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
If you have any other variants, of any Millen products
feel free to contact us.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. The photo's courtesy of Brian Harris,
WA5UEK.
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