What Do We Need to Know About Yesterday's Technology?

[popeyespappy]

In High School I was taught vacuum tube technology (mhos and transconductance, grid bias and thermionic emission) and maybe I haven't used it much, but it gives me an understanding of the 'big picture' that freshly graduated techies these days do not have.

Me too, and I spent several years working on tube driven radar systems afterwards. I still piddle around with rebuilding the occasional old audio amp every now and then.

What today's generation needs to know about vacuum tube technology is that if they want to buy the mid 60's Marantz 8b currently sitting on my workbench is they need to bring a stack of Ben Franklins when they come to pick it up.