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

[@knightwatchman]

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.

[@JohnMichaelson]

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]

+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]

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]

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

[@ShaunDreclin]

@@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]

@@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.

[@MrPhred]

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]

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]

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

[@eugenecbell]

POV NW, why are you an ass?

[@michaelinglis8516]

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]

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.

[@frozencanuck3521]

The vacuum tube assembly line process is amazing to watch.

[@SigEpBlue]

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]

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]

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]

You could never show that analogy as an example today, anywhere but KZbin, 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]

@@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]

@@porkyfedwell ha!… true.

[@randyhenry2477]

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

[@ananda_miaoyin]

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.

[@howardsimpson489]

I am your age. My father gave me some small vac tubes and told me how to use my batteries to get them to work. I have loved them ever since.

[@manusudha4269]

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

[@lsq7833]

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]

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]

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

[@jr2904]

​@@jimc3688 shut up jim

[@ericastier1646]

You're comparing apples with oranges. Your microprocessor transistors are only used as fast switches, they're most suitable for digital data and a digitized world of data. The beauty of vacuum tube is their full analog capability. Thus instead of millions of semiconductor integrated transistors to encode and decode audio only a hand full of vacuum tubes is needed. And the tube audio sound is still warmer more natural to the ear than digital audio. To this days many audiophiles recognize that. It's just that with the production of tube having gone to next to none, it is no longer commercially possible to design vacuum tube audio systems. Yet the modern integrated transistor is not superior in all regards.

[@scottcasper187]

This was the best explanation I’ve yet seen

[@JohnRaschedian]

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

[@ericastier1646]

snowflaky remark

[@coldwar1952]

"....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.

[@AJFreeway]

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]

+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]

+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]

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

[@SlyPearTree]

That filament is what is called a directly heated cathode.

[@baronobeefdip2]

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.

[@Alex-zc8ds]

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

[@johneygd]

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]

Actually, FETs were already invented and being experimented with.

[@AlexBesogonov]

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

[@zordmaker]

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]

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]

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

[@camerond8176]

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]

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

[@huntsbychainsaw5986]

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

[@BrEaKiNg_Brad]

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

[@howardwayne3974]

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]

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

[@grendelum]

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

[@Rodedog55]

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 !!!

[@RX3AKT]

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!

[@vingotaq777]

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

[@vittoriobacchiega9118]

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).

[@rjlchristie]

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]

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

[@rjlchristie]

@@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.

[@garygreer1854]

Excellent, thanks for posting this.

[@904C5ZOSIX]

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

[@Lion_McLionhead]

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

[@robertansley6331]

I’ve always been amazed at manufacturing machines, jigs, presses, wire winding system to make a grid. Fascinating and I’m not smart enough to understand how engineers know how to make these machines.

[@lukesmith2725]

Imagine the tens of thousands of people across the country who contributed to the design and manufacturing of these. It’s amazing how progress stimulates need and once that need is met, progress outdates them and makes them obsolete.

[@philbox17]

We can see it in electronic, as the continuity and developement of the light bulb. Required for the first Radios and Televisions, it became the Transistor. What is fascinating, is that H.G Wells wrote War of the Worlds with Tripods in 1898 before it existed and was created in 1904. The first models of Fleming, look exactly like the Tripods of War of the Worlds. Many in ancient Arts and Science fiction predicted the future, inspired it. It is important in History. Transistor was a Mini-Tripod.

[@TheNeonRabbit]

And they make my guitar amp sound great

[@walterpaton8698]

The number of tubes needed in a coast to coast call is staggering.

[@njmikec]

I love this. Thank you.

[@anthonymokelkie9360]

in end days knowledge would increase says Daniel. It was meant to be that great inventors would discover the radio, the tube , so his word might be broadcast through out the whole earth !

[@jimmyhuesandthehouserocker1069]

Look at all the good jobs there were for people back then, what are all long gone today

[@KeritechElectronics]

Absolutely fascinating video! Who knows, maybe some of the tubes shown were the 2A3's and 300B's that reach astronomical prices on audiophile markets today? To see all those people working on the machines... Makes me appreciate their work even more - given that a lot of them was constantly exposed to heat, hazardous materials (barium etc.) or asbestos, which wasn't known for its carcinogenic properties yet. I bet OSHA would have the place shut down for good if those were the modern times. Modern plants like JJ, Svetlana and probably some others operate at much smaller scales now, given that they vastly limited the range of tubes they offer. Anyway, I'd love to make vacuum tubes on a lab scale, but getting my hands on the materials and equipment is near impossible...3

[@rwashi]

I remember when I used to change those old vacuum tubes on the old entertainment radio gramophone in the '60s as a kid.

[@sammcrae8892]

Stability treatment. Generally called burn in now. Pretty much all Electronics components go through a similar process.

[@desertbob6835]

I still have almist 100 WeCo tubes in my stock. The 350Bs go for $1650 apiece. No finer tubes were ever made.

[@holywells]

I totally agree, and I would love to have a couple dozen of the Western Electric 300B's!!

