The boffins of the day, sadly all passed years ago, from Mullard, told us that if the heater gets too hot, the control grid also heats and can emit electrons as it reaches a dull red, as a direct result of excess heat. This in turn affects the electron flow to the anode producing unwanted results including a shifted bias point which was the cause of the 'computer' failure at the time.
Fabulous.
As I'm entering my 7th decade, I too am struck by the
undeniable fact that whatever-all electronic engineering
“stuff” I've accumulated … is someday, probably not far off, going
“bye-bye”. Not a single 'kid' of my children's or grandchildren's generation has shown even a remote interest in the actually rather straight forward, but still also complicated math findings of the electrical engineering world. Not a one.
Maybe tho', this isn't
much different from growing up as a
“brainiac” in the 1960s. There weren't many boys interested in electronic things. Oh, plenty knew about points, dwell, ignition coils and condensers. Some knew something about relays, switches, household power, transformers and maybe even diodes and resistors. But electronics? Rare. Even then.
My school only had single-room-single-grade-level classes, about 35 kids as a pod, going from first to eighth grade together. In my class, 2 of us. In the class ahead fo us, 3. In the class behind, 1. So, 6 of us heading to the much larger high school. Once in HS tho', I found
ONE additional guy from all the feeder schools, interested in things-electronic. Only 1. So, 7 of us …
When my 3 kids went to-and-thru grade school, there were none. In high school, exactly 1 girl and 1 boy turned out to be interested in things electronic. The girl went on to become a medical doctor. The guy became an Air Force pilot.
Just saying… I don't see a large body of up-and-coming kids taking on the mantle of
“re-learning all these fascinating rules and findings”. I just don't.
And frankly, maybe it doesn't matter.
Because we are FAR, FAR from the consumer-oriented world of bespoke built electronics. Heck… at The Wife's bidding, I just took apart a double sub-bass speaker plus 5 surround-speaker setup, Yamaha 7 channel amplifier, fabulous cables, all the rest, and gave it away for free on Craig's List. Why?
Because she was tired of it not working with the Roku (or Amazon Fire…)
“stick” on the TV.
Hence why ..
“maybe it doesn't matter”.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡
GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