AT&T Archives: A Modern Aladdin's Lamp, about vacuum tubes,1940

Ғылым және технология

See more from the AT&T Archives at techchannel.att.com/archives
There were two versions of this film made; this is the short version. Watch for footage of the ridiculously huge vacuum tubes that were used for radio transmission.
From the original 1940 documentation:
"With Western Electric Vacuum Tubes in the starring roles, this film tells the fascinating story of tube development from the first crude bulbs of Edison and De Forest to the powerful and efficient tubes in use today, and shows the prominent part they play in radio, long-distance telephony, public address systems, sound motion pictures and the phonograph.
Animated sequences depicting a traffic cop halting an on-rush of electrons inside a tube and a troupe of monkeys tossing pebbles at a grid explain the three-element tube so clearly that a non-technical audience can understand how it operates.
Scenes in the tube shop show the precision workmanship that goes into the making of broadcasting and telephone repeater tubes. The camera moves from one intricate operation to another while skilled craftsmen transform spools of wire and rods of glass into these magic lamps of today."
Footage courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

Пікірлер: 817

  • @dhepaksomu
    @dhepaksomu3 жыл бұрын

    Who are all addicted to these kind of classic educational videos?

  • @pascoaiandreta9964

    @pascoaiandreta9964

    2 күн бұрын

    Nice to learn english.

  • @zordmaker
    @zordmaker5 жыл бұрын

    Haha. I am an electrical engineer 51 years old.. and this vid still explains electricity better than I've ever seen it explained, anywhere else, ever.

  • @MrHans818

    @MrHans818

    5 жыл бұрын

    My mother worked at Bendix Radio in the middle 40s to the middle 50s and then Westinghouse Corp. She could tell you all about this,. She even built her first Tv before I was born in 55. Most people take electrics for granted what when you think about' what great minds these people had.

  • @johnmorgan4368

    @johnmorgan4368

    4 жыл бұрын

    I agree, I was so confused in high school chemistry by the completely inaccurate way the electron cloud of an atom was portrayed.

  • @camerond8176

    @camerond8176

    4 жыл бұрын

    My thoughts exactly.......................He perfectly and easily described exactly how they work, why they work and why they are designed the way they are. Today's youth have NO IDEA how things actually work, only that they work and how to cry when they don't.

  • @huntsbychainsaw5986

    @huntsbychainsaw5986

    4 жыл бұрын

    If electricity and electrical components were explained like this in high school I probably would have done better with electrical theory...

  • @huntsbychainsaw5986

    @huntsbychainsaw5986

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@camerond8176 Easy now, not everyone under 50 is incompetent.

  • @NestorCustodio
    @NestorCustodio8 жыл бұрын

    I love that these old gems are being preserved and made available to the masses.

  • @Kamel419

    @Kamel419

    4 жыл бұрын

    @reverse thrust everyone who has internet access and can visit youtube = the masses

  • @adamogilvie6951

    @adamogilvie6951

    3 жыл бұрын

    Same here. I am a relatively young guy. But still I see stuff like this and imagine the world my Grandmother and Great Grandmother grew up in . My Grandmother is 84 years old now and we often laugh about the technology she grew up with compared to the technology we live with now. She can't believe it. Even when I was going to high-school cell phones weren't really a thing. I remember having to remember like 30 numbers in memory and going to a pay phone. Lol!

  • @fernandoantoniobernalbarei1415

    @fernandoantoniobernalbarei1415

    3 жыл бұрын

    Estados Unidos a llamada internacional a Paraguay los 1940

  • @daytondario6216

    @daytondario6216

    2 жыл бұрын

    instablaster...

  • @nickimtamyirmidortharfli..

    @nickimtamyirmidortharfli..

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@adamogilvie6951 you bought 86??

  • @JohnRaschedian
    @JohnRaschedian3 жыл бұрын

    It's funny that no one in the end of the video says, "Please hit the like button, smash the bell icon and subscribe."

  • @JohnMichaelson
    @JohnMichaelson8 жыл бұрын

    Modern presenters could learn a lot from the clear and simple analogies and illustrations made in this video when explaining to lay people how concepts work.

  • @programmingandfinance8239

    @programmingandfinance8239

    8 жыл бұрын

    +John Michaelson i saw a lot of these old documentaries and found out they teach from basics and precise about the concepts related,,, modern teaching lacks depth and precision

  • @ai4px

    @ai4px

    5 жыл бұрын

    Good luck... the "journalists" of today don't understand how things work enough to convey it to you. They seem to love filling page space with words and jumping around. What have our colleges produced these days? I tried to find out specifics about 5G cell phone protocols and all I could find were articles that said "it is fast" and described all the things I could do with this speed... but not a word about orthogonal multiplexing, spread spectrum or even what frequencies.

  • @peggyfranzen6159

    @peggyfranzen6159

    5 жыл бұрын

    John Michaelson Or from Nikola Tesla"s physics, and exxperiments.100 years from now the question will be " Who was Thomas Alva Edison.?"

  • @ShaunDreclin

    @ShaunDreclin

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@ai4px You're comparing journalism to videos produced by the manufacturers of the product. Of course they aren't going to be on the same level. Do you think the newspapers in the 1940s went this in depth explaining how a vacuum tube works? No, they just said "it is fast".

