Lorentz Attractor with CRT Scope

published 2026-01-19

by Christopher Howard

I remember I have one CRT scope, a Tektronix 620 X-Y monitor, which I borrowed from a friend a while back, for some vector graphics experiments. It is rather long — about two feet from front to back, so it is a rather inconvenient form factor. I don't think it would be convenient to use as a general purpose scope, vs. my four-channel digital scope. But it is nice for X-Y mode, of course, and also has a Z port which I think must control the intensity. There is also a TTY port though I'm not sure what it is for — presumably it takes TTY voltage inputs and shifts them to the scope input levels.

Here are new photos from the Lorentz Attractor circuit, using the Tektronix monitor:

X-Y monitor output, photo 1

X-Y monitor output, photo 2

Much better.

I fiddled with the coefficients some more and found a set of values that doesn't collapse back to zero, even if I leave THAT in OP mode for several minutes.

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