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 ...

Most people associate vacuum tubes with a time when a single computer took up several rooms and "debugging" meant removing the insects stuck in the valves, but this technology may be in for a ...

Did you know that the first half of the 20th century was dominated by vacuum tubes? Be it radio, television, telephone networks or computers, vacuum tubes were the basic component for all electronics.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

A vacuum tube is just that: a glass tube surrounding a vacuum (an area from which all gases have been removed). What makes it interesting is that when electrical contacts are put on the ends, you can ...