  • @patrioticwhitemail9119

    @patrioticwhitemail9119

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@ShaunDreclin you fail to realise companys refuse to cover their technology now. Showing off your technology back then was done as marketing, to show customers how their products are reliable, and why it's worth buying their luxuries. Modern products aren't made to last like back then (planned obsolescence started by the GM company), so there's no reason to show how it's made. There is also no need to explain how it works either. Showing how it works is pointless when people already know "it works because... I dunno". Explaining it back then was necessary because you needed to know which way the electricity was going to use it. You don't need to know how bluetooth works to sink to your speaker.

  • @knightwatchman
    @knightwatchman3 жыл бұрын

    I have a 1962 Motorola radio and phonograph console that uses vacuum tubes. It still works. No tube has ever blown out but I don't use it much. The sound of both the radio and phonograph is still excellent. Love the way the radio has to warm up before it starts to emit sound.

  • @Wandrng_drifter
    @Wandrng_drifter3 жыл бұрын

    21:04 “there will be no end to the miracles of this modern Aladdins lamp... the vacuum tube!” The transistor: *I’m about to wreck this man’s whole career*

  • @LMB222

    @LMB222

    Жыл бұрын

    MOSFET: I'm going to wreck the transistor.

  • @ananda_miaoyin

    @ananda_miaoyin

    Жыл бұрын

    @@LMB222 Semi conductive memetic gallium : I am gong to wreck the transistor and the MOSFET. In 2042. Less than 100 years after the transistor was formed. Who said Moore's Law is bullshit!?

  • @kwoods3379
    @kwoods33796 жыл бұрын

    CPU water cooling in 1940

  • @AckzaTV

    @AckzaTV

    3 жыл бұрын

    like midget data in a hyperloop tube, your voice current goes out into the ether

  • @StephenJamieson

    @StephenJamieson

    3 жыл бұрын

    When the CPU was literally one transistor

  • @punman5392

    @punman5392

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@StephenJamieson the ENIAC had something like 24,000 tubes. Imagine cooling all that

  • @jamesslick4790
    @jamesslick47903 жыл бұрын

    "Midgets in a Subway Crowd" is my band's latest album.

  • @thermionic1234567

    @thermionic1234567

    2 жыл бұрын

    I bought a great Roxy Music album because of the cover and suspect your album will be equally-good because of its title!

  • @truthbydesign5146
    @truthbydesign51463 жыл бұрын

    I’m fascinated by the birth of our modern computer driven world. Vacuum tubes were invented in 1904, just 10 years before my grandmother was born. Today we have access to a lightweight M1 iPad Pro with 16 billion transistors, capable of 11 trillion operations per second. To put that in perspective, it would take multiple Boeing sized factories filled to the rafters with Vacuum tubes, and 70 nuclear power plants just to power the equivalent number of circuits (But of course it would still be just a minuscule fraction of the speed of one iPad, taking years to accomplish what iPad can in one second)

  • @Guitcad1
    @Guitcad15 жыл бұрын

    This actually does a better job of explaining vacuum tubes than a lot of modern presentations I've seen.

  • @ronalddaub9740

    @ronalddaub9740

    2 жыл бұрын

    We had the last vacuum tube electronics class in high school in 1974 75 the book I had explained it pretty good. Along with the teacher we had and we made a 5-tube radio.

  • @Langkowski

    @Langkowski

    9 ай бұрын

    If this was a modern youtube video it would have lasted at least 90 minutes and used forever to get to the point

  • @kovy689

    @kovy689

    5 ай бұрын

    @@LangkowskiSame with schools today

  • @ujean56
    @ujean564 жыл бұрын

    Imagine how proud you could be working in a tube factory. Artisands for sure. Skilled labour in a high tech facility in North America.

  • @waylondeming1209
    @waylondeming12095 жыл бұрын

    Love these old industrial films. A real tribute to manufacturing in this country.

  • @juliam.mallen9019

    @juliam.mallen9019

    11 ай бұрын

    Well said 👌🇺🇸🦅

  • @SigEpBlue
    @SigEpBlue8 жыл бұрын

    That whole "monkeys throwing pebbles at a target through a shutter" bit at 9:00 had me cracking up. I never would have thought of making such an analogy to controlling electron flow, so props for creativity there!

  • @RideRedRacer

    @RideRedRacer

    6 жыл бұрын

    See how America used to be great, you could say something and not offend people. now liberals ruined that. dont hurt their feelings guys. be nice now

  • @porkyfedwell

    @porkyfedwell

    5 жыл бұрын

    Anyone who's been to the monkey exhibit at the Zoo knows what they're really throwing! It's the Ancient Art of Flung Poo.

  • @8800081

    @8800081

    4 жыл бұрын

    You could never show that analogy as an example today, anywhere but KZread, the libs would be calling you racist and if that's what comes to their mind then there are the ones that are racist. There's a ridiculous amount of things you'll never see today, especially in school textbooks. You'll never see a girl using an iron or a boy using a hammer, in fact these days you'll never even see anything identifiable as a girl or boy. This world is dead.

