[Boatanchors] Scope "Gifts"

[Michael D. Harmon]

Hi Folks,

The story about giving the scope to the kid made me think of something I 
did a couple of years ago.

Back in 2000-2005 (when they were dirt-cheap on E-Pay), I "adopted" a 
lot of Tektronix scopes and related test equipment orphans.  I was 
really into 453A's and 454A's for a while.  Back then, you could buy 
questionable 454A's for $30 or so.  I must have bought a half dozen or 
more of them.  Most of them I fixed up and got working again by using a 
couple of the really rough ones for parts donors.  Anyway, there was a 
college kid working at the local electronics emporium between semesters 
of EE school.  He was a bright kid and knew I rescued "orphans", so one 
day he asked me if I knew of anyplace he could find a decent scope to 
take back to school with him.  I had a couple of working 454A's that I 
wasn't using (my main scope is a Tek 7904A plugin scope), so I took one 
of them over to the store and told him Merry Christmas.  He asked me how 
much, and when I told him it was his, you should have seen the look on 
his face!  Sometime later, he told me some of his friends and classmates 
had cheap Taiwanese plastic scopes, but everyone always compared their 
results to his.

Sometimes it's just a blast helping a bright kid out!  Made my whole day!

73,
Mike, WB0LDJ