We provide tours on request, many of which are on closed days. Here are some photos from various requested tours.
Tektronix Sales training.
Leadership Beaverton Class sponsored by the Beaverton Area Chamber of Commerce.
6th Grade Home School students.
PCC MakerLab students.
Engineers from Austria.
Sales Engineers from Tektronix Distributors in Japan.
O.S. sent us an email - "I had come by earlier today and Bob Haas gave us a really nice tour today. Thank you for all your efforts in running this museum. It’s was very inspirational for me as an engineer to visit it.".
Engineers from 3D Systems in Wilsonville.
Dan and Pat bring three MECOP (Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program) interns in for a tour.
J.Y. sent us an email - "Thanks for maintaining a great museum of Tektronix test equipment! Today I had a nice time talking to the two gentlemen walking around with my son and I and showing us the front as well as the back. I recalled my time working at Tek for 20 years mostly designing printed circuit boards at several divisions on products like oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, TV test generators, and others."
Bruce and Pat gave a tour to designers from Future Fonts and Rumors.
Some of the group of Danaher HR professionals, including the visiting HR Director for Japan/Korea.
Tektronix Acquisition Team.
Professor Masayoshi Yamamota from Nagoya University (center) accompanied by Koichi Sega, Tektronix Japan, and Bob Haas, vintageTEK Chairman.
Keithley Employees (wearing their Innovation Summit Showcase shirts).
Museum founder Stan Griffiths (right) tours with Hattendorfs, long time out-of-town friends.
Dennis and Dolores Winningstad visited the museum for a tour and an first-hand look of Norm's contributions to the company. More information is on the Norm Winningstad, Information Display Division, and Type N Sampling plug-in pages.
International employees from Gilbarco.
Individuals from Compass Career Solutions.
Students and teacher from Faith Bible Christian School along with Don Delzer from Tektronix.
Romaine Walling and Linda Campbell. Romaine is the widow of Ken Walling who was the 7th employee of Tektronix and ran the printing department.
PCC EET (Electronic Engineering Technology) students.
Ed Goldstick, a Boeing Engineer, came down from Seattle with his uncle and enjoyed a tour and some fun on the guitar and theremin.
Seniors from Neighborhood House (apparently she liked the Emmy).
The IEEE Oregon Consultants Network, a chapter of the IEEE Consultants Network toured, ate dinner, and attended their meeting at the museum.
Visitors from Full Life toured and enjoyed the museum.
Visitors from Grady Britton Marketing Agency and marketing interns.
Visitors from Tektronix CSO Sales (Component Solutions Organization).
Visitors from Tektronix Americas Sales.
Some of the visitors from Tektronix Field Marketing. K.S. later sent us this email - "Thank you so much for showing us around the Tek Museum—safe to say, we are all enthralled. On the marketing side, it got the juices flowing too. Most importantly, we all have a newfound appreciation and respect for the brand and company. What a journey."
While not a tour, we were left this nice feedback on our eBay store - "'vintageTEK' is a group dedicated to the preservation of exemplary engineering, manufacturing and educational work performed by Tektronix. I lived in this time, chose Tek scopes for technicians given the reasons above. I applaud this organization because they are looking back to help young developing future engineers, hobbyists, techs to see what has been done to help guide them & inspire them to explore ways to imagine solutions to future problems. Please support vintageTEK. Thank you!"
MECOP (Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program) interns
The Society of Industrial Architecture held their 50th annual conference in Portland. As part of the conference they arranged tours for the attendees and included the vintageTEK museum as one of their stops.
After a couple of years of disrupted conferences, this June, the Society for Industrial Archeology will be meeting in Portland, Oregon. This will be the SIA’s first ever visit to Oregon, and only the second time in the Pacific Northwest. A wide variety of industrial sites are on the docket, ranging from settlement up through the truly modern and experimental.
F2 – Modern Industry (8:00-5:30) This tour will start with a visit to the Swan Island shipyard of Vigor Industrial. The next stop will be at VintageTEK, the museum for Tektronix equipment. Tektronix were instrumental in the development and refinement of oscilloscopes, while simultaneously founding the ”silicon forest” which later drew companies such as Xerox and Intel. After lunch, the tour will visit the Cascade Steel Rolling Mill. The final stop will be to The Great Oregon Wine Co.
We hosted two separate tours for the SIA. One individual wanted a longer tour so came in separately and later sent us this note. "I've been tardy in thanking you for Bob's terrific tour of vintageTEK. For me it was the highlight of our week in Portland. The poster showing all the companies that came out of Tektronix is a wonder ... especially Rodgers Organ."