  • @ShaunDreclin

    @ShaunDreclin

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@8800081 I see a whole lot of people in this comment section whining about "what the liberals would say" and not any liberals actually saying anything. You've invented a caricature of what a liberal actually is so that you can feel good about yourself. Try actually _talking_ to the average moderate liberal and you'll find you agree on most topics. As much as you may think they are or want them to be, most issues are not partisan.

  • @Perktube1

    @Perktube1

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@porkyfedwell ha!… true.

  • @MrPhred
    @MrPhred10 жыл бұрын

    As an old geezer, I really enjoyed this video. I actually own a Western Electric 102-F "repeater" vacuum tube (in the original, bulb-shaped form factor). It was pulled from one of the last voice repeaters in my area - nearly identical to the repeater shown in the video. The label on it indicates it was put into service in 1931, and it was still operating flawlessly around 40 years later when it was removed from service. The combination of Bell Labs research and Western Electric manufacturing resulted in some awesome components back then.

  • @commodoresixfour7478

    @commodoresixfour7478

    5 жыл бұрын

    Good thing you can still get them made. There is a few youtubers on here still hand making electron tubes. Amplifier tubes are also still manufactured today. They may be inefficient today but they still produce superior sound.

  • @povnw8985

    @povnw8985

    5 жыл бұрын

    Wow. You must be so old your balls float up when you sit in the tub 😹

  • @eugenecbell

    @eugenecbell

    5 жыл бұрын

    POV NW, why are you an ass?

  • @michaelinglis8516

    @michaelinglis8516

    5 жыл бұрын

    I loved this video and others like it I watched last night but it's painfully obvious why are new stock tubes are so poor these days. It's no longer an art and even the duds are now sold. Less quality control less skilled workers etc. It's amazing that repeater tube lasted 40 years. Meanwhile as a guitar player im having a hard time getting my EL34 output tubes in my Marshall to last me a year, NOS (new old stock) still exists but only for so long. I just wish a company would step up and invest in making quality tubes again and not have any ties to the few company's that own all the current production tubes. As it is Tung-sol, SOVTEK, electro harmonix, JJ Tesla, Mullard and others are all owned by one or two company's and all produced side by side in a handful of factories in Russia and China. With new production tubes I often go through a few sets before I find one that doesn't have any defects. It's just pathetic.

  • @cat-lw6kq

    @cat-lw6kq

    5 жыл бұрын

    I was a tech with AT&T and remember replacing Line Repeaters made by Western Electric that were 30 years old. Many of them were still working but they were getting tired and I didn't want to re-enter that manhole again.

  • @coldwar1952
    @coldwar19523 жыл бұрын

    "....all these things and more happened, because of a single product of individual enterprise, and THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE. And so long as they endure, there will be no end to the miracles of this modern Aladdin's lamp, the vacuum tube....". WE/Bell Labs - The greatest collection of technical talent and innovation mankind has yet known.

  • @frozencanuck3521
    @frozencanuck35212 жыл бұрын

    The vacuum tube assembly line process is amazing to watch.

  • @goodun6081
    @goodun60815 жыл бұрын

    Think about this: repeater tubes were installed in enclosures attached to transatlantic telephone cables sitting on the ocean floor!

  • @TheOldCatFunt
    @TheOldCatFunt3 жыл бұрын

    I was particularly impressed by the 1940 teleprompter the narrator used 😊

  • @TheScreamingFrog916
    @TheScreamingFrog9163 жыл бұрын

    From "magic" light bulbs, to my iPad, what an amazing world we live in today. I'm a retired tech, and this was actually very informative, and easy to understand. Great production values, fast moving, entertaining, and fun music. Looking at all those tube repeater amps on the wall, made me think, how cool it would have been, to convert them all to guitar amps. LOL

  • @eldontyrellcorp
    @eldontyrellcorp3 жыл бұрын

    I felt in love with vacuum tube technology when I was a kid. My grand parents had a color tv which used tubes, and also a tubes radio we were listening to every Wednesday. I was fascinated by these glowing components. Now I'm repairing old tube radios...

  • @thomaspierce9458

    @thomaspierce9458

    8 ай бұрын

    My uncle used to repair radios and televisions up until the early 1980s. In the late 70s, I would take tubes to the pharmacy which had a tube tester. My folks had an Admiral 'hybrid' 25-inch(26-inch in the U.S.) colour TV. Some of its circuitry was transistorized. Its tubes ran at a reduced voltage so they needed less time to warm up, making it almost instant-on...

  • @randyhenry2477
    @randyhenry24776 жыл бұрын

    Amazing precision factory robots in use for being 1940. Clear glass tubes have fascinated me since grade school. I'm 69.

  • @ananda_miaoyin

    @ananda_miaoyin

    Жыл бұрын

    Yeah, it is . They almost look like real humans, too. Sucks that NASA lost the tech to make them just like the moon landing telemetry and vehicle designs.

  • @vaultdweller2511
    @vaultdweller25116 жыл бұрын

    The narrator in 1940's movies like this always sounds so lovely optimistic

  • @cengeb
    @cengeb9 жыл бұрын

    "like MIDGETS in a subway crowd"!!! Electrons in AIR!

