Williams Tube memory, Selectron question, and Charactron

From: sms_at_antinode.org <(sms_at_antinode.org)>
Date: Sun Aug 15 17:01:37 1999

   From: CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com
         (Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa_at_trailing-edge.com)

> Question for the UKer's: is a tube rectifier (no control grid, just an
> anode and a cathode) called a "valve"?

   Have you heard of a check valve?

> Is a voltage regulator tube (like the venerable OA2) called a "valve"?

   No doubt it's _called_ one (where electron tubes are called valves).
I can cite several worse misnomers in popular use.

   On the subject of unusual display devices, as I recall, the Univac
422, a training computer (transistors, 512 15-bit words of core memory,
with paper tape and (modified) Remington Rand typewriter for I/O) from
the 1960's, used blue-green vacuum fluorescent indicators on its front
panel, to display register contents. Not digital displays in the modern
sense, they were just blue-green lamps. I assume that they were chosen
for their ability to be controlled by transistors which were unable to
cope with the voltages of neon glow lamps or the current of incandescent
lamps. I never saw them on anything else.

   I don't doubt that they had better long-term reliability than the
SCR-driven incandescent lamps in the console display of the IBM 1130
CPU.

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Received on Sun Aug 15 1999 - 17:01:37 BST