We have pages for over 1,800 products, 1,500+ patents, 500+ components, 200+ key people, and more.
We also keep 5,500+ PDF documents – manuals, catalogs, specifications, data sheets etc.
In addition, you can find over 16,000 images such as equipment photos, and almost 1,000 ROM images and software packages here.
Welcome to TekWiki, a wiki for the community of Tektronix oscilloscope enthusiasts.
The purpose of this website is to help people get information about classic Tektronix equipment. You don't need an account if you just want to read pages and download files.
To find what you need, you can browse the various tabs on the top of this Main Page where most instruments are listed, e.g. the "Tube Scopes" section. We also have visual index pages for important series of instruments that help identify instruments from photos.
Even easier is using the "Search TekWiki" box on the top of the page, e.g. to locate instruments by type number.
The manuals stored on this site are named following their Tektronix part numbers. They are indexed on the Manuals page and always linked to the respective instrument's page, so it is easiest to start from a specific model's page.
Every now and then you may find a red link on one of our pages - this means that the linked page has not been written yet, or we do not yet have a copy of the linked document. If you have any helpful information, please see below.
If you want to add to Tekwiki or improve existing Tekwiki pages, please email the administrator for an account.
We have some Guidelines for contributors that can help you understand how we structure this wiki.
See the External Links tab for online discussion groups, museums and other resources.
Tektronix started producing oscilloscopes with the model 511 in 1947, at which time the vacuum tube was the primary active device, and remained so into the 1960s. While transistors were used increasingly in such instruments from the mid-1950s on, this section contains instruments and instrument families primarily based on vacuum tubes (aka valves).
Major families of Tektronix oscilloscopes from the tube era include:
From the late 1960s on, Tektronix produced oscilloscopes that were predominantly solid-state based except for the CRT.
Major instrument families from this period included
The Tektronix TM500 is a modular test equipment system offering a variety of plug-in modules that fit a dedicated series of mainframes with one to six module slots. The plugins are not compatible with other Tektronix lines such as oscilloscopes.
The TM5000 series, introduced in 1982, added a GPIB interface on the mainframe to control intelligent plugins.
Tektronix Curve Tracers brochure, 1982 (covering 576, 577, 172, 176, 178, 5CT1N, 7CT1N, Adapters)
Telequipment was a British oscilloscope manufacturer that was acquired by Tektronix in November of 1966.