Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!ll-xn!adelie!mirror!frog!john
From: john@frog.UUCP (John Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: vacuum tube freakes
Summary: Re: Scarcely related at all to Re: UNIX needs a real text editor
Message-ID: <1088@frog.UUCP>
Date: 11 Mar 89 22:13:00 GMT
References: <222@imspw6.UUCP> <9653@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <5552@brspyr1.BRS.Com> <405@rb-dc1.UUCP>
Organization: Misanthropes-R-Us
Lines: 28

In article <405@rb-dc1.UUCP>, shapiro@rb-dc1.UUCP (Mike Shapiro) writes:
> In article <5552@brspyr1.BRS.Com> miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) writes:
> > [.... much deleted....]  I'm sure that this
> >was the same argument used when transistors began to replace vacuum tubes: 
> >"I like tubes, I'm comfortable with them, and I'm going to continue to use 
> >them.  It should stay that way."  Guess what happened to all those vacuum tube
> >freaks?
> Ok...I'll guess...
> They wound up in rec.audio.

There was an article in Business Week recently (March 13 issue, I think) about
how "vacuum tubes" might be about to make a comeback.  Someone is busy
perfecting a scheme for putting small vacuum-tube-like structures onto silicon
wafers, which depend on quantum effects rather than thermionic emission.  No
need for an actual vacuum, since there'll only be a handful of air molecules
present in the well anyway.  These tubes are relatively insensitive to flaws
in the silicon substrate, and are radiation hard, just like their big brothers.

I knew that these semiconductors were just a passing fad :-).



-- 
John Woods WB7EEL/1, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (508) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu

"He should be put in stocks in Lafeyette Square across from the White House
 and pelted with dead cats."	- George F. Will