I looked on Amazon and Ebay and I couldn't find that exact t-shirt - with the moving out of water on the left end.
But there are a lot of fairly similar ones, just not quite as good.
Accordion Jokes?
- Thread starter BellowBoy
- Start date
I looked on Amazon and Ebay and I couldn't find that exact t-shirt - with the moving out of water on the left end.
But there are a lot of fairly similar ones, just not quite as good.
Rodney
Active member
The same one, with seated accordionist, is further down the page
The same one, with seated accordionist, is further down the page
I can see ones with seated accordionists, but they don't have the first 2 life forms exiting the water.
^^^^^^^^^^^
I can see ones with seated accordionists, but they don't have the first 2 life forms exiting the water.
^^^^^^^^^^^
Pretty Please!!
Can anyone say where this exact image can be bought?
Rodney
Active member
Here’s a joke on me, I saw a post talking about valves in an accordion, can anyone guess what my first thought was? (I did have subsequent thoughts!)
Transistors and integrated circuits replaced them decades ago?
JCarl
Member
mtj
Member
I believe I copied picture from the Accordion Love Facebook group. I suggest scrolling through that groups timeline. Or post the pic there and ask where to buy it.
Rodney
Active member
Yay Ffingers, you got it but might have revealed your … erm … maturity, as did I!
micahcowan
Active member
Oh, interesting! You referred to, e.g., "radio valves", and "telly valves", and the like, then? Over on this side of the pond, I've only ever heard them referred to as "tubes" or "vacuum tubes", which, honestly? Probably led to confusion at some point, as to whether someone was speaking of high-voltage electronic switching/amplification, or of corporate memo distribution systems.
I like "valve" a little better, as it more-or-less describes the practical functionality of the thing.
Also, I learned a few years ago that in Japanese, a CRT is referred to as a buraun-kan, or "Braun tube", after its German inventor. Does anyone in Europe refer to it similarly?
I know "Braunsche Röhre" just as somewhat dated terminology referring to the kind of tube used in oscilloscopes with electrostatic deflection. Once you use magnetic deflection like in TV sets, the generic descriptive term "Kathodenstrahlröhre" (quite literally the same as CRT) tends to be used instead.
Xiane
Active member
I think a "valve" sounds cooler than "tube" to Americans, as well. An old valve sounds tough and industrial, whereas a "tube" is something that breaks pretty often. Which is true whether it's a valve or a tube.
Rodney
Active member
Do Americans refer to heart valves? I ask because I thought it was fairly standard usage.
Re. vacuum tubes…
In the pre-digital age, all I knew in the northern USA who dealt with electronics as experimenters, developers, and repair, and hobbys always referred to the old devices as “vacuum tubes” or “tubes” for short. We NEVER used or said the word “valve” in this context. The term “valve” was reserved for mechanical or electro-mechanical things which controlled flow of fluids and gasses under pressure or vacuum.
Vacuum tubes were almost expected to go bad occasionally, mostly from the heated filament burning out (like a incandescent light bulb). Every electronic store, hardware stores, and even some drug/5&10 stores had tube testers you could come in and use, and kept filament of the most common tubes for sale. TV’s, radios, and amplifiers used tubes, heated by electric filaments so the inside would glow when the back or cover was removed. There was AC wall voltage and higher voltages involved so understanding and care was necessary when working on the devices - so easy to make a mistake and get injured. The charge built up inside a TV CRT was enough to knock you backwards if you forgot to discharge it. Almost no batteries in use and they were expensive heavy, bulky, and didn’t hold much power. Different tubes functioned as switches, parts of oscillator circuits, and signal amplifiers.
The first large computers were full of 100s and 1000s of tubes and required special cooling. The ENIAC computer (precursor to the UNIVAC had over 17000 tubes! Very large and sometimes high-voltage tubes were used in commercial transmission, radar, and military/industrial applications. (But note that even the high-speed digital supercomputers today require extensive cooling, massive air conditioning system, to keep them functioning - the one I worked on had a separate cooling dedicated plant.)
WIth the invention of the transistor and solid state components everything changed. Low voltages could be used for amplification, frequency generation, and switching. Around here, these were also never referred to as “valves” although conceptually could have been. As scientists and engineers learned to make circuits smaller and use operate with less heat, the density of the transistors and other components on a single chip or circuit board could be increased drastically, operating speeds increased exponentially, and the power requirements went to trickles. When the figured out how to make display screens with tiny solid state array everything changed again and CRT screens went away, even in in oscilloscopes. (My latest oscilloscope is small, completely digital with a solid-state display, multi-channel storage scope and cost a fraction of what oscilloscopes were not too long ago!)
Another part of the revolution was digital storage, especially static ram that didn’t lose it’s data when powered down. Old computers and big commercial calculators used tape to store data. At an auction once I bought a calculator storage box which consisted of a long, flat filled metal tube - a delay-line memory. An magnetic type actuator on one end sent mechanical pulses up and around the long spiral. A sensor at the other end detected the pulses and sent them back through the circuits to be amplified and reapplied as pulses to the beginning. Without this memory, the calculator couldn’t hold easily hold a series of numbers for advanced calculations! Amazing.
