The Vacuum Tube
(1942-1954)

Western Electric Vacuum Tube
A Western Electric 408A Tube

The Vacuum Tube (also know as an Electron Tube) is a device used to amplify, switch, modify, or create an electrical signal by controlling the movement of electrons in a low-pressure (vacuum) space.

Vacuum tubes were used extensively in early, first generation, computer systems during the mid 1940's until the Mid 1950's when they started to become replaced by Discrete Transistors. In 1954, Bell Labs built the first computer without vacuum tubes, the TRADIC.



Early Vacuum Tube computer systems:
  • ABC (1942)
  • COLOSSUS (1943)
  • ENIAC (1946)
  • UNIVAC I (1951)
  • WHIRLWIND (1951)
  • IAS (1952)
  • IBM 701 (1953)

 




Vacuum Tubes from an early 1950's IBM Computer

IBM vacuum tube
An IBM computer vacuum tube assembly from the 1950's
 
 

 

Some Memorabilia with Vacuum Tubes

 




IBM Vacuum tube
IBM Computer 'Electronics at Work' Ad (1950)
ibm vacuum tube computer
IBM Computer 'Piercing the Unknown' Ad (1951)
 
 



Vacuum Tubes > Transistors > Micromodules > Hybrid Integrated Circuits > IBM SLT > Integrated Circuits


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