HP9836C colour alignment (grey scale tracking)

Are you sure you two aren't talking at cross purposes? The biggest difference between UK and US English here is probably Tube (US) = Valve (UK). The usual German word for a thermionic valve, die Rohre, literally means "reed", and I think it is also used for "tube" or "pipe" in a lot of other contexts. So I suspect that second paragraph translates as "All other electrodes in a normal valve besides the cathode are called..." In the UK, when we call a valve a "tube", we almost always mean specifically a CRT, and not any old valve. (On the other hand, the German manufacturers call the huge thyristor arrays that form high power solid state switches for transmission systems "valves" in their English brochures. I'm not sure what German word they use.) Philip.