BTW, old computers were hot items at tech auctions - high bidders tore them down to recover the gold, used extensively in the circuit boards and some wires. A big profit-generator.
Today’s tiny digital electronics are the only reason we call all cary powerful computers and high-resolution cameras in our pockets that will run on very little battery power. And the reason I can have a 75” high-resolution TV in my house, only an inch thick! (and the reason that if something goes wrong in a digital circuit it is almost always cheaper to replace the board or screen than repair it!) Just for fun, tear apart a modern pocket cell phone sometime and look at the circuit boards - you need a microscope to see some of the components. But there is still a tiny bit of old technology - for example the vibration notification you feel is a tiny electric motor spinning an off-balance weight on a shaft! (or at least it was a few years ago.) Also, peel apart the multiple layers of the screen and wonder about the function of each.
Imagine your life today with no such digital devices! Even implanted pacemakers, MRIs, and a huge array of medical diagnostic and treatment devices. It’s amazing (except for the young who have no clue.)
I have very few tube devices left. I have one tube-type AM/FM radio in the original wooden case, the electronics completely restored. It’s now hard to get used to what was normal - switching it on and waiting for the tubes to warm up before it works - we are so spoiled by instant-on everything!
I still have a few CRT devices, several small monitors I use for security and a few other special uses. One perhaps interesting thing - when in high school we “geeks” looked forward to the science fairs every year. Some friends were amazing - one guy invented a continuously-operating cloud chamber and got himself a job offer at Westinghouse. Another guy Paul P, built an impressive functioning jet back pack that was so scary when test fired on the bench none of us were brave(stupid) enough to try wearing it. I know a guy who built a glass laser from scratch, blowing the glass and everything. Another friend, Julius, broke open old TV CRT screen, scraped the phosphor off the inside, and coated the inside of a glass plat. With vacuum pumps, a home-built vacuum chamber, and a bunch of high voltage electronics and tubes built his own working electron microscope! (It was huge because of all the support equipment). Needless to say, he won the Best of Show that year! Our self-worth was measured in how many award medals in our collection! Most of the geeks went on to become successful inventors, scientists, software designers, and such. (A few, however learned to manufacture and synthesize street drugs and went down a darker path on the far side of the law.)
—- End of blog —-
JKJ
In the pre-digital age, all I knew in the northern USA who dealt with electronics as experimenters, developers, and repair, and hobbys always referred to the old devices as “vacuum tubes” or “tubes” for short. We NEVER used or said the word “valve” in this context. The term “valve” was reserved for mechanical or electro-mechanical things which controlled flow of fluids and gasses under pressure or vacuum.
Vacuum tubes were almost expected to go bad occasionally, mostly from the heated filament burning out (like a incandescent light bulb). Every electronic store, hardware stores, and even some drug/5&10 stores had tube testers you could come in and use, and kept filament of the most common tubes for sale. TV’s, radios, and amplifiers used tubes, heated by electric filaments so the inside would glow when the back or cover was removed. There was AC wall voltage and higher voltages involved so understanding and care was necessary when working on the devices - so easy to make a mistake and get injured. The charge built up inside a TV CRT was enough to knock you backwards if you forgot to discharge it. Almost no batteries in use and they were expensive heavy, bulky, and didn’t hold much power. Different tubes functioned as switches, parts of oscillator circuits, and signal amplifiers.
The first large computers were full of 100s and 1000s of tubes and required special cooling. The ENIAC computer (precursor to the UNIVAC had over 17000 tubes! Very large and sometimes high-voltage tubes were used in commercial transmission, radar, and military/industrial applications. (But note that even the high-speed digital supercomputers today require extensive cooling, massive air conditioning system, to keep them functioning - the one I worked on had a separate cooling dedicated plant.)
WIth the invention of the transistor and solid state components everything changed. Low voltages could be used for amplification, frequency generation, and switching. Around here, these were also never referred to as “valves” although conceptually could have been. As scientists and engineers learned to make circuits smaller and use operate with less heat, the density of the transistors and other components on a single chip or circuit board could be increased drastically, operating speeds increased exponentially, and the power requirements went to trickles. When the figured out how to make display screens with tiny solid state array everything changed again and CRT screens went away, even in in oscilloscopes. (My latest oscilloscope is small, completely digital with a solid-state display, multi-channel storage scope and cost a fraction of what oscilloscopes were not too long ago!)
Another part of the revolution was digital storage, especially static ram that didn’t lose it’s data when powered down. Old computers and big commercial calculators used tape to store data. At an auction once I bought a calculator storage box which consisted of a long, flat filled metal tube - a delay-line memory. An magnetic type actuator on one end sent mechanical pulses up and around the long spiral. A sensor at the other end detected the pulses and sent them back through the circuits to be amplified and reapplied as pulses to the beginning. Without this memory, the calculator couldn’t hold easily hold a series of numbers for advanced calculations! Amazing.
BTW, old computers were hot items at tech auctions - high bidders tore them down to recover the gold, used extensively in the circuit boards and some wires. A big profit-generator.
