# Science fiction and vacuum tubes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 8, 2022, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654 "2022-03-08T04:27:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/61 "2022-03-08T21:11:26Z")
Stepping back from vacuum tubes and science fiction for a bit, I always get a chuckle when reading an older book that mentions the POWERFUL computer someone has. And it turns out to be something like an Apple IIc. Or their PORTABLE computer, like an early Osborne. For an example, see the novel _Congo_ by Michael Crichton. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/62 "2022-03-08T21:16:33Z")
See the powerful computer used to “hack time” in Kung Fury [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/nO_DIwuGBnA/hqdefault.jpg "KUNG FURY Official Trailer HD") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO_DIwuGBnA) ---
**Author:** ![EastUmpqua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eastumpqua/32/6025_2.png) [@EastUmpqua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EastUmpqua)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/63 "2022-03-08T21:18:56Z")
A friend gave me a signed hardcover book, ‘Flash Forward’, by Robert J. Sawyer. It predicted that CERN’s Large Hadron Collider would send everyone on Earth into the future for a couple minutes when it tried to detect the Higgs boson in 2009, with severe consequences. That never happened. I know the book is supposed to be about fate versus free will. But I can’t get over the obvious story-line flaw. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/64 "2022-03-08T21:36:00Z")
I see at least 3 keyboards and two monitors, not to mention the Power Glove, seems pretty powerful to me. Just watch out for the Laser Raptors. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/65 "2022-03-08T21:38:34Z")
Sorry I somehow thought you were the OP. Brain fart. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/66 "2022-03-08T23:30:01Z")
I found an RCA Victor BP10 portable radio on eBay that predates transistor radios but uses vacuum tubes instead, dating from the early 1940s. Since the tubes require a high voltage to start working, it uses a 70-volt “B” battery - the size missing between AA and C and D sizes. Supposedly that was the type of radio used by POWs in WWII, like you see in the movies and Hogan Heroes. I don’t have a B battery so I don’t know if it works, but you can find those batteries on Amazon since they’re used in Geiger counters. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/67 "2022-03-08T23:33:12Z")
I still say that slide rules should be taught in high school. No, they’re not useful as a tool for their own sake, any more, not compared with digital electronics… But they’re wonderful for pedagogy. What better way to illustrate the properties of logarithms? And they also enforce a strict understanding of measurement and calculation error: You can’t report an answer to 16 decimal places (two of which are significant) on a slide rule. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/68 "2022-03-09T00:32:37Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > “Miniature” vacuum tubes aren’t particularly small. There’s certainly nothing “micro” about them. “Miniature” is a comparison to the [octal base tubes](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vacuum_tubes_octal,_miniature.agr.jpg) with their chunky bases that are almost big enough to fit a miniature tube into. Looks like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/diytubes/comments/kfjrj9/worlds_smallest_vacuum_tube_1%D0%B625%D1%80_a_penthode/) is the smallest tube you could actually buy. Cute little thing at about 3mm diameter. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/69 "2022-03-09T02:27:41Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > If by “gas” you mean oxygen and methane or other combinations of oxidizer and fuel, then no, not at all. I thought it would be obvious that was not what I meant. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/70 "2022-03-09T02:34:24Z")
Gasoline/LOX rockets are uncommon but not unheard of. Robert Goddard used that combination for this first rockets. It was used for various other experimental engines as well. Kerosene is a better hydrocarbon in almost every way, though. Of course, any _actual_ starship is going to need a fuel with a bit more kick than chemical propellants can provide. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/71 "2022-03-09T02:37:24Z")
I thought it was obvious that I was aware of that. But my analogy would be far closer to the anachronism in the example story than yours. Oxygen and methane are current state of the art rocket fuel, gasoline isn’t, and never was. An author who talks about refueling their oxygen and methane could be accused of not being imaginative as to what the future may hold. An author who talks about getting gasoline would rightly be accused of not having any idea as to what he is talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/72 "2022-03-09T02:38:50Z")
I remember one of my college professors handing out slide rules to the class to drive home some sort of point. I can’t remember for sure what he was talking about but i think it was logarithms. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/73 "2022-03-09T02:43:38Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > And I think Cal’s missing the big picture in the story. The plot concerns an artificially-grown being (not a clone) adapted to Jupiter who is being psionically controlled by a handler 1200 miles above the surface. That’s as many advanced future concepts as the reader needs to deal with. Perhaps I haven’t explained my point clearly enough. The issue is not that a science fiction author needs to predict the actual technology that will be in use five hundred years in the future. The issue is that a science fiction author should try to avoid references that will make a story look dated a few years after it was written. Science fiction authors do this by a process known as “making shit up”. If you’re describing how a starship works, say it uses dilithium crystals. That’s total nonsense but it won’t get outdated. Something like dilithium crystals works today and will still work fifty years from now if somebody is reading your story then. In “Call Me Joe” the stuff about manned missions to Jupiter, genetic engineering, and artificial telepathy were all made up. So as story devices, they work as well today as they did back in 1957. It’s the mention of vacuum tubes that looks ridiculous. And it was a foreseeable development in 1957. If I was writing a science fiction story in 2022 about a character in the future, I wouldn’t have that character watching a DVD. DVD’s are still around in 2022 but I can foresee that they may disappear before too long. So somebody reading my story in 2045 will think _“Why would somebody in the future be watching a DVD? Nobody’s done that in years.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/74 "2022-03-09T03:53:35Z")
