The development has been undertaken from a project on modern diffraction methods for the investigation of thermo-mechanical processeses, and started with cold deformation of a copper specimen at the ESRF in 2007, followed by hot deformation of zirconium alloy at APS in 2008. Soon afterwards, a series of other materials has been tested and experience with the timeline traces gained. While ESRF and APS played the major role in experimental facilities, the Japanese high-energy synchrotron in the round, SPring-8 followed in 2013 by performing feasibility studies of this kind.  Meanwhile, the new PETRA III synchrotron at DESY built a dedicated beamline for this purpose, opening the Materials Oscilloscope investigations to a larger public. The name materials oscilloscope was introduced in 2013 and used onward upon conferences such as MRS and TMS.