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Happy 100th To The Vacuum Tube
williamw83 writes "Today, November 16, 2004 has been declared as the centennial of the birth of modern electronics by the American Vacuum Society. As the AIP Physics News Update reports, this marks 'British scientist John Ambrose Fleming's 1904 invention of the first practical electronic device. Known as the thermionic diode, this first simple vacuum tube, containing only two electrodes, could be used to convert an alternating current (AC) to a direct current (DC).' Today's celebration takes place as part of the AVS's 51st Annual Symposium & Exhibition in Anaheim, CA. Being a guitar player myself, I've come to truly appreciate the technology of the vacuum tube every time I crank up my amplifier. This 100-year-old grandfather of electronics, used by musicians and audiophiles across the world, has proven that profound advances in technology do not always render old technologies obsolete."
Vacuums suck!
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Bite Me Fanboy!!
As a musician I resent being in the same sentence as an audiophile.
i find it interesting that vacuum tubes are considered _modern_ electronics. wouldn't the transistor be a better first milestone in modern electronics? what sort of electronics existed before 1904 anyway?? i would suggest that vacuum tubes marked the beginning of electronics in general.
Vacuum tubes in all forms are pretty much the base of our electronic world, from the tube inside your microwave oven, to the transmitter tubes in TV and radio stations, to the power tubes for radar, to the ceramic triode inside the Pioneer and Voyager probes (still working after 30 years, tubes: unreliable?), to the CRT you're probably staring at right now, to the electron microscopes and the vacuum deposition chambers that build your semiconductors, I'd say you need to open your mind a little bit.
Oh, and tube amps? Go to the closest audio shop you can find and go audition a Carver with some Totem Acoustics speakers...
Lets not forget the single largest use of vacuum tubes today, the CRT (cathod ray tube). There in your old TVs and moniters.
Also every radio station and high power transmission you listen to is transmitted by large vacuum tubes. Silicon may never be able to replace these 10KW+ monsters.
Actually solid-state does render vacuum tubes obsolete, to the rational mind. Once you've admitted that the sound you really like just involves lots of second order distortion it's no big deal to make a processor using opamps or discrete transistors to add that distortion to a reliable, efficient, cheap amplifier. As many manufacturers have done! Boss, Line 6, and Roland to name just 3.
You're also forgetting that the biggest contribution to the sound comes from the cabinet, speaker and transformer. Like I say, the valve just adds some nice distortion.
You're not one of these people who believes in gold-plated connectors and $2500 power cables too are you?
Yes vacuum tubes were invented 100 years ago, but it wasn't until much later that Howard Armstrong perfected them such that they could be used as amplifiers. I think he was certainly an un-sung hero. He perfected the vacuum tube, then he invented the super hederodyne circuit used in modern AM radios. Later he go so upset at the static and poor quality of AM that he turned around and invented FM. A great story with a tragic ending -- he ended up killing himself by jumping out of a tall building. This is of course after years of patent battles with RCA (the microsoft of their day.)
Actually, that's a myth. Sand was invented by the British shortly before World War I, as something to fill all their at-the-time useless surplus "cannonball catching bags".
Unfortunately, even in the height of wartime, mass production far exceeded supply, and in a desperate move to cover up the multinational financial boondoggle and rescue what they could of the struggling world economy, the "sand" was dumped unceremoniously across africa and most of asia, as well as most poor, equotorial regions that thought the wealth of inventory would translate into increased economical benefit for their country.
By the time they realized the sand was nearly worthless, the newly formed UN began work on quietly covering up and brainwashing the world into believing that "sand" had always been around. Often tankers continued to run aground for a few years, or jettisoned their now-worthless cargo of sand into the ocean, where it washed up and covered beaches.
Tell everyone, before they silence you t]H]H]H NO CARRIER
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"