Little helper and his lightbulb

[Frank Stajano]

At 2002-05-22 14:45, Theresa Wiegert wrote:
 >But in the old days, if I am remembering correctly, little helpers head
 >looked more like a hmm. an electrical component you used before you got
 >the transistor. I have no idea what the name for that is in english (tube,
 >perhaps?) (elektronrör in swedish, perhaps someone can help me?), i e not 
a lamp at
 >all, but some kind of semiconductor device (??)

It's called a vacuum tube (fairly generic name). It is indeed what we used 
in electronics to rectify, amplify, etc, before inventing solid-state 
diodes and transistors. It is not, however, a semiconductor: in it, current 
flows through vacuum (hence the name), not through silicon. Its 
construction is actually rather similar to that of a light bulb, and indeed 
the first vacuum tube rectifier was invented as a modification of the light 
bulb. (Credentials: I am an electronic engineer and I even teach young 
people who want to become engineers, although I certainly don't teach them 
about vacuum tubes ;-))

Apart from the electronics nitpickery, anyway, as far as I can tell the 
little helper never had anything that fancy for a head, just an ordinary 
light bulb.

   Frank (filologo disneyano) http://www-lce.eng.cam.ac.uk/~fms27/