To be fair, the scrapping of defective boards was a practice adopted by HP in the 90's and by Tektronix only after the Danaher steamroller took over.
I was lucky to buy a set of defective boards from an ex-HP employee in Santa Rosa and spend weeks really learning how they work, modifying a 8560 tracking generator into a 8590 one, but in the end got not only a fully packed 8593E but education and hands-on training I couldn't get anywhere. Similarly, I got a nearly-operational prototype MSO4104 and some spare boards from pre-Danaher time from another ex-employee, and was able to just tweak the EEPROM to get it to work. Tektronix was near zero help - you can actually say they were below zero - one call mentioning I 'might buy' old prototypes resulted in legal threats. I agree with you, they'd be better off eBaying their scrap so hobbyists with small budgets but plenty of time could repair what was not economical to them. The amount of good will and testimonials to their quality from these people couldn't be created by any ad campaign or tons of free t-shirts and pens in shows... Jose -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 8:39 AM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Fwd: FE-5680A Contact FEI I have been leaning more toward Agilent and away from Tektronix for this very reason. On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:17:54 -0700, Tom Knox <[email protected]> wrote: >I think that for many of us, we are both professional and hobbyist Time Nuts and companies that encourage the hobbyist will find it pays of when we make professional purchases. Agilent seems to be learning this lesson as they put more and more manuals for obsolete products on line. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