  • @chriskazaglis

    @chriskazaglis

    9 жыл бұрын

    cengeb It was not a time of political correctness. It was both funny and offensive. The phrase did help me understand the reason for a vacuum.

  • @fl0atpvnk
    @fl0atpvnk Жыл бұрын

    I really enjoy these old timey “how it’s done” videos.

  • @js4653
    @js46536 жыл бұрын

    At 19:30 is a policeman in his car using his mobile vacuum tube radio set. The policeman's arm patch says "Kearny Police". Kearny NJ is where Western Electric had a huge manufacturing plant.

  • @almostfm
    @almostfm5 жыл бұрын

    Back in my radio days (late 80s to late 90s) our AM transmitter had four tubes that were probably as big around as my thigh. Those things put out so much heat that the AC in that room ran 24/7-even in the middle of winter.

  • @lsq7833
    @lsq78336 жыл бұрын

    1940's watercooled vacuum tubes ! And here I am with a watercooled processor with over 3 billion transistors... Puts things in perspective about how much progress has been achieved... Very interesting video!

  • @grendelum

    @grendelum

    5 жыл бұрын

    lsq78 - water cooled glassware has been around as long as modern glassware has... the 10W mixed-gas white light laser I worked with at a planetarium had a water cooled laser tube (with a 5-ton water chiller out back) that was indeed a very functional work of art.

  • @jimc3688

    @jimc3688

    4 жыл бұрын

    And those CPUs require a $1B Wafer fab and lots of nasty chemicals and huge amounts of water resources. Just saying 😎

  • @jr2904

    @jr2904

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@jimc3688 shut up jim

  • @abhishekmallik1194
    @abhishekmallik11943 жыл бұрын

    No clean rooms, no special uniforms, just simple production. Yet some of these tubes still work till date.

  • @drewthompson7457
    @drewthompson74574 жыл бұрын

    So Edison's filaments broke at the positive end. I wonder if he ever thought of using AC power?

  • @jimc3688

    @jimc3688

    4 жыл бұрын

    I’m sure he / his engineers did. But that would be blasphemy !

  • @dondesnoo1771

    @dondesnoo1771

    4 жыл бұрын

    He didn't like Tesla s ac ideas as he had too much investment in DC. As time would tell he was wrong.😄

  • @mydogbrian4814

    @mydogbrian4814

    2 жыл бұрын

    @@dondesnoo1771 - And that is why Washington D.C. is the only place left where they still use Direct Current.

  • @jr2904

    @jr2904

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@mydogbrian4814 you're out of your mind

  • @mydogbrian4814

    @mydogbrian4814

    Жыл бұрын

    @j r *Apparently so!* Another example of sarcasm gone awri. The intent of the pun escapes me. Sorry! ___, Oh I remember now! It was in referance to comments on *D.C.* current. And I extrapolated it to Washington *DC.* - kinda lame, huh? 🙄👎

  • @JJceo
    @JJceo8 жыл бұрын

    "And to reach the plate, the electrons would have to bump their way through them, like midgets in a subway crowd." - 6:56

  • @robertthomas4329

    @robertthomas4329

    7 жыл бұрын

    Genius

  • @LMacNeill

    @LMacNeill

    6 жыл бұрын

    I don't know... I think the "aroused monkeys" at around the 9:05 mark is a worse comment than the "midgets in a subway crowd" comment. ;-)

  • @povnw8985

    @povnw8985

    5 жыл бұрын

    I love midgets. They make great pets 😐

  • @Kelvin5378

    @Kelvin5378

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@povnw8985 and great snacks

  • @robb1859

    @robb1859

    3 жыл бұрын

    sounds like a jim carr joke

  • @BrEaKiNg_Brad
    @BrEaKiNg_Brad5 жыл бұрын

    "like midgets in a subway crowd" lol you can't beat the analogy. It's perfect.

  • @howardwayne3974

    @howardwayne3974

    3 жыл бұрын

    If a broadcaster dared say something like that over the air nowadays , some smartassed fresh out of legal school would try to sue his ( or her ) ass off on behalf of all the midgets and try to get him ( or her ) fired . notice how careful I'm being .

  • @jblyon2

    @jblyon2

    3 жыл бұрын

    Excuse me Mr. Announcer, HR would like a word with you

  • @The_A_Cast
    @The_A_Cast3 жыл бұрын

    You know you’re watching a gem of a video when it refers to a video as a “talking picture” 😊

  • @Alex-zc8ds
    @Alex-zc8ds4 жыл бұрын

    i remember the tv set of my grandmother with vacuum tubes i was eager boy that time i used to peek the back of the tv set while it was working and amazed seeing so much bulb inside that lights

  • @mikicerise6250
    @mikicerise62507 жыл бұрын

    Americans always seem so much more well-spoken in old videos. I also like the early-20th century American accent much better than the modern one.

  • @shopdog831

    @shopdog831

    7 жыл бұрын

    we all got dumber thanks to low education standards.

  • @PhaQ2

    @PhaQ2

    7 жыл бұрын

    So true. When Bush senior decided to implement the "No Child Left Behind" initiative to give everybody a trophy. He destroyed two generations of Americans and now we have Social Justice Warriors instituting their politically correct, censorship. And groups like BLM can call for the death of cops and white people.