Two groups from iUrban Teen toured the museum as part of their summer STEM program.
www.iurbanteen.org/ Our mission is to build an educational community rooted in trust, empowerment, inclusivity, and community, and to see all historically excluded students succeed.
A group of students from Salem Christian Academy came for a tour and hands-on STEM activities.
We had the pleasure of touring Deanna Groom, niece of Bob Groom, Managing Director of Telequipment, who was visiting the area. She is next to our operational D53A oscilloscope which volunteer Phil Crosby restored for the visit.
Afonso Teles, Application Engineer, and Vanessa Flesuras, Sr. Business and Process Analyst, from Tektronix visited the museum to ask our participation as moderator for the Tektronix my.tek.com TekTalk forum for Vintage and Retired Models. We said "yes".
Two Tektronix engineers, Matt and Paul, stopped by the museum to learn about the early history of the company.
We were pleased to tour Tektronix President, Chris Bohn, and his leadership team and share the mission, history, and exhibits at the museum.
A group from the Creekside Village Retirement Residence visited the museum with volunteers Pat Green and Phil Crosby conducting the tour. One of the visitors worked in CRT for 30 years and another's father worked for Tektronix.
Two Tektronix Service employees, one from China and one from Japan, visited the museum while on campus for training.
The museum was honored to host Barry Marshall for an extensive tour and visit. Barry is a Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, who along with Robin Warren showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) plays a major role in causing many peptic ulcers, challenging the conventional belief of stress and stomach acid.
Museum Chairman Bob Haas conducted the tour (left) and is shown here with Barry Marshall, Mehmet Aslan (VP of Tektronix Engineering and Product Development), and Adrian Black (YouTube channel Adrian's Digital Basement).
Dear Tek Museum team, Thank you for the tour and detailed insights into the technology. Especially to Bob Haas.
The museum toured five different groups of Tektronix interns over the summer.
Shelly & Dean visited us from Seattle along with Tektronix Application Engineer Anthony, and Account Manager for Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii, Ken. Dean is a current Tektronix customer and a collector of some vintage Tektronix oscilloscopes. Shelly expecially enjoyed the Theremini and Eurorack synthesizer.
Mariaje & Javier visited us from Pamplona, Spain. We tried to find a suitable technical interpreter but they were able to follow our English-based tour.
They later sent us this photo of their collection.
Employees of the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust came for a presentation on the early history of the founders and tour.
“I have only positive feedback to give! The tour was very fun and engaging. I loved how they included more information about Jack Murdock knowing that we would probably be most interested in that part. However, it was also a great opportunity to learn about the history and significance of Tektronix. I especially loved all the instrument demonstrations since I was not very aware of what an oscilloscope did before the tour. Also, the museum workers were very kind and courteous of our time, which I very much appreciated. Overall, I would recommend this tour to everyone at the Trust, as it gave me a great insight into life and passions of Jack Murdock and his associates.” – MT
Jamie Wakefield and Ralph Sanders visited the museum. They worked for Wordsmith who did a lot of marketing and sales literature for Tektronix. In this photo they are holding two pieces Wordsmith created for Tektronix.
As part of the tour, we took them to our marketing and sales literature archives and they were able to find numerous pieces created by Wordsmith. This small paper advertising promotion, also created by Wordsmith, is in our bling cabinet.
Gary Nelson and his wife Suzanne visited the museum and donated the award he received on the occasion of the 250,000th 465 CRT celebration in the Building 50 auditorium. The award consists of a rodded gun mounted on a wood plaque recognizing his role as designer of the 465 CRT. Gary also brought the gold-plated rodding fixture for the T41 CRT gun awarded to Connie Wilson when she first retired. Each CRT used a unique precision fixture which held all the electron gun parts in alignment while 4 glass rods were partially melted and pushed against the support pins of the gun’s elements (hence rodding). These fixtures, fabricated in the Model Shop, were a critical part of Tektronix’s advantage in CRT quality and performance. Gary is seen here with museum volunteer Chris Curtin (right). You can view these awards in a high resolution PDF on our Connie Wilson and Gary Nelson CRT Awards page.
Leadership Beaverton Class sponsored by the Beaverton Area Chamber of Commerce.
"Bonnie and I just wanted to say a big thank you for your incredible tour at the Tek Museum for Beaverton Day for Leadership Beaverton on October 11. We truly wouldn’t have been able to pull off such an amazing day without your help. Networking helps us strengthen a compassionate community, especially in these times, this is very important.
We hope we can continue to meet and work together for future educational events like this."
Members of the Tektronix Product Security team tour.
Tektronix Application Engineer visit
Gavin sent a letter to the museum regarding a school project. The following is an excerpt from his letter and has been edited for brevity and clarity.
