Vacuum Tubes

Vacuum Tubes

Vacuum tubes are just what the name implies, a glass tube which has been evacuated so that electrons can travel across it easily, creating a current. Vacuum tubes are close cousins of the light bulb: they have a filament that must be kept glowing at all times, which consumes power and burns out. However, they do provide a fast sort of electrical switch, and were therefore used to build some first-generation computers, like the ENIAC. They were also a popular electronics technology (you've heard of vacuum tube radios, right?) and were in ready supply. They provided an adquate, if bulky, first generation computer technology
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