Today, if you want to get a picture from your oscilloscope — maybe to send to a collaborator or to stick in a document or blog post — it is super easy. You can push an image to a USB stick or sometimes even just use the scope’s PC or web interface to save the picture directly to your computer. Of course, if it is on the computer, you could use normal screen capture software. But that hasn’t always been the case. Back in the days when scopes were heavy and expensive, if you wanted to capture an image from the tube, you took a picture. While you might be able to hold up your camera to the screen, they made specific cameras just for this purpose.
Of course, these cameras took film. For example, the Contax GCCM in the video below was made for 35mm film. It wasn’t just for documentation, either. You didn’t have storage scopes, so if you wanted to make precise measurements of something that didn’t recur often enough to give you a stable trace, one way to measure it was to grab a photo.
Shake It
The problem with that is that you have to develop the roll of film before you get your results. That’s why most of us used Polaroid scope cameras like the Tektronix ones you can see in this vintage Tektronix brochure on the Vintagetek website.
A typical camera was made to fit around your scope’s CRT and had a “hood.” It locked onto the screen and ended in a standard camera. Often, there was an eyepiece or some other arrangement that let you see the screen. Some of them swung clear when you weren’t using them and some you simply had to pull off the scope’s screen. There were also adapters for normal cameras like the one in the video below.
While you could get backs that took ordinary film, most people used Polaroid backs that took a single piece of Polaroid film — at least, once Polaroid film existed. Once you took the shot, you had to use a smelly squeegee that came with the film to fix the image. Microscope cameras often used this same sort of film.
Lots of Vendors
Of course, Tektronix didn’t have the market cornered. You usually had a camera that matched your scope, like the HP camera in the video below. If you were really decked out, you also had a cart that you could wheel your heavy scope around to where you wanted to use it.
No one uses these today, right? Um, maybe that’s not accurate. If you think CRT oscilloscopes are retro, you haven’t seen these. When we took a lot of scope pictures, we were always glad for that Polaroid film.
This articles is written by : Fady Askharoun Samy Askharoun
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