22 Aug
2015
22 Aug
'15
10:58 p.m.
Also note that we use the term 'valve' for
diodes, triodes, etc, but
'tube' for CRTs, nixie tubes, dekatrons, voltage stabilisers,
probably trochotrons, etc. There seems to be no obvious reason for
what is a 'valve' and what is a 'tube'.
Based on your examples, it sounds to me as though a "valve" is a vacuum
device whose major purpose is to control current flowing elsewhere in
its circuit, whereas a "tube" is anything else - a CRT's major purpose
is display, with the current flow incidental to that; Nixies,
dekatrons, and voltage stabilizers are cold-cathode gas-filled devices.
A trochotron...that's an interesting case. On the above (speculative)
basis I could argue for either "valve" or "tube".
Incidentally, thank you for mentioning trochotrons. I was not
previously aware of them, and now that I've read up on them a tiny bit
I'm glad I have.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B