  • @d.jensen5153

    @d.jensen5153

    7 жыл бұрын

    You are asserting that the fact that the average teen doesn't talk like Lowell Thomas is because of George H W Bush and not pop culture? I'm guessing you were one of those left behind.

  • @cat-lw6kq

    @cat-lw6kq

    5 жыл бұрын

    I was watching a class of students learning English and they were watching old episodes of I Love Lucy from the 1950's. This is how they learn English.

  • @jamesplotkin4674

    @jamesplotkin4674

    5 жыл бұрын

    @@shopdog831 And pants on the ground. Lookin' like a fool...

  • @nagakamo
    @nagakamo8 жыл бұрын

    Western Electric vacuum tube is a myth of high quality here in Japan too. This video gave me a clear image of WE. Thank you for upload. I have some American made tubes licensed to Sylvania from WE produced for military service in WWII. I am going to make a DIY audio amplifier using those tubes. They are indeed beautiful and reliable ones.

  • @BlazingBlakesGaming

    @BlazingBlakesGaming

    8 жыл бұрын

    I have a few here I laughed when they said 50,000 hours how about 65 years and still going strong?

  • @nagakamo

    @nagakamo

    8 жыл бұрын

    Yes, they say "over 50,000 hours". That's counted as 5.7 years if run for 24 hours 365 days. But when used in consumer audio, lifetime of tubes will not be counted in this way. One of the reason is that there is rush current into filament when power gets on. It slightly damages cold filament. So it doesn't reach 65 years even when you use tubes only a couple of hours a day. I think normal lifetime of consumer audio tube is less than 10 years especially when you expect good sound quality.

  • @porkyfedwell

    @porkyfedwell

    5 жыл бұрын

    @@nagakamo I wonder why they didn't put something in the circuits that would have more slowly ramped up the power, to increase tube lifespan?

  • @orange70383

    @orange70383

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@porkyfedwell Some did.

  • @jamesmcdonough440

    @jamesmcdonough440

    3 жыл бұрын

    W3pmv

  • @johneygd
    @johneygd7 жыл бұрын

    Without the invention of the lamp,there would,ve be no computer these day's, it blows my mind how such small little device have changed the world.

  • @jimc3688

    @jimc3688

    4 жыл бұрын

    Actually, FETs were already invented and being experimented with.

  • @AlexBesogonov

    @AlexBesogonov

    3 жыл бұрын

    Not really. Vacuum tube computers were second generation of computers (electromechanical relays were the first), but once transistors became available, they switched immediately.

  • @aaryjan
    @aaryjan7 жыл бұрын

    Amazing.. the narrator tells elaborately about the components in the tube, how they are set up, compares them, tells what they are used for .. and doesn't breathe a word about how they actually work, amplify

  • @SciHeartJourney
    @SciHeartJourney3 жыл бұрын

    Vacuum tube technology is awesome! This was once state of the art, now its nostalgic. That's some fine engineering there!

  • @toresbe
    @toresbe10 жыл бұрын

    Interestingly, this film has itself been scanned by a vacuum tube film scanner. You can see the green tube in saturation at 19:00, in the cockpit windshield.

  • @ZenPunk

    @ZenPunk

    9 жыл бұрын

    Nice catch!

  • @montey1017

    @montey1017

    6 жыл бұрын

    Very cool haha

  • @Vincent_Sullivan

    @Vincent_Sullivan

    6 жыл бұрын

    Is this the reason for the "green flash" you see on the woman's hands at 15:27???

  • @BetamaxFlippy
    @BetamaxFlippy7 жыл бұрын

    Of all the modern illustrations and videos these old documentaries along with old tech magazines made me learn 20 times better. New documentaries tend to be as theoretic as hell and it's easy to get distracted and mislead

  • @scottcasper187
    @scottcasper1873 жыл бұрын

    This was the best explanation I’ve yet seen

  • @douglasburskey4820
    @douglasburskey48205 жыл бұрын

    It's amazing what vacuum tubes could do. That's why I love vintage radios and other tube electronics.

  • @jr2904

    @jr2904

    Жыл бұрын

    We were great at making mechanical masterpieces back then

  • @manusudha4269
    @manusudha42693 жыл бұрын

    You just can't imagine how happy I am to watch this video ! Thank you very much .

  • @AJFreeway
    @AJFreeway8 жыл бұрын

    It might be because vacuum tubes aren't nearly as common nowadays, but I learned more in a few minutes of this video than any modern video on the subject. The examples were funny and very informative, and the subject matter is clearly explained.

  • @baronobeefdip2

    @baronobeefdip2

    8 жыл бұрын

    +AJFreeway the only difference between the tubes of today and the ones described in the video is that these days, tubes have a metal tube snuggly fit around the filament known as the cathode, it makes design easier so you only have to apply one lead to create a circuit between the plate and filament/cathode.

  • @michaelwoods9005

    @michaelwoods9005

    8 жыл бұрын

    +Joshua Lopez they've always had a cathode, that's what releases the electrons. the animations in the film are grossly oversimplified for demonstration purposes. some cathodes are directly heated, some are indirectly heated by a filament.

  • @baronobeefdip2

    @baronobeefdip2

    8 жыл бұрын

    michael Woods I was kinda referring to the early deforest audion tubes. They just had filaments.

