The 7912 high speed digitizer was introduced in September 1973 and achieved a bandwidth of 500 MHz with a 7A19 vertical amplifier plug-in and 1 GHz bandwidth by accessing the CRT deflection plates directly with a 7A21N plug-in.  This description of the R7912 is from the August 2012 issue of the Tektronix Retirees News.

The 7912 is described in the November-December 1973 issue of Tekscope.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

 

This October 10, 1975 TekWeek describes a half a million dollar waveform system built using 26 7912D digitizers.  This system was built for the Air Force Weapons Lab and was deployed on the TRESTLE (Wikipedia page) test site for evaluation of EMP susceptibility. The system consisted of two separate systems consisting of 13 7912D digitizers, one to monitor the Marx generator output and the other to monitor sensors deployed in the targets. Hale Farley, the SPS marketing manager, also has an article on our Employees Stories page. Click on the image to view the PDF.

 

This 1975 brochure describes a Waveform Digitizing Instrument (WDI) built into a rack system with the R7912, mini-computer, graphic terminal, and video display.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

 

The 7912AD was introduced 5 years later in 1978 and add programmability to the 7912, specifically full programmability of measurement parameters, full implementation of GPIB, and on-board signal processing.  The capabilities of the R7912AD are described in this Vol 11 No 1 1979 issue of Tekscope.

This August 1977 brochure details the 7912AD Waveform Digitizer.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

 

This April 6, 1979 TekWeek features an article on the largest Tektronix system shipped to date utilizing 7912ADs to test aircraft in severe electromagnetic environments. In total there are 112 Tektronix instruments in this system. We believe this system was built for the Air Force Weapons Lab and was also deployed on the TRESTLE (Wikipedia page) test site for evaluation of EMP susceptibility and remained in use up through the 1990s. Ernie Brunholtz was the Sales Engineer. Click on the image to view the PDF.

 

This article from the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. NS-30 No. 1 February 1983, A Review of Single Transient Oscillographic  Recorders with Gigahertz Bandwidth, includes the 7912AD. The paper is courtesy of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, © Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

 

The museum has a 7912AD on display with a 7A29 vertical and 7B85 horizontal plug-in driven by a Type 107 Square-Wave Generator with a 3 mµSec (e.g. 3 nS) rise time.

The museum also has a 7912 scan converter CRT on display.

We also have the film R7912 Transient Digitizer on our Video Gallery.

 

 

The 7612AD was a lower cost, lower performance 80 MHz waveform digitizer introduced in 1980.  Click on the image to view the PDF.

 

This 1982 ad is for the 7612D digitizer. Click on the image to view the PDF.

 

The May 2019 issue of Tek Retiree News featured two stories on the R7912. This except from that issue has been reformatted for display.