ohhh those light bulb thingys in my guitar amp!

 

They were used the same as transistors between the time Julius Lilenfeld invented MOSFETs in the 1920's and Bell Labs commercialized bipolar transistors in the early 1950's.

 

Hi,
I worked in an electricity museum, with lots of odd equipment, but I'll save you from a long list.

My first house had gas pipes under the floor boards and in the walls.

I sold a high voltage oscilloscope on ebay, from here in the UK, to New York. The man asked me how much the postage would be and it was about £58. The item was quite expensive, but he paid up front including the postage, + £20 for my trouble. I tracked it to the NY postal depot, where they marked it 'incorrect address return to sender' I frantically search for the man to ask him to pick it up, but he was rather unconcerned. It arrived, to my relief.
The man is the New York vigilante (Look him up)
C.

 

Before I could really read, got a book about Marconi. (Mom read to me) I built a very simple spark gap transmitter. Used a lantern battery for power and coat hangers for antenna. Some where I have the telegraph key. Wound coils on toilet paper tubes. (was not pretty like the picture)

 

I didn't mean to troll you guys, I was at the tail end of the tube era, our Zenith TV had tubes... I had a blown rectifier tube in my electromagnetic vise, I replaced it a 4 diodes and it works great. I like the old stuff, they had so much presence... it's easy to tell people "don't touch" when you have 300-400 V plate voltage.

 

I didn't mean to troll you guys, I was at the tail end of the tube era, our Zenith TV had tubes...

Many of the early transistor TV's had a Vacuum tube in them for quite a while.
It was that thing you watched the picture on!

 

That’s true my first oscilloscopes had cathode ray tubes as well, I don’t miss having to move them.

 

The man is the New York vigilante (Look him up)
C.

That sounds like the old Charlie Bronson movies.

 

How about 48 Volt power plants for Telephone Exchanges using Magnetic Amplifiers? They were, perhaps, the first Solid State Devices.

 

I am surprised nobody mentioned this. I spent many nights when I was supposed to be sleeping listening to talk radio from San Francisco, 50 miles away.