page_title: Tektronix
section_title: 1970–1985
hierarchical_section_title: Tektronix / History / 1970–1985
context_page_description: Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment.
  Originally an independent company, it is now a subsidiary of Fortive, a spinoff from Danaher Corporation.
  Several charities are, or were, associated with Tektronix, including the Tektronix Foundation and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington.
context_section_description: The company's IPO, when it publicly sold its first shares of stock, was on September 11, 1963. In 1974, the company acquired 256 acres (1.0 km²) in Wilsonville, Oregon where it built a facility for its imaging group. By 1976, the company employed nearly 10,000, and was the state’s largest employer.  Tektronix's 1956 expansion and, in 1962, Electro Scientific Industries' similar move to Washington County and expansion are credited with fostering the development of a large high-tech industry in Washington County, a number of firms which collectively are often referred to as the "Silicon Forest".
  For many years, Tektronix was the major electronics manufacturer in Oregon, and in 1981, its U.S. payroll peaked at over 24,000 employees.  Tektronix also had operations in Europe, South America and Asia.  European factories were located in Saint Peter's, Guernsey (then in the European Free Trade Association) until 1990, Hoddesdon (North London, UK) and Heerenveen, Netherlands (then in the European Common Market). Some oscilloscopes marketed in Europe and the UK were sold under the brand name Telequipment but many in the UK used the Tektronix brand name in the 1960s and 70s.
  For many years, Tektronix operated in Japan as Sony-Tektronix, a 50-50 joint venture of Sony Corporation and Tektronix, Inc; this was due to Japanese trade restrictions at the time.  Since then, Tektronix has bought out Sony's share and is now the sole owner of the Japanese operation.  Under the Sony-Tektronix name, the 300 series oscilloscopes were light weight and totally portable. They replaced the model 321/321A oscilloscopes. Examples of the Sony/Tektronix models were 314, 323, 335 and 370.
  During the early 1970s, Tektronix made a major design change to their oscilloscopes. The 5000 and 7000 series oscilloscopes maintained the plug-in capabilities that originally started with the 530 and 540 series; however, the choice of plug-ins was even greater. These scopes used custom designed integrated circuits fabricated by Tektronix. The CRTs were all rectangular and were all fabricated by Tektronix. These oscilloscopes provided on screen controls setting. The 5000 series was the general purpose line while the 7000 series were capable of a wide variety of applications and could accept as many as 4 plug-ins. One model the 7104 (introduced 1978) was a true 1 GHz bandwidth oscilloscope.
  Beginning with the firm's first cathode ray oscilloscopes, Tektronix has enjoyed a leading position in the test and measurement market.  Although its equipment was expensive, it had performance, quality, and stability.  Most test equipment manufacturers built their oscilloscopes with off-the-shelf, generally available components. But Tektronix, in order to gain an extra measure of performance, used many custom-designed or specially-selected components.  They even had their own factory for making ultra-bright and sharp CRT tubes.  Later on, they built their own integrated circuit manufacturing facility in order to make custom ICs for their equipment.
  Tektronix instruments contributed significantly to the development of computers, test, and communications equipment and to the advancement of research and development in the high-technology electronics industry generally.
  Tektronix as time went on fabricated more and more of their electronic parts. This led to very specialized skills and talents which in time led to employees forming new businesses. Some former Tektronix employees left to create other successful "Silicon Forest" companies. Spin-offs include Mentor Graphics, Planar Systems, Floating Point Systems, Cascade Microtech, Merix Corporation, Anthro Corporation and Northwest Instrument Systems (NWIS) - later renamed to MicroCase. Even some of the spin-offs have created spin-offs, such as InFocus. As Tektronix fabricated more specialized parts, they spread out their product base to include logic analyzers, digital multimeters and signal generators. The TM500 and TM5000 rack mount series was born featuring custom designed test instruments chosen by the buyer.
  During this period, Tekt
caption: A Tektronix model 475A portable analog oscilloscope, a very typical instrument of the late 1970s.
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