Today’s tiny digital electronics are the only reason we call all cary powerful computers and high-resolution cameras in our pockets that will run on very little battery power. And the reason I can have a 75” high-resolution TV in my house, only an inch thick! (and the reason that if something goes wrong in a digital circuit it is almost always cheaper to replace the board or screen than repair it!) Just for fun, tear apart a modern pocket cell phone sometime and look at the circuit boards - you need a microscope to see some of the components. But there is still a tiny bit of old technology - for example the vibration notification you feel is a tiny electric motor spinning an off-balance weight on a shaft! (or at least it was a few years ago.) Also, peel apart the multiple layers of the screen and wonder about the function of each.
Imagine your life today with no such digital devices! Even implanted pacemakers, MRIs, and a huge array of medical diagnostic and treatment devices. It’s amazing (except for the young who have no clue.)
I have very few tube devices left. I have one tube-type AM/FM radio in the original wooden case, the electronics completely restored. It’s now hard to get used to what was normal - switching it on and waiting for the tubes to warm up before it works - we are so spoiled by instant-on everything!
I still have a few CRT devices, several small monitors I use for security and a few other special uses. One perhaps interesting thing - when in high school we “geeks” looked forward to the science fairs every year. Some friends were amazing - one guy invented a continuously-operating cloud chamber and got himself a job offer at Westinghouse. Another guy Paul P, built an impressive functioning jet back pack that was so scary when test fired on the bench none of us were brave(stupid) enough to try wearing it. I know a guy who built a glass laser from scratch, blowing the glass and everything. Another friend, Julius, broke open old TV CRT screen, scraped the phosphor off the inside, and coated the inside of a glass plat. With vacuum pumps, a home-built vacuum chamber, and a bunch of high voltage electronics and tubes built his own working electron microscope! (It was huge because of all the support equipment). Needless to say, he won the Best of Show that year! Our self-worth was measured in how many award medals in our collection! Most of the geeks went on to become successful inventors, scientists, software designers, and such. (A few, however learned to manufacture and synthesize street drugs and went down a darker path on the far side of the law.)
—- End of blog —-
JKJ
Rodney
Active member
FYI: Colossus, a British state secret until relatively recently
en.wikipedia.org
"Flowers and his team of some fifty people in the switching group[41][42] spent eleven months from early February 1943 designing and building a machine that dispensed with the second tape of the Heath Robinson, by generating the wheel patterns electronically. Flowers used some of his own money for the project.[43][44] This prototype, Mark 1 Colossus, contained 1,600 thermionic valves (tubes).[41] It performed satisfactorily at Dollis Hill on 8 December 1943"
"Colossus and the reasons for its construction were highly secret and remained so for 30 years after the War. Consequently, it was not included in the history of computing hardware for many years, and Flowers and his associates were deprived of the recognition they were due."
Colossus computer - Wikipedia
"Flowers and his team of some fifty people in the switching group[41][42] spent eleven months from early February 1943 designing and building a machine that dispensed with the second tape of the Heath Robinson, by generating the wheel patterns electronically. Flowers used some of his own money for the project.[43][44] This prototype, Mark 1 Colossus, contained 1,600 thermionic valves (tubes).[41] It performed satisfactorily at Dollis Hill on 8 December 1943"
"Colossus and the reasons for its construction were highly secret and remained so for 30 years after the War. Consequently, it was not included in the history of computing hardware for many years, and Flowers and his associates were deprived of the recognition they were due."
Dingo40
Been here for ages!
... and, had it not performed, it would have been the biggest faulty Christmas tree lights exercise ever, to find the faulty tube
I think you have no proper grasp of the lifetime of tubes and/or the consequence when thousands of them are involved. It was standard procedure for valve computers to have weekly maintenance running an extended program for hours at increased voltage and replacing all tubes that failed. And of course the maintenance program did most of the job of pinpointing the respective tubes.... and, had it not performed, it would have been the biggest faulty Christmas tree lights exercise ever, to find the faulty tube
Scaling up power and space was feasible (though quite costly), but reliability was the crucial limiting factor for building larger computers with valves. Like these days battery chemistry lifetime is sort of a permanent issue with all kinds of electronic devices.
Xiane
Active member
I think the harder thing to grasp perhaps, these days, is that such machines were major technological, and in many cases, strategic efforts. So the maintenance engineers you mention would always be working. The budget, and support staffs, were enormous.
I can't comment on Bletchley Park, but a family member worked for IBM in Houston, at NASA during the Apollo mission days. His job? To be ready, during the day, and on call, in case any sort of high government official, dignitary or other important person should be visiting Johnson Space Center, and want to see the marvelous Real Time computer installation.
He could answer any non-classified question, and on scheduled visits was meant to research the visitors and anticipate questions they might ask, or want answered. (And had a small library for this, and could call some sort of research librarian contracted to IBM for more information.) He was an electrical engineer, but was so personable and quick on his feet, he was given this job. Most days though? He did nothing. Sat at his desk and studied to change jobs, because while he met all sort of people, it was mostly really boring.
But this machine was so crucial to the space program, and so highly visible, they assigned a reasonably important IBM employee to wait around, full time, to make sure the project was presented in the best possible possible light, and everyone who saw it went away happy and impressed.
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