Tektronix TM-500
The Tektronix TM-500 turns up constantly in studio and lab photographs of the 1970s, yet it is poorly documented as a subject in its own right, at least in the sources available to the Archive. What survives here is Tektronix's own advertising from 1975 through 1978, not independent editorial coverage. The TM-500 was a modular plug-in instrument line: a mainframe that supplied power and interface connections for a family of interchangeable test modules.
Tektronix's ads stressed that all TM 500 plug-ins were interchangeable across the line. They also offered a blank plug-in kit for engineers who wanted to build their own special circuits into the system. One advertised scope plug-in was a single-channel, dc-to-5 MHz modular instrument with triggered sweep and 10 mV per division sensitivity (DB Magazine, May 1975, p.13). For portable work, the TM 515 "Traveler" mainframe was styled like fashionable carry-on flight luggage. It was a five-compartment power module/mainframe that could slide under an aircraft seat. Tektronix also promoted a TM 500 Audio Travel Lab built around a low-distortion audio oscillator plug-in generating square or sine waves from 5 Hz to 500 kHz, with total harmonic distortion rated at 0.035% from 20 Hz to 50 kHz. A rear interface circuit board in the TM 515 let plug-ins be interconnected for gain, loss, or response measurements in the field (DB Magazine, August 1978, p.58).
That is essentially the extent of the verified record here: no independent period reviews of the TM-500
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