Tektronix 16 mm Movie The World of Measurements on DVD

Tektronix 30 minute Movie

DVD for TV and Computer

This really exciting thing is a 16mm sound film entitled "The World of Measurements.”

It appears that this film was produced by Tektronix sometime in the late 1950's. The oscilloscopes shown are from the 500-series and the 453, so it must have been about then. It also has labels inside the case which indicate that it was cleaned in 1972. It is copy 47, I suspect that 1972 was late in the films life. The film starts out describing in basic terms what an oscilloscope does, using 545, 453, 556 567, 561 and RM31 in the demos. It then gives a bit of a promo blurb for Tektronix as a company.

But the meat of the film was what interested me the most. About 20 minutes of this 25 minute film is given to showing the production of the scopes mentioned above. In an incredible sequence with just music as the soundtrack , it shows the manufacture of oscilloscope PARTS at the Tek factory. You see panels being stamped out of raw metal, cabinets being painted, ceramic strip materials coming out of a cement mixer and being molded. It show transformers, crt's, wiring harnesses and many other assemblies being put together. You see the engineers designing the scopes that you read about in the 40 Years book. Seeing it is like going back in time to an era when the parking lot was full of 1950's cars and the women all wore skirts to work.

I am not set up to view a 16mm film, and so I have had this film professionally transferred to a  DVD by Blue Audio Visual Company in Scottsdale, Arizona. Thanks to Phillip Thomas, who did an excellent job. The quality of the film itself is very good, even considering it is over 30 years old. The first few seconds, and the last, are a bit scratchy, but the rest is extremely good.

 Some of the comments I have received from those who have viewed the movie:

 " What can I say except; ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING! "

  " ... the movie is very nice...thank you so much for sending this to me.   It seems to have been filmed around 1958.   I worked there in the Beaverton Sunset Plant until Fall of 1957.   This was about the time Tek purchased the 300 acres of land shown in the movie.   I feel so fortunate to have been part of that company when it was growing so fast.  I was about the 600th employee in June 1955, and when I left the company in 1975 there were 22,000 employees!  We really enjoyed the movie and it brought back fond memories."

  Here is a portion of the DVD movie.

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