Bench Talk

Super Bowl LII fans in the stands will expect flawless cellular and Wi-Fi performance, and viewers at home will expect multi-view, action-packed, real-time coverage. The mammoth technology infrastructure supporting Super Bowl LII should deliver on both.

Every now and then you come across a real gem on the internet. My father was a Coast Guard electronics technician early in his career, and it’s interesting to be able to talk with my dad about electronics stuff. This morning he sent me a link to a site with old Broadcasting and Audio Engineering magazines going back to the 1920s. I look at this ad in Figure 1 from Audio Engineering of June 1949 and have to ask: “What is a Triode?” Triodes are vacuum tubes, boys and girls. Isn’t it interesting that audiophile “purists” today would buy these very tubes for a glowing, more thrilling audio experience? Admittedly, tubes are more interesting to look at than solid state.