this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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[โ€“] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (10 children)

ITT: electrical appliances lacking electronics

[โ€“] memfree@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

What counts as electronics? Guitar speaker with vacuum tubes? Old rotary phone? Lamps so old the electric cords are covered in a hard fabric? If you require solid state / chips and boards rather than things that did the same function without them, you're excluding the stuff predating that tech.

[โ€“] Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think I would drive electronics as something where electricity is being used as a signal, not just for power. So lamp no, heater no, amplifier yes. Lamp with dimmer knob is borderline.

[โ€“] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Depends if the dimming is passive or active.

[โ€“] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[โ€“] spongebue@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How do you figure?

Vacuum tubes are called triodes, pentobes, etc depending on how many whatevers it has, do those count?

[โ€“] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yes, because there will be at least one "whatever."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics

[โ€“] memfree@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are thermionic diodes allowed or just semiconductor diodes? What about the early crystal diodes (subset of semiconductor). Did the Colossus computer count? Eniac? I guess particular items don't matter because no individual owns either and I doubt individual built replicas.

[โ€“] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[โ€“] memfree@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Per that definition:

Vacuum tubes (thermionic valves) were the first active electronic components... and by the 1920s, commercial radio broadcasting and telecommunications were becoming widespread and electronic amplifiers were being used in such diverse applications as long-distance telephony and the music recording industry.

So tubes are in! Old lamps are OUT!

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