To drtaylor: I've been a big fan of the Fluke 8060A since I became aware of it-- 1982, as I recall. At the time, I was working for Western Area Power Administration, part of the US Department Of Energy; in the Fort Collins, CO office. (It was my first electrical engineering job. WAPA owns hundreds of miles of high voltage electrical transmission lines in the western US.) At first, the WAPA office purchased just 1 Fluke 8060A, and it was for another group located in the same building. I remember that WAPA paid $400 for it. (Using an annual inflation rate of 3.5%, I calculate that the price is equivalent to $1480 in 2020.) Thankfully a colleague in that other group allowed me to borrow the 8060A if it was available, and even take it home from time to time. I was immediately impressed with it. As you know, no other handheld DMM at the time came close to its accuracy and its features (including True RMS, of course).
At this time I own 4 Fluke DMMs: 1 Fluke 87V, 1 Fluke 83V, 1 Fluke 189, and 1 Fluke 8060A. I like all of them. I purchased the 8060A about 6 years ago from an Ebay seller. It was in almost-new condition, and it came in its original box, with its original accessories.
Of the Fluke DMMs I own, the Fluke 8060A is, of course, the oldest-design model. But if I want to measure continuity, it's the one I use. This shouldn't surprise you, because you explained the reason during a recorded interview, where you talked about the 8060A and its design. (I found the interview about 3 years ago via the EEVblog, and I listened to the entire interview.) As you explained, you and the design team decided to use an analog circuit for the continuity function, in order to make its response time very fast. I agree: it's very easy for me to hear that the 8060A's response time for its continuity function is clearly faster than the response time of any of my other 3 Fluke DMMs.
I have a question for you, please. First, here's some info on my Fluke 8060A. Its serial number is 6849001. I opened the case and looked inside. On the main PCB, I saw "8060A-3001 REV M" (machine printed); on another part of the main PCB, I saw "REV K" (the "K" was handwritten). On a small daughter board, under the EMI cover, I saw some SMD components, including an Analog Devices AD820 op amp. On just 3 or 4 components, I saw date codes (YYWW, where YY is the year, and WW is the week). Each date code corresponds to Year= 1996 or Year= 1997. My 8060A's LCD display is exceptionally clear and has very good contrast; in fact it has better contrast than any of the LCDs on my other Fluke DMMs.
My question is: what was the last year (approximately) that Fluke manufactured the 8060A? I know that, according to the interview I listened to, you haven't worked for Fluke for a while. If you don't have a good guess for the year, do you have a suggestion for how I could find out? (Over 1 year ago, I called Fluke's 800 number, but no one was able to assist me with the question.)
Thank you.