[time-nuts] Fwd: FE-5680A Contact FEI

[Jose Camara]

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: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] 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 <actast at hotmail.com>
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.   

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