Nobody thought that way in the 1940s or 50s. Really. It was far more important to show readers that they understood _current_ technology. That was the basic ethos of Campbellian sf. That was why Heinlein had his characters use slide rules to guide spaceships. Besides, even in 1957, when older sf was beginning to get reprinted, nobody really thought that their work would be read 60 years in the future. The entire history of sf magazines was only 30 years long at the time, yet the early stories had been virtually entirely forgotten. Magazines were as ephemeral as newspapers. They were bought, read, and discarded. SF fandom is a totally weird phenomenon. Who reads the fiction published in any other magazines from 1957 (except for a tiny handful of big names)? I’ve done enormous amounts of research into sf history, and I can’t find any examples at all of writers writing for future readers. Science fiction is always about the present, and always about what readers in the present will think. That’s as true today as it was in 1957. And always will be, probably the only prediction about the future I can be 100% sure about. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/75 "2022-03-09T04:06:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In “Call Me Joe” the stuff about manned missions to Jupiter, genetic engineering, and artificial telepathy were all made up. Jupiter exists, and at the time, we had no reason to think that it didn’t have a surface. Genetic engineering was a thing, though in its infancy, and psionics was believed to be an emerging scientific field (we know better now, or do we?). The author was not “making shit up”, he was extrapolating into the future the developments of science and technology from how it was currently known. Get into dlithium crystals, and you have left Science Fiction for Science Fantasy, a genre where authors did just “make shit up.” > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > DVD’s are still around in 2022 but I can foresee that they may disappear before too long. So somebody reading my story in 2045 will think _“Why would somebody in the future be watching a DVD? Nobody’s done that in years.”_ Another example from Babylon 5: whenever a connection is cut off abruptly, the screen goes to static. When’s the last time you saw static on a screen? Shouldn’t JMS have predicted that analog signals would be a thing of the past by the 21st century, much less the 23rd? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/76 "2022-03-09T04:09:10Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Besides, even in 1957, when older sf was beginning to get reprinted, nobody really thought that their work would be read 60 years in the future. The entire history of sf magazines was only 30 years long at the time, yet the early stories had been virtually entirely forgotten. Magazines were as ephemeral as newspapers. They were bought, read, and discarded. > > SF fandom is a totally weird phenomenon. Who reads the fiction published in any other magazines from 1957 (except for a tiny handful of big names)? I’ve done enormous amounts of research into sf history, and I can’t find any examples at all of writers writing for future readers. Science fiction is always about the present, and always about what readers in the present will think. That’s as true today as it was in 1957. And always will be, probably the only prediction about the future I can be 100% sure about. I know you’re a published author. I am not. But do authors generally think that way? I feel if I was an author, I would not want to think that the stories I was writing were that disposable - that within a few months of their publication they will be forgotten and never read again. I would want to tell myself that my work will live on and believe that somebody will still be reading my stories long after I myself am gone. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/77 "2022-03-09T04:10:49Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Get into dlithium crystals, and you have left Science Fiction for Science Fantasy, a genre where authors did just “make shit up.” You feel _Star Trek_ is not science fiction? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/78 "2022-03-09T04:14:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But do authors generally think that way? Authors write to the audience that will buy their books now, not some hypothetical audience that may exist in the future. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > within a few months of their publication they will be forgotten and never read again. That actually _was_ largely the mentality of those who were writing for magazines. You point to Poul Anderson, but for ever Anderson or Asimov, there were dozens if not hundreds of authors who got read once in the magazine, then forgotten and never read again. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I would want to tell myself that my work will live on and believe that somebody will still be reading my stories long after I myself am gone. People _are_ still reading these stories, as “dated” as they are. Most are not as taken out of it by poor predictions. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You feel _Star Trek_ is not science fiction Certainly not Hard Science Fiction. May qualify as Soft Science Fiction, which is a nice way of saying Fantasy with some pseudoscience elements. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/79 "2022-03-09T04:55:09Z")
I’d put it that writers always hope that their work will live on. But no one, no matter how talented, can write for people in the future. You can’t work on a story and wonder if a throwaway line about technology will look dated to people in 500 years or 50 years or 5 years for that matter. Every line will be, though, and in ways you’d never think of. Sure, sf writers have a special burden in this respect. Clifford Simak did an interview in the early 50s and was told by the interviewer that a story of his that had just been reprinted as part of _City_ mentioned an automatic grass-cutter and a newspaper had done an article on one a week earlier. Well, Simak said paraphrased, I kinda hoped that my predictions for the future wouldn’t be obsoleted in eight years. It looked good in 1944 or whenever, though. And _City_ is still read by fans although every thought, sentence, and individual line is hopelessly dated in a hundred ways Simak, the field’s leading humanist, would be mortified by. (Take a drink every time you find a female character, e.g., and be amazed how sober you are at the end.) Our modern ability to go back and read practically every story (see every movie, hear every radio show, etc. etc.) is something not just new in history but historically almost literally unimaginable. Yeah, Hemingway thought he was making art for the ages. So did the French mainstream painters who tried to crush the upstart Impressionists. A few artists become immortal and most secretly imagine they someday will be. In reality, the tv networks taped over almost all of early television because reusing the tapes was more economical than saving them in a warehouse for an imaginary future. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654/80 "2022-03-09T05:23:38Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > In reality, the tv networks taped over almost all of early television because reusing the tapes was more economical than saving them in a warehouse for an imaginary future. A fair amount of early TV and radio was just broadcast live, with no recording done at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-and-vacuum-tubes/960654.md?page=5)