A vacuum tube, known as the first electronic device, is used to switch, amplify, or commutate electric signals. In the past, vacuum tubes functioned as a main part of a diverse range of electronic ...

Way back in the salad days of digital computing (the 1940s and '50s), computers were made of vacuum tubes -- big, hot, clunky devices that, when you got right down to it, were essentially glorified ...

The transistor revolutionized the world and made the abundant computing we now rely on a possibility, but before the transistor, there was the vacuum tube. Large, hot, power hungry, and prone to ...

The telephone company had problems with vacuum tubes, too, and hoped to find something else to use for switching telephone calls. The idea of somehow using semiconductors (solid materials such as ...

The transistor is one of the most profound innovations in all of human existence. First discovered in 1947, it has scaled like no advance in human history; we can pack billions of transistors into ...

It may not be to everyone's taste, but this brand new monobloc amplifier from McIntosh cleverly blends both vacuum tube and solid-state technology in one chassis. If you’re not a serious audiophile ...

For decades, computer components have been getting smaller, even as their capabilities have grown by leaps and bounds. However, this process has started to slow down over the last few years — and it ...

On this 60 th anniversary of the first issue of EDN, we look back to 1956 when the vacuum tube was at its maturity and transistors were about to begin their domination. The vacuum tube features of ...