The Saga of the Vacuum Tube
Tech's Filing Cabinet Miscellaneous General Electric RCA Tube Tech Semi Tech Audio Radio Components

The Saga of the Vacuum Tube is a series of 23 articles by Gerald Tyne that appeared in Radio News between March 1943 and April 1946 that described the history of vacuum tube technology from the dawn of electricity to about 1920. There are many photographs and references. These articles were the basis of Tyne's 1977 book (described below) also named The Saga of the Vacuum Tube.

Some of the articles below were scanned from my own collection. The rest, marked with an asterisk (*) were extracted from pdf files downloaded from the worldradiohistory.com site. There were two articles labeled "Part 9", so I have labeled them "9A" and "9B".

Saga Part 1 - 3/1943 - 1672 to 1780 - to Ben Franklin

Saga Part 2 - 4/1943 - 1800 to 1840 - to Samuel Morse

Saga Part 3 - 5/1943 * - 1851 to 1897 - to Edison Effect

Saga Part 4 - 7/1943 * - Fleming Valve

Saga Part 5 - 8/1943 * - Patents & power diodes

Saga Part 6 - 9/1943 * - Lee DeForest

Saga Part 7 - 10/1943 * - DeForest Audions

Saga Part 8 - 11/1943 - LRS Relay Tube & other early European tubes

Saga Part 9A - 12/1943 * - Early Western Electric telephone repeater tubes

Saga Part 9B - 1/1944 * - Early versions of WE 101 tube

Saga Part 10 - 3/1944 - Other Western Electric tubes through 1918

Saga Part 11 - 4/1944 - Unusually-constructed Western Electric tubes

Saga Part 12 - 6/1944 - DeForest tubular audions & transmitting tubes

Saga Part 13 - 9/1944 - Langmuir's work at General Electric

Saga Part 14 - 11/1944 - Kenotrons, etc. - GE tubes from 1913 to 1921

Saga Part 15 - 1/1945 * - Radio amateurs & Independent tube manufacturers

Saga Part 16 - 3/1945 * - Moorhead's tubes

Saga Part 17 - 5/1945 - British telephone repeater tubes

Saga Part 18 - 7/1945 * - German telephone repeater tubes

Saga Part 19 - 9/1945 - British tubes 1911 to 1918

Saga Part 20 - 11/1945 - BTH Round & naval tubes

Saga Part 21 - 2/1946 * - French & German WW1 tubes

Saga Part 22 - 4/1946 * - More German WW1 tubes


In 1977, Howard Sams & Co. published Gerald Tyne's masssive update of the 1940s Radio News articles as the The Saga of the Vacuum Tube. Much of the original photos and data were included, but with updates and access to sources that were not available to him during World War II. The content is reorganized, and sections were added to extend the coverage to 1930. This book is currently available in reprint form here.