[HN Gopher] The Vacuum Tube's Power Law [pdf]
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       The Vacuum Tube's Power Law [pdf]
        
       Author : SongofEarth
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2022-10-15 09:12 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (vaclavsmil.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (vaclavsmil.com)
        
       | readingnews wrote:
       | I find it modestly interesting that he is comparing power density
       | (of tubes) to transistors per unit area (moors postulate, its not
       | a law)... I think it could be worth noting the Dennard scaling
       | here, in that the power density of transistors (chip wide) is
       | remaining nearly constant due to us lowering the Vdd of the
       | transistor on every generation of reducing the channel width.
       | 
       | So, the tubes got much more powerful, the transistors are getting
       | more numerous, but at the same time using less and less power
       | each.
        
         | initramfs wrote:
         | There is also Koomey's Law https://rhombus-
         | tech.net/whitepapers/ecocomputing_07sep2015/
         | 
         | If I had a master's thesis, it'd be that the increased system
         | requirements of bloated software upgrades prevents Koomey's law
         | from allowing solar powered smartphones and laptops:
         | https://hackaday.io/project/177716-the-libre-autarkic-laptop
         | Working prototype (not mine) : https://www.freethegameboy.info/
        
       | engineer_22 wrote:
       | Vaclav Smil is a great scientist
        
       | jakedata wrote:
       | Extrapolating from this chart, Spinal Tap's amplifiers which went
       | "up to 11" in 1984 would now be approximately seven orders of
       | magnitude more powerful. Ear protection is advised.
        
         | crmd wrote:
         | I design tube guitar amplifiers.
         | 
         | (1) excellent reference
         | 
         | (2) that was a 100 watt JCM800 Marshall in the scene. 7 orders
         | of magnitude increase means the amp's output transformer would
         | look something like this[0] which is pretty rad
         | 
         | [0] https://www.westrafo.com/15-gw-of-transformer-power-
         | shipped-...
        
         | InCityDreams wrote:
         | https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Disaster_Area
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-16 23:01 UTC)