feast your ocular orbs on this cross section of a miniature Nuvistor vacuum…

Tube🌞 Time@mastodon.social · 2026-04-05 22:46

Posted in 懷舊技術、產品

feast your ocular orbs on this cross section of a miniature Nuvistor vacuum tube.

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Tube🌞 Time@mastodon.social · 2026-04-05 22:46

RCA published a really nice cutaway drawing with annotations.

pencil drawing of the nuvistor will callouts for the cathode, heater, plate, grid, metal shell, and ceramic base wafer.

Tube🌞 Time@mastodon.social · 2026-04-05 22:47

and here is the Nuvistor, flanked by a "miniature" vacuum tube on the left and a transistor from the same era on the right. RCA's Nuvistor was just a micro-miniaturized vacuum tube they felt could beat the transistor. (it did not.)

the glass vacuum tube is about 4cm tall but it seems huge compared to the transistor and the Nuvistor. the Nuvistor is around the same diameter as the transistor but about twice as tall.

Pheedback Phil@mastodon.social · 2026-04-05 22:57

@tubetime my parents threw out my nuvistor and valve collection while I was at university in th 1980s ☹️. Nuvistor kit would have survived EMP effects from atom bomb much better than transistor kit as I understand it, which was something on our minds back then!

Mike Prior-Jones@mastodon.social · 2026-04-05 23:37

@tubetime I dimly recall someone selling very expensive nuvistor-based hifi amplifiers in the 90s, back when there was still cachet in valve amplifiers

Tube🌞 Time@mastodon.social · 2026-04-06 00:45

@grishka yes, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-emission_display

Field-emission display - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Tube🌞 Time@mastodon.social · 2026-04-06 02:45

@anthony i saw the video was released and realized i have a bunch of Nuvistor material. figured folks would like it.