  • @SlyPearTree

    @SlyPearTree

    8 жыл бұрын

    That filament is what is called a directly heated cathode.

  • @baronobeefdip2

    @baronobeefdip2

    8 жыл бұрын

    SlyPearTree yep, but since higher amounts of power applied tended to burn it out, the cathode was created to make the tube handle power beyond what the filament was handling before it burned out.

  • @menthol-bonbon1726
    @menthol-bonbon17264 жыл бұрын

    Amazing explanation! Also I love the nice and clear American English they spoke back then on TV. English is not my first language and yeat I did understand every single word effortlessly.

  • @lincolnkarim1
    @lincolnkarim13 жыл бұрын

    I learn a great deal from these and old US Army training videos. I had the pleasure of visiting CBS TV transmitter room on the 108/109 floor of WTC Building #1. The first fully Solid State (FET), high power transmitter (at least in NY). We regularly stopped by to visit on our way up to the roof to service our antenna.

  • @nunyabizness199
    @nunyabizness1995 жыл бұрын

    I wonder though if anyone remembers who made the amazing machinery used to make those millions of vacuum tubes...😨

  • @geoben1810
    @geoben18104 жыл бұрын

    What's equally fascinating is the machinery that makes the tubes and who invented it?

  • @BrandochGarage
    @BrandochGarage4 жыл бұрын

    fantastic. Love it. Came for the monkeys, stayed for the wonderful footage of the workers making the tubes there by hand. How industrious we used to be!

  • @3beltwesty
    @3beltwesty3 жыл бұрын

    17:45 Tube is a WE 101F tube. 4.1 volt filament voltage. 4 prong. 3 elements. Plate grid filament. The 101F has a filament current of 0.5 amp and the 101D is 1 amp. This Triode of course is Western Electrics audio frequency tube for their repeaters.

  • @robertcuminale1212
    @robertcuminale12125 жыл бұрын

    You're old if you can remember when drug stores had vacuum tube testing machines and stocked the tubes.

  • @grendelum

    @grendelum

    5 жыл бұрын

    Robert Cuminale - did you ever see a shoe store x-ray machine? The ones to check the fit of the new shoes?

  • @Teewriter

    @Teewriter

    5 жыл бұрын

    Well thanks for the reminder.

  • @foureyedchick

    @foureyedchick

    5 жыл бұрын

    When I was a young girl, my dad took me to Walgreens to check the tubes of our Zenith color TV set. This was in the 1960s.

  • @almostfm

    @almostfm

    5 жыл бұрын

    Ours was in the nearby Radio Shack. By the time I was about 8, dad would pull the suspected bad tube, give me enough money to replace it if necessary, and send me down to check if the tube was bad and get the replacement if necessary. He could continue with whatever he was doing while I got the new tube.

  • @TheNeonRabbit

    @TheNeonRabbit

    5 жыл бұрын

    I remember when they installed the machines

  • @williamschultz8470
    @williamschultz84702 жыл бұрын

    I am so glad that these older movies and educational films are still in reach I learned so much. Awesome

  • @grendelum
    @grendelum5 жыл бұрын

    9:00 I’m *_so_* in love with this animation for *_so_* many reasons...

  • @zacharypike6408
    @zacharypike64085 жыл бұрын

    For the life of me I could not understand how vacuum tubes work, but this video explained how they work perfectly. Thank You.

  • @grahambird1570
    @grahambird15705 жыл бұрын

    Amazing >>> This was when Man lived Proud and Proper !!!

  • @Kawka1122

    @Kawka1122

    3 жыл бұрын

    Great times indeed. Tech development and reaching for new. Engineering was a valued skill back then.

  • @mikeklaene4359
    @mikeklaene43598 жыл бұрын

    Great video. A slight slap at Edison for not trying to understand the "Edison Effect". Lowell Thomas had a good "Radio Voice". I got into "playing" with vacuum tubes while still in grade school in the 50's. An Uncle gave a kit for a regenerative radio that used a single tube. It was of a "breadboard" design and the map to the components was on a piece of paper glued to a small piece of plywood and it required a 1.5 V "A" battery and a 45 V "B" battery. With tubes it is possible to picture how they work. Not so with semi-conductors.

  • @LMacNeill

    @LMacNeill

    6 жыл бұрын

    Lowell Thomas!!! *That* was his name!! That was driving me nuts -- I knew I knew him, but I couldn't think of his name at all.

  • @jamesplotkin4674

    @jamesplotkin4674

    5 жыл бұрын

    @@LMacNeill Did you not observe the opening credits?

  • @drewthompson7457

    @drewthompson7457

    4 жыл бұрын

    I learned electronics in the tube days. You could follow a schematic and see what happens. One of the later TV's i repaired, from the tuner, the signal went into a big chip, and various signals came out for video, audio, verticle and horizontal drive. What was wrong? A big difficult to replace chip. A projector I worked on had a huge chip in it. Over 200 pins, soldered into different levels of a 7 layer PC Board. The projector was scrapped.

  • @Perktube1

    @Perktube1

    4 жыл бұрын

    I had decent training on semiconductors. You just needed flukes and O'scopes to help.

