The Trio CS-1560A triggered sweep oscilloscope
Boat anchor manual and schematic
I purchased my scope in 1983 when I was doing some real electronic
engineering and repair in the typesetting business. This was
hard to do without a scope, so I went out and bought one for myself to
use at work, in the hope that the boss would reimburse me, which off
course, he didnt. So he kept his money and I kept my scope,
which is just as well because it has performed flawlessly for 30 years
and built and repaired countless bits of electronics.
This scope was a popular model back then and was sold at a
price that a dedicated radio ham or electronics enthusiast could just
barely afford. The user manual which contains a very good
tutorial on the use of scopes also came with the complete schematic.
Its vertical bandwidth of 15Mhz, by no means spectacular, was in the
early eighties completely sufficient for hardware debugging of the
early microprocessor systems. The case of mine has sustained numerous
dings from airline luggage handlers that were probably using my luggage
for target practice. I dont think this manual has yet
appeared on any boat anchor sites yet.
This scope has not been commercially available now for many years but many still labor away in teaching labs and schools. If you find one at a hamfest do not hesitate to buy it, you will not be disappointed.
I think it was amazingly good value for money back then, considering the complexity and design depth of the circuit. The circuit is also very maintainable, there are no exotic components with the exception of the CRT tube.
I have prepared a mosaic of the circuit, but it you will get better results if you print these sections out and paste them together.
The only thing that they could have done better was to have the display graticule closer to the CRT face, as it is the parallax is quite objectionable when you a trying to actually measure something. It would have been nice to also have a vertical amplifier output jack that could have been used for driving other test instruments , for example a counter, which is a common feature on more expensive scopes. Perhaps when I have time I will add an output jack.
Here is an original advertisement for this equipment family. The ad is dated 1977, I think it was a stunning achievement to produce this scope back then at a price which I was able to afford.
