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.
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tarball of complete user manual and schematic

Hope you like the large mosiac of the schematic

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