25 Mar
2006
25 Mar
'06
3:16 p.m.
I love the old names for thermionic devices;
we've lost that knack for
naming. Any gas-filled thermionic diode is a phanotron, any vacuum-filled
diode is a kenotron. So an 866 is a phanotron (has mercury), but a 5U4 is
a kenotron. A vacuum triode is a pliotron and a gas triode is a thyratron.
Ya gotta love it!
Outside the marketing department of General Electric, nobody actually used
these terms, other than thyratron.