Where Tubes Rule; The Solid-State Century; Scientific American Presents; by Riezenman; 2 Page(s)

"Passion" and "cult" aren't words one normally associates with electrical engineering, but they do come into play the minute tubes are mentioned. Vacuum tubes, that is to say. Audio tubes, to be precise.

For the uninitiated, which you almost certainly are if you're younger than 40 years of age, vacuum tubes were the active electronic devices used by primitive peoples before transistors and integrated circuits were invented. In fact, in the early part of this century, the very word "electronics" referred to a branch of physics concerned with the behavior of electrons in a vacuum.