Lets start out with introductions . . . My name is David.  I would like to welcome you to classicTEK.org and thank you for taking the time to find out a little about us.  My wife Marilyn and I started the classicTEK project out of an appreciation for the design and engineering of the equipment.  We are by no means connected to the company Tektronix.  We are not Electrical Engineers, nor have we ever claimed to be intelligent in the ways of design engineering.  What we are, is a couple of technically oriented folks who drive ships and teach high school mathematics.  Marilyn is the smart one in the family, which is why she is the teacher and I am the ship-handler.

We came to Tektronix by way of the diy (do-it-yourself) audio community.  You see, in 2004 I built a set of speakers for our make-shift home theater.  After countless hours designing, assembling, and testing, we discovered a wonderful world of affordable listening pleasure.  After a while I thought to myself, David . . .  you should build a nice amplifier to drive those nifty new loudspeakers.  After jumping in head first to get all the parts for the project I learned (remember! I am not an engineer) I would need a variety of different test & measurement equipment to continue on my journey.

This is where Tektronix comes in.  Of course, after many hours of research, it was apparent to us that Tektronix was the company we should be looking at to populate the growing interest in electronic test equipment.  We didn't know any better at the time, but we started off buying a 545B in fair condition.  We awaited the arrival of our latest purchase with bated breath, checking the mail everyday until it came.  As we opened the box to find our new-to-us scope in relatively good condition we were in awe of the size of the oscilloscope.  I remember vividly the moment we decided to open the right side of the case to get a better look around before we fired it up.

As I turned the cabinet fasteners that secured the side panel to the frame I remember thinking . . .  what could be inside such an enormous piece of equipment to make it so heavy?  No sooner than we cracked open the cover, we were struck by the painstaking detail that went into such a mechanical device.  EVERY wire had its place, and every one of them was so neatly placed ever so carefully one in line with the next, not a single one overlapping its partner.  The soldering, I thought to myself, must have been accomplished only after thousands of hours of training in such things.  The layout of every single component must have been decided by a field service technician.  No one else could possibly have been so thoughtful (or so I thought) of the people, who at some future date, would occasionally have to make said repairs.

Just when we thought we were witness to the finest example of industrial art we had ever been confronted with . . .  it hit us, almost simultaneously, how do you get deeper inside?  That is when we discovered the real unmistakable brilliance and foresight of the design team.  After finding the thumb screw that secured the delay sweep deck to the rest of the frame.  All I had to do was turn the screw and swing out the sweep deck to gain as much access as was necessary to preform any number of things to keep the 545B running.  And if that wasn't enough, someone else decided that it would be convenient to keep a small spool of the correct solder mounted right inside the scope for service consumption!!!  For the next hour or so we just poked and prodded our way through the knobs, switches, pots, and connections making sure everything was functional and secure.  When we fired it up, all was right with the world.

While most of you are more than familiar with the ingenuity going on at Tektronix, we were new to such intelligent engineering practices.  We quickly went about what I thought would be the small task of discovering all there was to know about the people and obvious attention to detail that went into the design and manufacture of such wonderful equipment.  The fact that this same equipment is still in widespread use some fourty-five years later is a testament to the drive, dedication, and conviction of a very well focused group of people.  This group had come together with a single purpose that is rarely, if ever, found as the cornerstone of any modern business.  That is, to design, manufacture, distribute, and support the finest test & measurement tools the world has ever seen, without regard to cost or concern.

Along this journey we found many resources compiled by any number of individuals with their specific goal in mind.  Each and everything we found was a wonderful nugget of information, each with its own purpose.  But we wanted more.  Throughout our travels we wished there to be one central location we could go to find anything we wanted to know about the legacy that had been created by this company and its people.  We wanted to be able to find out about the history of the company as well as the full line of test equipment, pictures, and manuals.  We hoped there would be someplace one could go for all the knowledge of the proper troubleshooting, repair, and preservation of all these tools.  What we found was an enormous amount of information located throughout the world in similar but separate places.  It was then, at that very moment during my Thanksgiving Day holiday in Miami, Florida, that the classicTEK project was born.

I was on the phone with Stan Griffiths, who I have since come to consider a good friend, and I had what must have sounded to be a really crazy idea at the time, to start a preservation foundation to collect, catalog and archive anything and everything classicTEK.  I am sure that Stan must have thought . . .  this guy is crazy!  This guy is just like all the others before him.  Same story, different name.  I can assure you the classicTEK project would never have come to be if it wasn't for that one moment on the phone with Stan.  We talked for hours.  And the more we talked, the more I realized how important it was to start the journey immediately!  We could not wait!  The sooner, the better!  classicTEK.org was born.

There is more to the story, but I am sure I have put most of you to sleep by now.  The point is that we did it.  It is here, classicTEK.org is a reality.  In the spirit of the Hawthorne Street storefront where it all started.  One location, one purpose.  The goal here at classicTEK.org is the absolute archival and preservation of all things classicTEK.  Thank you all for your inspiration, and we can only hope that this site can provide you with as much information as it does enjoyment.

Cheers,

David & Marilyn