"All-American Five"

From: John Ruschmeyer <jruschme_at_exit109.com>
Date: Wed Apr 21 06:38:10 1999

> On 20 Apr 99 at 23:59, Jim Strickland wrote:
>
> > > Out of curiousity was the term for the configuration of
> > > the common tube mantle-radio, "All-American 5", used in the UK and
> > > Europe or is this an expression you've acquired from Yanks.
> >
> > I've seen it used in the US press (albiet magazines about old radios) so
> > I suspect it's from here in the US. If memory serves it's from a 5 tube
> > set (as near as I can tell, very like a chipset today) made by one or more
> > of the major tube manufacturers that had all the components for a simple,
> > inexpensive superhet radio.
>
> Oh, the expression is definitely american. The AA5 were the 12ba6, 12be6,
> 35w4, 50b5 and the 12at6. British and Euro names for the same tubes could be
> different but basicly the same circuit with occasional variants or additions.
> RCA could have originated it but everyone and his brother put out sets using it
> Kind of like the IBM clones. (in order to get back OT).

The AA5 was, in short, a reference design which was implemented and
marketed, more or less without changes, by quite a number of big and
small firms.

Since it was a reference design, the more OT examples would probably be:

        Tandy CoCo 1 / Tato Dragon (both based on 6809 reference design)

        WD8003 and NE1000 Ethernet boards (The relevant NSC chip has
    reference designs for both a memory-mapped and a port-mapped
    implementation. The 8003 is essentially the former and
    the NE1000 is essentiall the latter.)

<<<John>>>
Received on Wed Apr 21 1999 - 06:38:10 BST