21 Apr
2005
21 Apr
'05
9:39 a.m.
> If things had worked out differently we might be
using
> ultraminiature electron tubes. Imagine! An entire flipflop in one
> package!
Of course, everyone realizes when I made that little quip, I was
making a tongue-in-cheek joke about foolish ideas and obvious
dead-ends...
In the '60s I saw a rocket control computer that
was used in a high
acceleration missile that was IIRC about 30 cm cubed. It was made up of
layers of ceramic approximately 3-5 mm thick each containing around 50-100
"tubes" separated by a thin 2-3 mm layer of ceramic insulation. Each
"tube"
consisted of an Americium cathode, the necessary grids (perforated plates),
and a plate evaporated on the wall of the cavity. Everything was
interconnected by metalization on the insulating layer. The necessary
resistors/capacitors were placed in cavities between the "tubes".
What made this extremely interesting was that all circuitry was differential
to exclude the common mode voltages that were generated by the compression of
the ceramic block during launch. At that time, solid state devices
self-destructed during the acceleration phase. I imagine that any "personal"
computer made with that technology would self-destruct any savings one had...
... But this is fairly amazing, and I've never heard of it before.
Why Am for cathodes?! Alpha particles instead of electrons? (I'm
kidding there.)Or did they somehow come up with a nasty, toxic an
short-lived way to produce clouds of electrons? Or another way to
lob our toxic waste at our 'enemies' ala 'depleted' (sic)
uranium?!