It’s appropriate that the first advertisement we feature in our new “Advertisement of the Month” section would be Tektronix September 1948 ad in Electronics for the company’s first oscilloscope product, the Type 511. “Versatility…Plus” was the message of the ad. It was a groundbreaking offering, the result of one year of Howard Vollum’s design efforts. The product that launched Tektronix, it offered a triggering capability up to the full 10 MHz rated bandwidth of the oscilloscope with excellent linearity. It sold for the low price of $795 and weighed 65 lbs. where the primary competition, the 10 MHz Type 248 from the Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories, was priced at $1870. The Du Mont scope consisted of two components, a power supply and the indicator box together weighing almost 200 lbs.

That issue of Electronics was also memorable for its cover story announcing a new device called the “crystal diode”, otherwise to be known as the transistor. The inventors, John Bardeen, W.H. Brattain and William Shockley of Bell Laboratories were shown on the cover.

Earlier in 1948 a short description of Tektronix new scope appeared with a brief description in the New Products section of the April issue of Electronics. The product was referred to as “The Vollum portable cathode-ray oscilloscope” and characterized as “inexpensive.” Perhaps describing it as “portable” was in reference to its competition and the fact the Type 511 had a handle.