We have AA batteries and AAA batteries. Why no A batteries?
The Master Speaks: “Virtually no one makes them today, or B batteries either.”
Here’s a picture of an A, B, and a C battery: http://exn.ca/Stories/1998/06/24/59.asp
This isn’t going to be easy------------
Back in the twenties, when I was in knickerbockers,Radios were NOT AC.
To make the radio functional ,DC voltages were required to make the vacuum tubes operational.
As I remember it–and I was just a boy at the time----The A battery provided the low voltages required for exciting tube filaments.
The B battery was used to provide the required higher plate voltages.
Together,but separately, they made the radio produce the sounds that RCA’s doggy could listen to.
Or so I remember it-----and the “fun” as a boy of putting my fingers across the terminals of the B battery and feeling that “BUZZ”.
But that’s what boy-kids did for fun on those"stay indoors" days!
I assume you’ve seen “Gatsby”----so you know what kniockerbockers are.
EZ
Just to make sure we don’t conflate them - the “A” and “B” batteries in old radios (which came in a variety of sizes and shapes, and different plate voltages were used for the B battery in different models) have nothing to do with the A, B, C, and D cell size designations as talked about in Cecil’s article - the manufacturer’s standard for cell sizes. A & B represent some sizes that simply proved unpopular, and not many manufacturers used them.
Previous rounds on both subjects:
The one that starts out about 9V cells sort of wandered off into this topic.
Off-topic nitpick: The RCA dog (his name was Nipper, BTW) was listening to a record, not the radio. The tagline, “His Master’s Voice,” alluded to the dog’s puzzlement at hearing his master’s voice coming from a record on the Victrola, in the absence of the man.
strangely enough I have had dogs tht reacted to the radio also.
'Z’matter of fact the animal couldn’t distinguish what the sound came from-just that it was there.
I claim crerative license!
Another interesting point - the artist originally did the painting with an Edison machine rather than a Gramaphone - he got the idea from Nipper’s behavior when confronted with a cylinder player he had.
He had trouble selling the painting. Among others, the Edison company turned him down (“Dogs don’t listen to phonographs.”). The newly formed Gramaphone Company finally offered to buy the painting from him if he would redo it with a Gramaphone instead of an Edison cylinder.
It’s perhaps also worth mentioning that the instrument pictured is not actually a Victrola - Victrola was the name the Victor Talking Machine Company gave to a line of phonographs with internal horns enclosed in a cabinet:
http://www.victor-victrola.com/
The Victor Talking Machine Company was the result of a merger of The Gramaphone Company with another phonograph company only a few years after they bought the “Master’s Voice” painting. A couple decades later, RCA acquired them and merged them with one of its own divisions into “RCA Victor”.
At this point I find myself wondering if “Strinka” ever did find out what an A battery is/was?
summing up for him/her—it’s a battery that’s long been unused---- into folk-lore.
Just like gramaphones and victorolas.
But not dogs---------they still perk up their ears at sounds!
EZ
WAG Are they the same as ‘knickers?’
I’ve used a device that required a ‘B’ battery – an x-radiation detector for calibration of x-ray machines. All the new ones are solid state, but this one used a tube somewhere in it’s circuitry. It required a ‘B’ battery and a couple of ‘D’ cells.
IIRC, the ‘B’ battery looked like an over-large 9-volt battery, with similar terminals on one end. I remember that it was an ‘Eveready’ battery with a black cat jumping through a ‘9’.
Aha! Here’s a picture – it’s the one next to the soup can.
From here is a nice discussion of how the batteries worked, and also how they got the names ‘A’, ‘B’, etc.
Yep!
Started out as knickerbockers,after the breeches worn by the Dutch in the ,then,New amsterdam;became knickers trough commmon usage, and also included the blousy version introduced by the Prince of Wales and which were known as “plus fours”.
Those latter became the unofficial uniform of the golfers of the day.
In those days a boy wore"stovepipes" which were like todays walking shorts but fit the thigh tightly and ended a couple of inches above the knee.
From there he graduated into knicker[+bockers in some areas].
After that period it was that glorious day when he got his first pair of longies!
As soon as he put on those longies he knew he had grown at least 4 inches over night.
Like the feller said-'Them was the days !"
EZ