20 Apr
2005
20 Apr
'05
8:28 p.m.
On 4/21/05, William Donzelli <aw288 at osfn.org> wrote:
Certainly, multifunction tubes were around - the first
ones were the dual
diodes and rectifiers of the 1920s, then later twin triodes, extra diodes,
and yes, to the ultimate Compactrons.
And pray tell what are Compactrons?
Integrating the functions, like in the Loewe tubes, never caught on. In
the US, a few directly coupled triodes were produced (6N6G being the most
common), and some of the eye tubes had a built in triode as a driver, but
for the most part, each function was pinned out individually. The most
advanced integrated tube was probably the VT-158 Zahl tube - a 600 MHz
pulse oscillator in a bulb. It was a dead end.
Hmmmm...interesting..
So in the heydays of the tube/valve, they trend towards
generalization of functions (anybody can say TTL?), and shy away from
multifunction/integrated circuits.
It is so ironic that the trend is reversed with the coming of
transistors->IC->ASIC..
So some questions to throw to the tube collectors:
- What was/is the smallest tube? purpose?
- What was/is the most integrated tube? purpose?
/ws