Changes in the history of oscilloscope development

In physics, continuously changing physical quantities are defined as analog quantities , The quantity in our world is continuous , Like temperature , Pressure , Height, etc , So the world we live in is simulated , This simulation does not mean that you play games like simulated cities , It's all fake , Only analog quantity , Don't start doubting yourself

In the process of scientific development , When human beings want to study and analyze the variables of the world , Only this analog world can be transformed into digital form to study , The oscilloscope is used to study the law of electrical signals , The original “ Oscilloscope ” What does it look like ？

The earliest device to observe the change of voltage was around the 1920s , At that time, people recorded waveforms manually , Coupling the mechanical part with the galvanometer , Technicians observe the current displayed on the galvanometer , Draw pattern manually , This process is formed in thousands of cycles , Only rough waveforms can be drawn

And then for a while , There is no specific record , There have been machines that automatically draw waveforms , People no longer need to draw manually , Mechanically fix the pen on the pointer of galvanometer , The paper that draws waves is always rotating , The frequency of current is very fast , The mechanical reaction is relatively slow , So the waveform he obtained is still the average value of hundreds of waveforms , Relatively rough , Compared with hand drawing, it is more accurate

time out 1897 year , German physicists , Nobel laureate Braun invented the cathode ray tube , It has been widely used in TV and computer screens , This is the first true oscilloscope , You should be familiar with this cathode ray tube , I learned this thing in high school physics at that time .

Oscilloscopes in this period belong to analog oscilloscopes , And there is no trigger function , until 1947 In, tech launched their first oscilloscope ,511 Type oscilloscope , It is the first commercial oscilloscope , It is also the first oscilloscope with trigger function , This simple function is indispensable to every modern oscilloscope , It can be said to be the beginning of modern oscilloscope , Tektronix also has many stories when developing this machine , Let's talk about it alone again ,

In those days , There's a big company , Companies much larger than tech , Call HP , Hearing this name, many people think of his computer , In fact, HP started as an electronic instrument , It is also a giant company in this industry , This company doesn't make oscillograph itself , But as the it Industry development , Oscilloscope has become a new trend , HP finally entered this field , stay 1956 In, there was the first one in the world X Y An oscilloscope that can measure axes accurately

stay 60 Before the s, the oscilloscope of the instrument used an electronic tube structure （ The figure below ）

1959 Tech, which began to appear at the end of the year 555 Type oscilloscope , bandwidth 30MHz, Made with a complete electronic tube structure , Huge power consumption and volume , On the bottom floor of the trolley is his power box .... Such an oscilloscope is very large , So that it's impossible to use the cart without him

In the rapid development of RF semiconductor technology 60 years , With the mass production of transistors , Started the process of solid-state instrument , Later oscilloscopes are made of transistors , This greatly reduces the size of the oscilloscope , Weight reduction , Finally, I took it off the trolley , It can be put on the table , You can also easily move to the test site

up to now , All oscilloscopes can only display waveforms , Engineers who want to know the voltage can only go to the grid on the screen , Think about the scene when you read on the grid , Is it very eye-catching , And the reading accuracy is not high , Until tech is 1962 In, the first digital reading oscilloscope was produced , Saved the eyes of engineers

But at this time, it is still an analog oscilloscope , Just add the digital reading function

What we use now are basically digital oscilloscopes , Because when simulating an oscilloscope, the waveform is displayed through the picture tube , Because of this working principle , The bandwidth of analog oscilloscope can no longer be very large , For higher sampling rate and performance , stay 1971 year ,LeCroy Ricoh invented the first digital oscilloscope , Use analog-to-digital converter to convert analog signals into digital signals for analysis , Since then, digital oscilloscopes have also developed rapidly , Better performance is also widely used , The first digital oscilloscope invented by LiCo is also what I found in the information , If you have more accurate information, we can have a chat with you in our private letter

Also in 1971 Another great product was born in , Namely cpu He brought a revolution to all electronic products , Of course, it also includes oscilloscope ,1982 year , HP uses Intel Of CPU,8bit operating system , Launched the world's first digital display oscilloscope , More powerful , You can perform more complex operations on the waveform

Do you still remember the scene when you first saw a computer ？ What many people see for the first time is Win95 Scene , Did you think it was very easy to use , stay 1998 In, HP launched an operating system , Oscilloscope with graphical interface , It is also an epoch-making product , The following year, the name of HP's instrument part was changed , Change to Agilent , That is, now it's Germany technology .

Stepping into 21 Bandwidth of century oscilloscope , The performance of sampling rate is also improving , Spectrum is also added to the oscilloscope , Function of signal source , Looking back at history, we find that the functions we need are all done step by step by our predecessors , How to develop in the future still needs your efforts , We'll see