  • @tjmpls4905

    @tjmpls4905

    4 жыл бұрын

    Mike, Your description of your single tube regenerative radio kit sounds very much like a kit I had in the late 1950s. It used a 45 V “B” battery and a standard 1.5 V D cell for the “A” battery. It was a breadboard design, as you describe, and had a 3-4” upright wood piece on the front to hold the variable capacitor for tuning and a potentiometer for the regeneration control. I don't recall if the power switch was built into the pot, or a separate switch. It had a single headphone with a spring metal piece the fit over your head. You could also connect the headphone to different fahnestock clips and allegedly use it as a radio transmitter with the headphone serving as the microphone. I never had much success with getting that to work. A few years later I got an updated version of the same kit. Instead of the breadboard, it now fitted into red plastic case. While now more portable, you still needed to hook it to an antenna and ground to use it. I hadn’t though about this radio for a while-thanks for the memory jog.

  • @Dinkledorpher
    @Dinkledorpher9 ай бұрын

    Very nice. I grew up with tubes in the Air Force as an electronic tech in the Cold War. I have many in my collection, including some Marconi tubes.

  • @vingotaq777
    @vingotaq7775 жыл бұрын

    And even today the Vac Tube is still being used in high end Hi -Fi , Respect for those technicians of the past

  • @vittoriobacchiega9118

    @vittoriobacchiega9118

    5 жыл бұрын

    I" m using a microphone preamplifier built for audio recordings and I have an hi-fi preamp and amplifier for a high efficency loudspeakers. The tubes have again best performances for specific purpose where the mechanical requirements are not primarly requested (audio and RF power transmitter, magnetron it's a vacuum tube and X ray tube, night vision device use a photomultiplicator).

  • @garygreer1854
    @garygreer18546 жыл бұрын

    Excellent, thanks for posting this.

  • @spacemissing
    @spacemissing5 жыл бұрын

    Big companies don't always make the big innovations. Western Electric did a lot of the hard work in developing rugged and durable tubes, but it was two imaginative brothers working in a modest building in a small village (Halcyon, CA, a mere 15 miles or so from where I live) --- and later at Stanford University --- who came up with the klystron.

  • @tetrabromobisphenol

    @tetrabromobisphenol

    5 жыл бұрын

    Yep, the Varian brothers, the founders of what is now Silicon Valley.

  • @jourwalis-8875
    @jourwalis-88754 жыл бұрын

    What fantastic machines they had in the 40s to manufacture these tubes. Even if there were much manual work also.

  • @scottwolf1131
    @scottwolf11319 жыл бұрын

    My Transcendant Sound T -16s are OTL,Output Transformerless, Amplifiers. 16 Russian 6C19PI Military grade triodes/channel. A buck seventy a piece,surplus from Russia, in the circuit they make magic. Far superior to the Class A MOSFET amps I was building. This video , amazing History, many thanks.

  • @airborne2876
    @airborne28766 жыл бұрын

    Beautifully inspired short document!

  • @peterw4338
    @peterw43383 жыл бұрын

    One error being "elections speed through the cables" is incorrect. It is the electrical flow that speeds; electrons pass along the cable at a snails pace.

  • @christophermontilla4748
    @christophermontilla47485 жыл бұрын

    I remember poring through voluminous works about early endeavors into electronics. Thanks to the discipline Mr. Edison and others after him who exerted much time and effort to bring us the science and technologies we now enjoy at the comfort of a finger

  • @904C5ZOSIX
    @904C5ZOSIX3 жыл бұрын

    Finally, I have 14 tube amplifier. Least I know how they are made. 😊👍

  • @gantmj
    @gantmj3 жыл бұрын

    This is better than "How It's Made".

  • @Rodedog55
    @Rodedog552 жыл бұрын

    This contribution here posted, is a joy to watch and appreciate. Thank you a million times over ! Thank you for posting it, and allowing the people to learn from it. I was overjoyed !!!

  • @briang.7206
    @briang.72063 жыл бұрын

    The repeater tube made by western electric was an amplifier used in underwater telephone lines. Western Electric made many improvements to the vacuum tube.

  • @mr.crighton9491
    @mr.crighton94912 жыл бұрын

    my 1969 Fender Super Reverb amp is still rocking loud with those tubes, still original. Techs love to see the amp and handle those tubes.

  • @pedroruiz3943
    @pedroruiz3943 Жыл бұрын

    My HS chemistry teacher showed this in class once. I finally watched it without falling asleep after all these years.

  • @8BitNaptime
    @8BitNaptime9 ай бұрын

    I love these films, the amount of toil that went into making them is amazing.

  • @njmikec
    @njmikec7 жыл бұрын

    I love this. Thank you.

  • @draalchemist
    @draalchemist6 жыл бұрын

    I love these videos. I have some tube radio receivers working, a tube tester and lots of circuits diagram. I enjoy actual technology, but I still love tubes and old transistor hardware. These things are important to me for the history they have behind. Thanks for uploading this❤❤❤

  • @ricdale7813
    @ricdale78133 жыл бұрын

    Absolutely beautiful presentation and of Great Historical Technical significance.

  • @midcenturymodern9330
    @midcenturymodern93302 жыл бұрын

    These films are like time travel to me. Fascinating stuff.

