Last month we featured an advertisement for the Type 524-D oscilloscope, Tektronix’s first instrument optimized specifically for use in television broadcasting. The August 2026 Ad of the Month comes from the February 1955 issue of Tele-Tech & Electronic Industries. It also features the 524-D as the focal point, but wasn’t created by Tektronix. The Allen-Bradley Company took note of the fact the 524-D makes use of 264 A-B resistors and potentiometers–they called them Bradleyunits and Bradleyometers. There also was a brief summary of the 524-D specifications. The photo dominating the ad shows off Tektronix’s patented ceramic strip mounting scheme for passive components, a design that contributed to making the inside of Tek scopes look almost as good as their exteriors.

The Allen-Bradley Company was launched in 1893 with the sale of a carbon pile rheostats and later expanded into offering motor controllers. The company eventually produced rheostats for consumer and communications radios, eventually constituting more than half the company’s revenue. By WWII Allen-Bradley was a leading supplier of industrial production control equipment. The company is credited with creating the term PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) in 1970. Rockwell International purchased Allen-Bradley in 1985 and today the company continues to be a subsidiary. The company still sells through-hole resistors and potentiometers.

It’s a pretty sweet deal when one of your suppliers takes out an ad featuring your product at their expense. By 1955, only nine years after the founding of Tektronix, the company had already established a prestigious position in the electronics industry.

Advertisements of the Month: Sept 2025 - Present.