Tuesday, December 6, 2011

A dinosaur of the recent past...the electron vacuum tube




Below is one of those old educational films from Westinghouse on vacuum tubes. A lot of vacuum tubes are still available and they are costly. Radio Shack used to have them. Pay now and have them shipped to your address. Some of those old vacuum tubes reach an art form of construction. The old radio broadcasting tubes were huge, expensive [like $20,000 or more], and generated enough heat to cook a side of beef. They even looked like something that would be at home in a mad scientist's lab. Solid state electronics was the killer.

Electronics at Works

Westinghouse

1943



Vacuum Tube [Wikipedia]

1 comment:

nikto said...

Vacuum tubes still rule the world of electric guitar amplification and in the world of ultra-Hi-Fi stereo amplifiers.

As a guitar player myself, I appreciate the FAT, WARM sound you get from vacuum tubes, especially when playing with some degree of distortion.

For guitar amps, TUBES RULE!!

Just check out any elec guitar BBS and you willfind page after page of tributes singing in praise of the qualities of tube-amplification.