My name is Gavin and I am a 7th grader at California Middle School in Missouri. Our teacher is helping us understand the importance of small businesses in the USA. We have been researching successful small businesses in our country and vintageTEK really stood out to me!
I think it is very interesting that you guys are doing STEM projects. I, myself, am a huge fan of electronics and have an interesting curiosity for old things. I hope you guys have another good year in 2024 with great regards for your contributions.
Tom Stepleton visited the museum and is seen here with volunteer Chris Curtin (left). Tom is a vintage computer enthusiast from London who's been enjoying the world of the 4050-series computers for the past few years. He's looking after two 4051s, a 4054A, and a 4006-1 terminal, and he's made a transpiler that converts a subset of Pascal to 4050-series BASIC which is available at github. [external link]
John and Patsy McCoy visited along with their daughter. Both John and Patsy worked at Tektronix and we've included their Photo Album pictures.
Tektronix Service Solutions Organization (SSO) management team.
Members of the Tektronix Explorer Scouts Post 876 visited the museum as part of their reunion. Since the steps are no longer in front of Building 50 where their photos were taken, we used the steps in front of the museum.
Chester Schink's daughter Janice, son Andrew, and nephew Bob Oblack came for a tour of the museum. Chet was a Chief Chemist at Tektronix and Bob is a friend of the museum and former Product Marketing Manager at Tektronix.
Ray Hill and Bruce Cumming from Brand Definition visited the museum for some photos to be used in a Tektronix promotion video.
The Tektronix Marketing Leadership team visited to learn more about the history and legacy of the company.
Volunteers and friends of the Synth Library Portland toured the museum. The Synth Library Portland is a collectively-run arts non-profit providing low-cost access to electronic music gear and education. Thomas, on the far left, is also a volunteer at the vintageTEK museum.
Fred Steinhauser and his wife Gabi visited the museum from Austria.
Kandy Hibbs-Davis visited the museum for a vintageTEK backstory and tour. Her father was Nelson Hibbs who joined Tektronix on February 8, 1956 as a calibration engineer. Nelson narrated several of the videos we have in our Video Gallery including:
- Building a Tektronix Ceramic CRT 1967
- Tek Park: a tour of Tektronix Beaverton Campus
- Tektronix Products
- Tektronix, the Continuing Conversation 1970
- You are Tektronix: New Employee Orientation
- Tektronix 7912 High Speed Transient Digitizer 1974
- The Sounds of Progress: Fabrication at Tektronix
- Trans resistance - Full video of Dad's lecture in black and white
- Tektronix Printed Circuit Boards 1969
He appears at the end of the video Leading Effective Discussions 1973. He also wrote and published Basic Electronic Circuits Simplified which we have at the museum.
The museum toured two different groups of Tektronix interns over the summer.
The museum toured a number of international Tektronix Application Engineers who were visiting for the AppsU training.
We hosted two tours of members of the Tektronix Women in Technology groups. The museum partnered with the WIT group to host our STEM event for Valley Catholic School.
Benjamin, a 10th grade student from Sacramento, flew to Portland with his father just to visit the vintageTEK museum. Volunteer Chris Curtin gave him an extensive 150 minute tour. Benjamin has been repairing oscilloscopes and wants to build a spectrum analyzer next.
Teresa Liang from Tek China Shanghai visited the museum and volunteer Gary Johnson (left) gave the tour. Volunteer Dave Brown joined at the end for some conversation.
We hosted six tours on two days as part of the OMSI Science Festival 2024. Our visitors had some knowledge of Tektronix but little knowledge of electronics so we gave a basic introduction with hands-on exhibits.
These two enthusiastic visitors came from Nashville to visit the museum.
Randy started at the Grass Valley Group in 1976 and retired in 2015. He worked on the Model 100 Switcher. This is our Model 1000 which looks the same. The Model 100 was developed during 1983 and introduced at NAB 1984. It had many firsts - table top panel, plastic case, an overlay panel instead of a silkscreen metal panel, PCB mounted switches, and the gray color which became the new standard.
Randy has a YouTube channel and posted a tour of the vintageTEK museum. In the first week it had 32K views!
Visit to the Vintage Tektronix museum by Randy K7AGE - 12 minutes (YouTube website)
Bill (in the hat) visited the museum with friends. Bill helped restore the IBM1401 computer and peripherals at the Computer History Museum so was interested in all the computer displays and Tektronix technology in general.
John came up from Corvallis to visit the museum. He is in the EE program at Oregon State University. His great grandfather Robert W. Morris and his great grandfather's first cousin Gale P. Morris both worked at Tektronix.
