Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for October 19, 2012

A computer powered by a vacuum tube is not quite as powerful as your average pocket calculator.…And about as efficient as Windows Vista.

Vacuum Tubes aka Radio Valves do have some advantages in limited areas1/ EMP Resistant = Yes2/ Can operate into the GHZ range and higher = Yes3/ Give a purer Sound = NO Total FAIL. the Audio response and purity spectrum of Audio valves is purely subjective and argumentative.

One word: Macintosh

Hey, Cooncat, me too. After the B supply for a pair of PP 6L6s knocks you through a wall, and leaves your fingers bloody and smoking, you have learned more about electronics in one second than in months of classroom training.

Many drug stores had vacuum tube testors and replacement vacuum tubes. Any tube that wasn’t glowing was taken to the drug store and self-tested. You bought the most common tubes right there in the store. Radio Shack had them too.

@htownkevuh, no…

If he keeps swimming like that he’s gonna loose the rest.

I believe they called it “Fluoroscope.” Incidentally, I read, many years ago, we had gotten hold of a Soviet MIG and tore it apart to analyze it. We laughed, at first, when we discovered they were still using tubes when all ours had transistors, etc., until we also discovered that tubes were less resistant to jamming and radiation.

Is that pole dancing caterpillar race seductive to a social butterfly?

I’m a blues guitar palyer…give me a tube amp any day!

player…oops

Actually the speed statement is a bit misleading at best. Yes, they can make oscillators that operate at high speed (think radio), but they do NOT “switch” at high speed (think computers). That’s one of the reasons we switched from tubes to transistors because they DO switch at higher speeds (and use LOTS more power).

I built a vacuum tube power supply for a surplus army radio. Still have it in the garage somewhere. AN/GRC-9 if I remember right.

According to this source the transistor was invented in 1923 and the inventor built a working transistor radio (scroll right down to the P.S. section). Apparently it didn’t catch on until it was reinvented over 20 years later.

Why transistors have replaced tubes ,at least in the begining of their use is size. a couple hundred transistors can be put in the space of one tube. operating very little compared to vacuum tubes. you would not have room in your house for a tube PC. (if one could be made.) I play guitar and would take a tube amp anyday. They cannot be beat fore tone.

oops: cost before very little. And for not fore

story time i have today the infinate bulb,the nigtpiller,and the makeup lady with no limbs

gang bad news tommorow if i don’t have a person to find to tell the stories of the day then there won’t be any of the stories of the day

oh thought that was a bulb or where i gessus the story with the bulb is change to the underwater vacume its a vacume that works underwater lagend has it that king neptune use that special vacume in his castle his very self

Tubes do not have a Purer sound. This is an perceived effect be they don’t reproduce high frequencies as well as solid state amps.Tubes are far slower. The transistors in an integrated circuit are literally millions times smaller than even the smallest tubes. Here, the smaller, the faster.Tubes waste almost all the power used to heat them.A small microprocessor, with millions of transistors costs less now then tubes ever did in their prime, even without counting for inflation

I am a TUBE based Guitar AMP Builder. Give me a Solid State Amplifier every time. I love building the “boat anchors” for Tone-Deaf Twits who couldn’t tell the difference between a TUBE Marshall or a Transistorised Hunglow Knockoff

The crystal radio was a semiconductor of sorts, and it might have been improved on earlier, but at the time, the tube was a big step foreward. Both have advantages:A transistor will fail after a brief overload that would not faze a tube. (Some tubes were designed to operated with the plate cherry red)However, a tube will fail a drop test that won’t damage a transistor.