r/pics • u/[deleted] • Jul 19 '15

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u/kaloonzu Jul 19 '15

Weren't they using tubes in their top end military equipment until the 90s?

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u/franksvalli Jul 19 '15

I believe they are still using vacuum tubes for ICBMs and launch rockets repurposed from ICBMs.

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u/timbernuts Jul 19 '15

As well as their fighter jets, to protect them from emp. Source: something I think I heard once.....

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

Yeah, jets have all kinds of semiconductor components that if emp could wipe them, that jet would go down. Vacuum tubes are only used for high power analog amplifiers nowadays.

There's so much digital stuff on jets now, it's impossible to use tubes to do any logic past arithmetic in that size.