OT : Paging the Valveisti

http://dailymotion.alice.it/video/x3wrzo_fabrication-dune-lampe-triode_tech

Stolen from elsewhere, but fascinating none the less.

 

Cool. Repeat 154 million times or so, and you could build yourself a
half-decent processor. In your shed.

 

More likely in your power plant, at 1/4W heater per valve. Nuclear plant
an option that comes with the 2GB RAM

 

Don't post this kind of stuff just before I leave home for work...

 

I posted it 1.00am last night, you replied at 9.34am this morning - Its not
*that* long ffs !!

;-)

 

Eh, your 1:00 is 2:00 for me (and a few others)

 

Or a pretty powerful amp with LOADS of dirt.


--
Beav

VN 750
Zed 1000
OMF# 19

 

Brilliant. Didn't notice him putting a getter in there though.

I've got a handful of old TV valves somewhere - multiple valves in one
envelope. One day I'll do something with them. Honest. Or use them as
spares for the oscilloscope.

Idea! Make a baseplate, mount a hundred miniature ones on it, stack
ten of these up, then seal the assembly inside a single envelope. That
way you'd only need 154 thousand for the processor. It would be
shed-loads better. You could even pre-wire some of them together in
common configurations.

I've called this idea an 'integrated circuit'. In fact, by wiring two
triodes together, you'd have a 'triode-triode logic' cell, or TTL for
short. Catchy, huh?

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Champ

It's the ancient-electronics-geeks' equivalent of riding a bike very
fast around Pahnd Island.

Funny old world, innit?

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - "He's hopeless, but he's honest"

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (Fallen apart) Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single"
Norton 850 Commando Kawasaki GTR1400

 

Or a Complete Mountain Of Shite...

 

In engineering school (back in '78) our electronics teacher was
convinced that analogic computers would rule the planet for several
years. Now, of course, at the time the school computer processing power
was in the KIPS range (or even the HIPS one) and the best
microprocessors available then were the 6809/6502/8085.

 

AFAIR they're not affected by EMP. Kinda handy for military hardware.

 

And I think that when you overdrive them the distortion is 'nicer' than
silicon; 3rd harmonic rather than 2nd or something. It's a long time
since I gave a fig about such things so excuse my vagueness.

 

Lots of people enjoyed, you didn't - Am I bovvered ?

 

Blimey, all that trouble to make one. The Chinese knock 'em out now for
tuppence. Looks like a French WUN at the end.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"A scone and tea at half past three
Makes the day a little brighter
Keep your cakes and fancy tarts
And stick them up your shiter."

 

I didn't get to the end, but it reeks of WUN doesn't it.

 

One of the claimed benefits certainly. Except...

Since when has anybody had to fight anybody who has an EMP weapon?
Strikes me that to defend against that is/has been/will be a wholly
unnecessary waste of taxpayers money.

 

They have a longer straight line on the gain graph but the most
important reason is that silicon, unitl they invented FET technologies
(which is as near a solid state valve as ever there was), was just too
noisy to be of any use as an accurate amplifier.

So it is "give a dog a bad name" syndrome and those doing the naming are
well set to make profit from solid state analogue equipment having a
well justified poor early reputation by selling electric fires to idiots
with more credit than sense and the rest is history.

 

The Foxbat interceptor supposedly had valve electronics in an era of
transistors. One rumour was that it was because of the EMP problem,
though I suspect that that was an urban miff.

It certainly had a hugely powerful radar to counter jamming, which may
well have used a couple of valve stages, given the power amp
technology of the time.

 

I thought it was more to do with ensuring it could be repaired at any
Soviet airfield without specialist knowledge. I believe it was a very
primative, if quick and effective, machine.