561

The 561 is a 560-series scope that was introduced in 1961 and produced in various versions well into the 1970's.

Over its life, the 561 was actually a series of four very different scopes, plus the rack mount versions of each. The original 561 and RM561 were introduced in 1961. Similar to the 560, also introduced in 1961, the 561 has a round CRT. It supports the 50, 60 and 70 series of plug-ins, with the highest system bandwidth of 4 MHz.

The short lived 561 was replaced by the 561A and the rackmount version RM561A in 1962. The 561A were the highest selling model in the 560 series. They introduced a revolutionary new CRT incorporating many “firsts” that would remain through most of Tek's analog scopes to follow – a rectangular faceplate allowing a more compact CRT, and a ceramic CRT envelope which provided more mechanical precision than a blown glass tube. This also enabled the use of a separate face plate made from a flat glass panel that could have the graticule markings printed on the phosphor side of the faceplate. This totally eliminated parallax errors, and allows for better edge illumination. The 561A supports all 2 and 3 series plug-ins. The popular 60 and 70 series plug-ins were renamed by adding a “2A, 2B, 3A, or 3B” in front to the two digit model number. New 3 series plug-ins were also added which consume more power than the original 60 and 70 series. Due to the higher power consumption, these newer plug-ins can not be used in the original 561. The highest bandwidth plug-ins gave a system bandwidth of 10 MHz.

The 561B / RM561B were introduced in 1969. The B models actually provided no performance improvements over the 561A, with the change being limited to all solid state design, including the HV rectifiers. While this improves reliability of the mainframe, no all solid state plug-ins were ever designed. The 561B uses the same 2 and 3 series plug-ins used by the 561A.

A special 561S was introduced as a special product, modified from a 561A. The product did not appear in a Tek catalog. With special modified amplifier and time base (3A1S and 3B1S), it achieved a higher 25 MHz system bandwidth. These were the only plug-ins which could be used in the 561S, as the design uses a special CRT with higher deflection sensitivity to minimize the plug-in voltage swings. The higher BW of the 561S came at the expense of trading off some of the advances gained in the original 561A. The CRT is a conventional glass envelope, without internal graticule. Also, the scale was reduced from 8 x 10 divisions to 6 x 10.

• Tektronix 561 Manual (PDF)
• Tektronix RM561 Manual (PDF)
• Tektronix 561A Manual (DjVu)
• Tektronix 561B Manual (DjVu)
• Tektronix 561S Manual (PDF)
• Tektronix 560 and 561 Product Release (PDF)

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  Tek 561S

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  Tek 3A1S and 3B1S

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  Tek RM561A w 3A74 and 2B67