Computer Audio Asylum

Posted by Ryelands (A) on May 26, 2010 at 09:07:11

In Reply to: RE: Wavelength Crimson posted by rick_m on May 26, 2010 at 07:54:55

To give the English their due . . .

Rick, I think you'll find that's British - as in "give the British their due".

To be fair, the inventor of the thermionic valve (1904) was of course an Englishman born and bred, J A Fleming (he of the handy rules of good administration - never let your right hand know what your left one is doing).

As it happens, he was both a student and later a highly distinguished professor at the university I went to many years later. His contribution is recorded IIRC by an august portrait in an austere lecture hall somewhere or other. (It's been a while - it could have been an austere portrait in an august hall.)

They never asked me for my picture.

. . . the tube itself will more likely survive an EMP.

I'm sure you know that old story of the captured Soviet fighter plane amusing the USAF engineers who were pulling it apart on account of its seemingly ancient valve-based radio equipment. It took them a while to cotton on.

Soviet knowledge of the effects of EMP on communications kit owed much to the habit of testing nuclear devices in remote but populated (and thus electrified) areas of Kazakhstan, a practice whose grim consequences are still unravelling and look set to do so for a while yet.

Did I mention "British"?

Dave