90903 Oscilloscope Variants

Often Millen would make special contract runs of various equipment or in some cases when the item has been out of production a few units may be made to fulfill orders.  Millen was not known to make part number changes to these variants, which only added to the confusion for future generation collectors.

Brian Harris WA5UEK had a couple of variant 90903's that he was kind enough to send pictures on over.  Both have official Millen ID plates with the 90903 number and associated serial numbers.  Both have serial numbers that place them on the high end of the lists for this particular product as well.

Variant One
S/N 2178





This variant is very similar to the original advertised 90903.  The front panel controls are all in the same location and the electronics is similar too.  They did remove the front panel horizontal and vertical binding posts, but the rear terminals are in place like the original 90903.  My guess is this at one point had the cover over the protruding CRT as that is held on by only two nuts that are to the right and left of the CRT neck (see original 90903 pictures).  The actual chassis is a flat black painted brass exactly as expected.

One guess, I  have with this variant, is it was produced long after Millen was out-of-stock on the original front panel legend plates.  Thus, Millen made up a simpler and cheaper silk screened front panel, especially if it was a small production run.   Other than the aforementioned this is a 90903 solid-state power supply version. 


Variant 2
S/N 3199


Indeed a much later variant of the 90903 scope.  The chassis on this is similar to the later plated chassis used in early 1960's, like the 90932 Modulation Monitor Oscilloscope.   Even the control locations around the front panel are the same as the 90932 or other Millen later generation scopes.





Even with the differing locations of the front panel controls and binding posts they are indeed the same as found on the original 90903.   Those binding posts are a millen product, but this is the only scope I've seen that is using them.  The power supply unit looks like Millens' later solid-state supply they sold under the part number 90202.

Again, this variant was probably created to fulfill a much later request for the 90903 scope.  Same as the above, they needed to create a silk-screening front panel, so my guess is these were done for relatively small runs, but big enough warrant the paint job and chassis metal work.

If you have any other variants, of any Millen products feel free to contact us.

The photo's courtesy of Brian Harris, WA5UEK.

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