posted on August 19, 2001 06:59:02 PM new
I didn't want to drag that bakelite thread too far off topic... (It's easy to get off topic, 'eh? )
I've seen some early Heathkit computer trainers that ran on tubes (very good eBay item), but other than that, no. What are they out of? I've seen people sell tubes out of early IBM stuff on eBay in the vintage computer sections, and do well with them.
posted on August 19, 2001 07:22:21 PM new
Their aren't "out" of anything per se (I don't know anything about old computers, which tubes this one or that one used). They are new-old stock tubes. There are many different types and each type might have several different uses--or maybe just one use. It may have originally been designed as a computer tube, but now has found a "new" use in audio. Or many of the old TV and radio tubes have found new uses. Most of the old production of tubes is still good to this day because the inside of the tube is a vacuum (vacuum tube) and sealed from the elements like oxygen and water. So unless the vacuum is destroyed they can be decades old and still be like new and working.
I sold a nice new old stock tube from the 1920's that was still working.
I know some of the old computers were size large. Some were big enough to fill a room. These ran on tubes, or "valves" as they are known in Europe.
Then after WWII they started getting into miniaturization by making smaller tubes and things, but were still light years away from printed circuit boards and micro chips. Most of my tubes are from this period. Post WWII up to more recent times.
Hmmm...
A new market for my tubes? Old computers? To tell the truth, I never thought of it.
OK, in honor of my highschool chemistry teacher I've got to correct myself. Water is not an element but a molecule. I think.
[ edited by loosecannon on Aug 19, 2001 07:31 PM ]
posted on August 19, 2001 08:02:04 PM new
If you could do a little research, and be able to say what they could be used for, you might open up a new market... But some of the buyers of this stuff may already know what tubes work, and be doing "searches" and finding the tubes they need in the other catagories.
If memory serves, Univac used 55,000 tubes. They had to have a monster airconditioning system.
)
[ edited by loosecannon on Aug 19, 2001 07:31 PM ]