Computer grade tubes did have to be tougher by far
than the signal
amplifiers.
Not really. The ruggedized nature of computer tubes was because most
were design originally for military equipment. Extra mica, beefier
filament, and so forth - things not related to the cathode purity
issues.
ENIAC had a problem with burning out tubes rather
quickly
because of that issue.
ENIAC had problems because the tubes were not computer grade. I also
have to wonder if the team was given tubes of lesser quality - the
"M-R" types from the war years. These were tubes that were made to
feed the demand outside war production, and were sometimes seconds and
tubes that the War department inspector would not pass. We may never
know what tubes they were given originally. When I looked at ENIAC
pieces some time ago, I did notice that the thing did not use JAN
qualified tubes - but they could have been swapped out years ago.
Transisters were probably adapted much more
quickly in switching networks than in signal processing for that
reason and because no extra work had to be done to handle the stray
capacitances that tubes suffer from.
Ultimately, yes, but in the 1950s, the machines were slow enough that
the tiny capacitances in the structure of tube elements did not matter
much.
--
Will