  • @BigEightiesNewWave
    @BigEightiesNewWave4 жыл бұрын

    Hand soldering leads.. wow ! So much hands-on work performed!

  • @waterheaterservices
    @waterheaterservices3 жыл бұрын

    What a enjoyable film!

  • @RX3AKT
    @RX3AKT3 жыл бұрын

    Отличный фильм! Выбило слезу от ностальгии. Сколько дырок в ладонях получено от удара анодного напряжения в несколько тысяч вольт! Электронные лампы живы! HAM radio sins 1972. Born 1953. 73!

  • @TheNeonRabbit
    @TheNeonRabbit5 жыл бұрын

    And they make my guitar amp sound great

  • @ReRey
    @ReRey3 жыл бұрын

    You did me return to fantastic period of vac tubes 😭 i remember my diperation research PL95 for sound system

  • @rjlchristie
    @rjlchristie3 жыл бұрын

    Thermionic valves make for the best sounding amps and will never die. Hook 'em up to a trio of single coils with selector switch in position 4 and you'll be smokin' dude.

  • @jr2904

    @jr2904

    Жыл бұрын

    Sorry man, but digital has replaced that. Amp models in 2023 can produce the same sound

  • @rjlchristie

    @rjlchristie

    Жыл бұрын

    @@jr2904 Some people like processed cheese, others artisan made real deal. Actually, digital technology models an ideal sound (or think of it as typical response of an amp style or even that of particular existent amplifiers. As such they present a fixed transfer response subject to input parameters. A real hard-wired tube amp is far more organic and variable and plays that way too. They're personal.

  • @stevenmandeli6932
    @stevenmandeli69325 жыл бұрын

    Amazing robotics and talented women. Never knew how complicated it was to make a vacuum tube. Too bad the transistor would soon make those machines and talents obsolete.

  • @jimc3688

    @jimc3688

    4 жыл бұрын

    They mostly explained simple three element triode tubes. Pentode, five element, were soon to follow. Dual tubes and subminiature also came later. Lots and lots of other types as well. Having a 2” thick RCA, Sylvania, or GE tube catalogue was a very prized possession.

  • @terrylm235
    @terrylm2355 ай бұрын

    Good to know the value of the vacuum tube.

  • @Perktube1
    @Perktube14 жыл бұрын

    Wonderful explanation.

  • @klbird
    @klbird7 жыл бұрын

    The Russians and Chinese and some eastern European Companies still make tubes for the revived HI FI and Guitar tube market worldwide!

  • @ZilogBob

    @ZilogBob

    5 жыл бұрын

    Didn't RCA sell a lot of their tube making gear to them when they decided that vacuum tubes are "obsolete"?

  • @JDAbelRN

    @JDAbelRN

    3 жыл бұрын

    I am willing to wager there are millions of New Old Stock stashed in old warehouses, basements, old abandoned television repair shops worldwide. Better hang onto them, plus the equipment that they ran on, when Chinese take over all chip manufacturing. ...🇨🇳😀😀☠.

  • @SI-ln6tc

    @SI-ln6tc

    2 жыл бұрын

    How come I'm not surprised.

  • @johnb332
    @johnb3324 жыл бұрын

    Lowell Thomas, the voice American's loved to listen too.

  • @yardleybottles6025
    @yardleybottles60255 жыл бұрын

    Great vid. Thanks!

  • @anchorbait6662
    @anchorbait66625 жыл бұрын

    In the video the guy says they build 100 million new tubes a year. Now days they have billions of transistors or "tubes" inside a single piece of silicon.

  • @alexbara9837
    @alexbara98373 жыл бұрын

    So clear, so simple, so smart

  • @jamesslick4790
    @jamesslick47903 жыл бұрын

    20:23 proves that the term "High Fidelity" was NOT a '50s creation (as I have read WAY to many times..)

  • @michaeldomansky8497
    @michaeldomansky84976 жыл бұрын

    Love It! Thank you.

  • @falautomation
    @falautomation3 жыл бұрын

    I love the monkeys grid control analogy of vacuum tubes

  • @Langkowski
    @Langkowski9 ай бұрын

    Imagine working with custom-made and (at least partly) hand-crafted vacuum tubes. Not many of those jobs left.

  • @youreale
    @youreale7 жыл бұрын

    Fascinating.

  • @LionheartNh
    @LionheartNh3 жыл бұрын

    I remember when these were in televisions. We called them valves in England but of course vacuum tube is their proper name. I miss the orange glow of these wonderful components.

  • @james-p

    @james-p

    3 жыл бұрын

    It's true that they actually are valves - thermionic valves to be exact! I'm American but I tend to use the English name because it is more precise. A light bulb could be called a vacuum tube, but it is not a thermionic valve. I have a valve radio from 1961 so I still get to see some orange glow when I want to - and it still sounds really good :-)

  • @rowlandh25
    @rowlandh253 жыл бұрын

    Awesome video

  • @Lion_McLionhead
    @Lion_McLionhead3 жыл бұрын

    If so much manual labor was required for every modern transistor, you'd need friends in high places just to compute a prime number.

  • @chem100
    @chem1003 жыл бұрын

    Very interesting and informative.

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