbers to specification. A mainframe has 4 digits: 7BTS, where B is the bandwidth, T is the type and S is the number of slots.

Mainframe quick reference

Digit	Bandwidth (MHz)	Type
0		Normal
1	1000	Storage or digitizer
2		Storage
3	65	Storage
4	60	Dual beam
5	100	Computerized
6	100
7	175/200
8	400
9	500

An illustrated guide to the Tektronix 7000 series

Mainframes

Mainframe	BW(Mhz)	Comments
7103/4	1000	Highest speed mainframe
7313	65	Seldom seen
7403	60	Slowest mainframe
7503/4	100	Sometimes seen
7603	100	Common mainframe; also USM-281 without readout
7612D	100	Programmable digitizer
7613	100	Variable Persistence
7623	100	Multimode Storage
7633	100	Multimode Storage
7704/A	150/200	A is 200. non A is 150 MHz
7834	400	Fast storage
7844	400	Dual beam; also in rack mount
7854	400	Digital storage, IEEE 488; needs calculator keyboard for full use
7903/4	500	A is improved; rack mount is 03
7912/AD/HD	500	Flying spot scanner; needs 7A16P/7B90P
7934	500	Fastest storage

Vertical Amplifiers

Amplifier	BW(Mhz)	Zin	Sens.	Comments
7A11	250	1M	5mV-20V	Builtin active probe
7A12	120		5mV-5V	Dual trace w/ push buttons
7A13	100	1M	1mV-5V	Diff comparator 10K CMRR; comes in mechanical and LED readout
7A14	120		1ma-1A	AC current probe amp
7A15/A/N	80		5mv-5V
7A16/A/P	150/225	50/1M	5mV-5V	A is 255 Mhz; P prog.
7A17	150	n.a.	n.a.	Customizable, rare
7A18/N	75	1M	5mV-5V	Dual trace; 06 option?
7A19	600	50	10mV-1V
7A21N	1 Ghz	50	direct	High speed GR-874 inputs, goes directly to mainframe vertical amp; doesn't fit in 7854
7A22	1		10uV-10V	Diff amplifier 100K CMRR
7A24	400	50	5mV-1V
7A26	200	50	5mV-5V
7A29/P	1000	50	10mV-1V	Single trace
7A29A	1000	50	10mV-1V	Single trace
7A42	350			4 trace digital
067-0587-0				Special calibration fixture for mainframes, -00 is 200 MHz, -01 is 500 Mhz and -02 is 1 GHz (710x)

Time bases

Time base	fastest t/div(ns)	Comments
7B10	0.2	for use with 710x
7B15	0.2	Delaying version of 7B10
7B50/A	5	A is 150 Mhz
7B51	5	Delaying sweep
7B52	5	Dual channel
7B53A/N	5	Delaying version
7B70	2
7B71	2	Delaying
7B80	1
7B85	2
7B87	2	For use with 7854, has pretrigger
7B90P	2	For use with 7912AD, prog.
7B92/A	0.5	Dual time base

Miscellaneous

Misc	Notes
7CT1N	Curve tracer
7D01	Logic analyzer
7D02	Logic analyzer
DF01	Display formatter
DF02	Display formatter
7D10	Digital event delay
7D11	Digital event/time delay
7D12	A/D (needs modules M1, M2 or M3)
7D13	Multimeter
7D14	Digital Counter to 525 MHz
7D15	Universal Counter/timer to 225 MHz
7D20	Digital storage ; 488
7F10	Optical/Electrical [v. rare]
7K11	CATV Preamp (for Spectrum Analyzers)
7L5	Spectrum Analyzer 20Hz-5Mhz
7L12	Spectrum Analyzer 100 kHz-1.8 Ghz
7L13	Spectrum Analyzer 1 kHz-1.8 Ghz
7L14	Spectrum Analyzer 10 kHz-1.8 Ghz (digital)
7L18	Spectrum Analyzer 1.5Ghz-18 Ghz
7M13	Display "keyboard"
M1	DMM module
M2	Sample/hold module
M3	True RMS module

Sampling plug-ins

Sampling	BW(Ghz)	Notes
7S11		Vertical amp for plugins
7S12		TDR/Sampler
7S14	1	no plug in sampler
7T11		time base; also comes in A (bug fixes)
7M11	75 ns delay unit (coaxial)

Sampling slot plug-ins

Unit	BW(Ghz)	Notes
S1	1	350 ps risetime
S2	4.6	75 ps risetime
S3/A	1	135/150 Probe, 350 ps risetime
S4	14	25 ps risetime, trigger pickoff
S5	0.350	slowest head
S6	11.5	30 ps risetime; TDR feedthru
S42	6.5 GHz	Opto-Electrical converter [v. rare]
S50	25 ps	Pulser
S51	18 GHz	Trigger countdown
S52	25 ps	Pulser
S53	1 GHz	Trigger Recognizer for 7S12
S54	1 ns	Slowest pulser

Thanks to Richard Hager, David DiGiacomo, Alan Shoemake, John Westlake and John Colaw for assistance in compiling this table. And thanks to everyone who emailed saying thanks!