TABLE OF CONTENTS The oscilloscope, which provides an electronic version of the X Y plotter, is perhaps the most popularly used laboratory instrument. Oscilloscope technology commenced with the development of the cathode ray tube (CRT). First applied in 1897 by Ferdinand Braun, the CRT predates most of what we consider to be active devices, including Fleming's diode valve, De Forest's triode and, by half a century, Bell Labs' transistor. By 1899, Jonathan Zenneck had added beam forming plates and applied a linear horizontal magnetic deflection field to produce the first oscillogram. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, CRTs gradually found their way into laboratory oscilloscopes. Early devices had various development problems, particularly owing to vacuum and hot cathode problems. In 1931, Dr V.K. Zworykin published details of the first permanently sealed, high vacuum, hot cathode CRT suitable for instrument applications. Featuring a triode electron gun, a second anode, and external magnetic deflection coils, the CRT operated at second anode voltages from 500 to 15 kV. Given a CRT that could be treated as a component instead of a process, instrument designers at General Radio introduced the first modern oscilloscope.
Between 1990 and 2000, designers were gradually turning towards liquid crystal displays (LCD), owing to the physical size of CRTs, and their fragility and manufacturing complexities, etc. In 1997, the Braun tube celebrated its hundredth anniversary, while the fabrication of the first active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) was twenty-five years old. During the past decade, LCD...
