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You don't even need vacuum tubes/valves, just build a valve sound simulator and you can get all the distortion and noise of the genuine tube/valve sound without any of the heat, fragility, and power consumption. It's a win/win situation.

They do throw some heat, they are far from fragile (otherwise every aircraft flight would be a throw of the dice, as there is no solid-state means of creating radar) and they use power because they are most often used in high-power applications where transistors simply cannot survive, even briefly (like, say, radar, terrestrial broadcasting, your microwave oven, and so on).

I am quite familiar with the digital simulations of vacuum tube audio sonics and tone, and the best they can do is come close. In no way do they sound exactly the same as a real-world vacuum tube circuit, which is why such devices still exist. They can emulate the sound in an mp3-kind of fidelity though, and generally they can only mimic the most eggrarious distortion modes of a tube driven circuit ... kind of like how TV Soap Opera Set colour mimics what you see with your eyes if you look around the room.

You don't even need vacuum tubes/valves, just build a valve sound simulator and you can get all the distortion and noise of the genuine tube/valve sound without any of the heat, fragility, and power consumption. It's a win/win situation.

Yeah,I get Silicon Chip in my letterbox every month. A good hands-on magazine for people who like to make electronic stuff. And not just lame flashing lights either. Get a load of these past projects -> http://www.siliconchip.com.au/...

I used to enjoy reading Silicon Chip years ago

just did a quick search and it appears they're still around. Online version of the magazine now as well!

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/

http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_111859/article.html purchase of article required

Or ....

Get yourself a best-of-class kit radio from Elecraft - K3 or K2 or one of their other kits. Or a cutting edge Open source High Performance Software Defined Radio from HPSDR and TAPR.

Get yourself a radio kit from Ten-Tec, or MFJ.

Or from Oak Hill Research, or Hendrick's QRP Kits, module kits from W8DIZ who also sells parts, or from various non-profit QRP groups selling kits from time to time, like NorCal QRP Club.

Get yourself a copy of Circuit Cellar or Nuts and Volts from the US, or Everyday Practical Electronics (EPE) and Elektor from Europe or Silicon Chip from Australia.

Heck, you can even get vacuum tube based kits still.

Forget it, just go buy a new chinese made mp3 player!

Wow, +4 Insightful for a parent Troll..

A small repair shop must often gamble on which parts to purchase, and deal with incessant customer grumbling over repair costs. Here are some stories.

Something like this might be useful. Plug all your devices into this, and it will turn them off when there's no power on the USB line - the only thing on standby then is the computer's PSU - use your switch after shutting down XP, at least you'll save most of your power if you forget.

http://siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_102979/article.htm l

Slightly offtopic, but if we consider size, check out the idea of a Solar Tower, a completely different approach for harvesting sun energy by producing wind (in the form of an upward draft). There was a prototype in Spain (195m high), and now the Australian Government is considering to build one that is 1 km high, with a diameter of 5 km!

There are some interesting electronic shark repellents already on the market.
cdnn
sharkshield
siliconchip
sport-fish-info

Heh I've got a circuit that does this - featured in the May 1997 issue of Silicon Chip (which is now Australia's only electronics magazine). :)

(No real references online anymore, except a highlight of articles and the software to program it available at that site)