Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!swbatl!adams
From: adams@swbatl.UUCP (4237)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Xmas tree light trivia
Message-ID: <1046@swbatl.UUCP>
Date: 15 Dec 89 16:37:36 GMT
References: <1858@neoucom.UUCP>
Reply-To: adams@swbatl.UUCP (Tom Adams 5-4237)
Organization: Southwestern Bell Tele. Co. - Advanced Technology Lab - St. Louis
Lines: 34

In article <1858@neoucom.UUCP> wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew) writes:
>I recall reading an apochryphal story in one of the AT&T
>publications a number of years ago.  The legend goes that some Bell
>employee thought of stringing up annunciator lamps from a
>switchboard to supplant the use of real candles as decorations on
>xmas trees.  Later, Lee DeForrset built his first few vacuum tubes
>from parts of xmas tree lamps which in turn were descendents of the
>old swithbaord lamps.  Another AT&T first by proxy, or so the story
>goes.

Actually DeForest built vacuum tubes using electric light bulbs manufactured
by the Mazda Lamp Co.  Filament connections through the screw base, and grid
out the top.  These were round bulbs.  Mazda's advertising, at least that
I've seen or read of, doesn't mention Christmas tree lights.  Automobile
lamps were the high-tech frontier 1905-1910.  Best books on the topic for 
those interested are probally:

	70 years of radio tubes and valves : a guide for electronic engineers,
	historians, and collectors / by John W. Stokes.  Vestal, N.Y. : Vestal
	Press, c1982.

	Saga of the vacuum tube / by Gerald F. J. Tyne ; edited by Diana D.
	Menkes ; editorial coordinator, Elliot N. Sivowitch.  1st ed.  
	Indianapolis : H. W. Sams, c1977.

While AT&T certainly bought into tubes very early, as did the Navy, they 
weren't first.  I guess you'd have to give whatever company Tom Edison
founded dibs on tubes (especially since Fleming worked for Edison at one
point).
I'd be interested in a reference to your source on the AT&T story if
possible.
-- 
uunet!swbatl!adams or adams@swbatl.swbt.com     | Tom Adams: 314-235-7459
BOOKS WANTED: pre-1930 radio, electrical & scientific topics.