[@desertbob6835]

@@holywells I sold out of '50s-era 300Bs years ago to the 'single-ended' freaks, and many 417A triodes to the same crowd. I still have 310A (6C6) pentodes and 311B triodes, as well as some 403Bs (6AK5) for the discerning tube RF crowd., The idiot Long Lines first line I worked for at the time told me, "Get rid of his junk," including a few retired 101A power amplifiers and Altec audio distribution amps, and oh brother, did I! Thanks for augmenting my pension, dumbbell! Sometimes, the good guys win. As far as longevity, in the '80s I pulled many a 101F out of V1 repeaters that were installed when the repeaters were...1938. 40+ years' service, and still tested as new.

[@maliguesthouse.malicoffee]

I learned something new today

[@goncalovazpinto6261]

"...the electrons would have to bump their way through them like midgets in a subway crowd!" 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

[@ClipontheEar]

Er… there seems to be someone missing between Edison and De Forest. The name John Ambrose Fleming might fill the gap. He invented the thermionic valve which De Forest adapted into his Audion, now known as a triode. The Fleming valve is now called a diode.

[@1mchartmann]

The world was a better more simpler place when tubes ruled.

[@MrQuijibo]

You do know what was going on in the world in 1940 right?

[@cengeb]

hahahahaha, yup

[@escapefelicity2913]

Gotta love that hokey orcrestra

[@TaylorBlack0]

Holy fuckin' hell that transmitter tube is fucking massive!

[@effyleven]

The martial music is so over the top, isn't it? At the very least I thought it was War of the Worlds. As a schoolboy I once saw huge "tubes" operating in a cupboard. They were at the Doddinghurst Post Office Radio Station, near Brentwood, Essex, England. My visit would have been just 20 years after this little film. The technology has moved on since then, but not the radio communications station. It has gone.. it is houses now, and I am sure they all have fast Internet connections.

[@yardleybottles6025]

Great vid. Thanks!

[@shopdog831]

dont you miss when tv promotional videos and commercials actually took the time to explain why there product worked better than other products and not just say. OUR PRODUCT IS AMAZING LOOK AT THEASE STATISTICS THAT MEAN ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO YOU.

[@BixbyConsequence]

"Can you remember the telephones of a generation ago?" -- Oh you mean flip-phones?

[@garynash7594]

You just can't, can't,.... CAN'T! Beat a vacuum tube for Sound!!!😬... ( course I work on old tube amps!!😁) I love them glowing glass bottles ❤️. 👋

[@chrislj2890]

As amazing as the vacuum tube itself is, just think that all of that machinery that created every step of production had to be designed and drafted with paper and pencil before modern computers, and then machined and built without the benefit of CNC. America was fantastic back then.

[@RiczWest]

This is brilliant! Thankyou so much :-) I'm interested to know what the audience for this film was?... Scientists, Students, Public?

[@spitfeueranna]

1:10 - a million others owe their internet porn addiction to the vacuum tube

[@СергейС-н2ю]

Да развитие технологий, но лампы это было что то! Они прекрасны, их магия настолько притягательна

[@desmisc9911]

The American Way of Life. JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

[@BullProspecting]

Seems the vacuum tube kicked off a revolution in communication! That is so cool! The ether that contains atoms, can these waves be harnessed using a similar vacuum tube to generate free energy? Just curious!

[@pjimmbojimmbo1990]

I will call the first one shown, 'The Ol Radiation King' must have been dangerous to be within 100 ft of that thing

[@chem100]

Very interesting and informative.

[@sanjeevn4276]

way better than watching netflix shit. i really loved the explanation

[@awaismushtaq5719]

❤❤❤❤❤ marvelous, beautiful

[@Moronvideos1940]

I downloaded this

[@philg4116]

vacuum tubes are similar to large gas cylinders and propane tanks in that the are both self-aware and constantly think about killing you

[@tylercooper1551]

If you find any western electric tubes these days they're worth a ton of money

[@RogerEverett]

Is "Mister Thomas" here the famous radio star Lowell Thomas? Think so. Sounds like him.

[@richardcommins4926]

I even remember the TV repairman scam. He would come out to your house and work on your broken TV that just had wavy lines instead of a picture. He would pull out 3 or 4 tubes and claim they were bad at about $30 each. He would then claim you could go down to the department store and test them on their tube tester and they would test good, but they were really bad he would claim. He would then say they were weak and needed replacing. As a young 7 year old watching the TV repairman, I then noticed he adjusted the horizontal frequency adjustment on the back of the TV to fix the problem. The next time the horizontal adjustment went out, I saved my parents around a $150 (a months rent then) for a TV repair bill by just adjusting the horizontal adjustment potentiometer at the back of the TV. How many millions were scammed from the people? How about when your TV didn't work at all and you called the TV repairman. He would come in and just plug in your TV and give you a bill of about $85 for the service call. What a rip off! This is why I became an electronic design engineer. Today you have over 1 million of these tubes just in your cell phone! That is called progress. What did these engineers get for their reward, laid off. I think a better job today for the laid off electronic design engineers would be a cell phone or computer repairman!

