[rescue] Vector Plotters

Richard legalize at xmission.com
Tue Oct 6 11:35:21 CDT 2015


In article <5612D192.8040104 at neurotica.com>,
    Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> writes:

> [...] it's
> trivial to move an electron beam VERY VERY QUICKLY.  Look at super-fast
> analog oscilloscopes like the Tektronix 7104.

I wouldn't call it trivial to move it very, very quickly.  It is
trivial to move an electron.  Moving it very, very quickly is
non-trivial.

Tektronix has spent many decades incrementally improving the circuitry
for deflecting the electron beam.  The 7104 dates from 1978 by which
time Tektronix had already spent a couple decades improving their
deflection beam technology.  It isn't the mass of the electrons that
matters in the circuitry of deflecting the beam; it's the electrical
response time of the magnetic/electrostatic mechanism in response to
changes in the input signal.
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