[@christ2290]

"Like midgets in a subway crowd" lol

[@AamirBilal]

Watching this on a vacuum tube.

[@garytafoya8859]

AMAZING

[@burdofr7524]

think about it they used vacuum tubes to make this video very interesting history

[@metalboy00]

Ahhh none of those Chem lab people are wearing gloves 😱😱😱

[@tetrabromobisphenol]

Thorium dioxide, it's what's for dinner!

[@charlotteriddle7303]

Now, Quantum Computers are being made with vacuum tubes :)

[@luisreyes1963]

Funny that such antiquated technology like vacuum tubes are still embraced by audiophiles with their expensive custom made sound systems. 🎧

[@weinerdog137]

Easier, perhaps, to be proud of being an American then. What an interesting piece of information. Striking to me the audience this addresses.

[@Grobbekee]

Cool factory

[@chansetwo]

John Fleming invented the vacuum tube.

[@richardt4824]

all those workers and the announcer all gone like the vacuum valve ,all had there day , all hail the mighty Transistor !

[@barndancer6149]

If you have a microwave oven in your home, then you still use a vacuum tube. ...not quite gone yet. Guitar amplifiers will probably NEVER use a transistor.

[@kevinmiller4486]

Soon after came the invention of the transistor.

[@the_moo000oon]

6:58 there, thats the video

[@pathikkandhari]

What is your job profile?I clean repeater tubes at western electric

[@vinylcity1599]

Nothing gives you fuller sound than the "vacuum tube"! Nowadays it seems they are purposely making things worse!

[@andiarrohnds5163]

"25 years ago" haha, oh hahaha

[@rsalek]

Did he say "like midgets pushing their way through a subway crowd?" . Did anyone else catch that? 🤣🤣

[@rsalek]

I knew I should have scrolled down!

[@davidthelander1299]

So what?

[@davidthelander1299]

Since when did the term ‘subway crowd’ or ‘midget’ become offensive?

[@veganath]

Bravo!!

[@ViktorEngelmann]

9:22 [...]puts a hundred million KZbins to work each year :-D

[@sludge-en9on]

cool video

[@telescopereplicator]

10:54 ... I can : a googol times !! A googol is a 1 with a hundred zeros. The name googol was introduced in 1920, 20 years before this film was made. He could have known the name for this number. :-)

[@dickJohnsonpeter]

*Vacuum tube:* I'm like a modern day Aladdin's lamp! *Transistor:* Hold my beer...

[@gavincurtis]

*Qbit:* There is a disturbance in the force...

[@VigilanteAgumon]

After an EMP attack: Vacuum tube: Who's laughing now?

[@kwoods3379]

CPU water cooling in 1940

[@AckzaTV]

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

[@StephenJamieson]

When the CPU was literally one transistor

[@punman5392]

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

[@ericastier1646]

@@StephenJamieson No, that is not the proper difference to notice. It was a fully analog device with infinite continuous states, while computers uses transistor in only two states for binary coding.

[@NestorCustodio]

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

[@Kamel419]

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

[@adamogilvie6951]

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]

Estados Unidos a llamada internacional a Paraguay los 1940

[@daytondario6216]

instablaster...

[@nickimtamyirmidortharfli..]

​@@adamogilvie6951 you bought 86??

[@Wandrng_drifter]

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]

MOSFET: I'm going to wreck the transistor.

[@ananda_miaoyin]

@@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!?

[@dhepaksomu]

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

[@pascoaiandreta9964]

Nice to learn english.

[@simonzinc-trumpetharris852]

​@@pascoaiandreta9964that's not English.

[@Guitcad1]

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

[@ronalddaub9740]

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]

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

[@kovy689]

@@LangkowskiSame with schools today

[@waylondeming1209]

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

[@juliam.mallen9019]

Well said 👌🇺🇸🦅

[@mikicerise6250]

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]

we all got dumber thanks to low education standards.

[@PhaQ2]

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]

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]

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]

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

[@robertcuminale1212]

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

[@grendelum]

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

[@Teewriter]

Well thanks for the reminder.

[@foureyedchick]

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]

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]

I remember when they installed the machines

[@jamesslick4790]

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

[@thermionic1234567]

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

[@nagakamo]

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.

[@ElectricBlakeGames]

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

[@nagakamo]

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]

@@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]

@@porkyfedwell Some did.

[@jamesmcdonough440]

W3pmv

[@drewthompson7457]

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

[@jimc3688]

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

[@dondesnoo1771]

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

[@mydogbrian4814]

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

[@jr2904]

​@@mydogbrian4814 you're out of your mind

[@mydogbrian4814]

@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? 🙄👎

[@TheScreamingFrog916]

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

[@JJceo]

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

[@robertthomas4329]

Genius

[@LMacNeill]

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]

I love midgets. They make great pets 😐

[@Kelvin5378]

@@povnw8985 and great snacks

[@robb1859]

sounds like a jim carr joke

[@goodun6081]

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

[@js4653]

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.

[@cengeb]

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

[@chriskazaglis]

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.