feast your ocular orbs on this cross section of a miniature Nuvistor vacuum tube.
RCA published a really nice cutaway drawing with annotations.
and here is the Nuvistor, flanked by a "miniature" vacuum tube on the left and a transistor from the same era on the right. RCA's Nuvistor was just a micro-miniaturized vacuum tube they felt could beat the transistor. (it did not.)
@tubetime never heard of this before. So cool.
@tubetime my parents threw out my nuvistor and valve collection while I was at university in th 1980s ☹️. Nuvistor kit would have survived EMP effects from atom bomb much better than transistor kit as I understand it, which was something on our minds back then!
@tubetime I dimly recall someone selling very expensive nuvistor-based hifi amplifiers in the 90s, back when there was still cachet in valve amplifiers

@tubetime found it: https://ebay.us/m/fGBNTd

Still very expensive!

Musical Fidelity Nu Vista 800 Integrated Amplifier | eBay UK

This is an amplifier that will drive virtually any loudspeaker you put in front of it with complete authority and finesse. Lovely sounding amplifier everything works but the casework has a lot of minor marks as seen by the images.

eBay UK

@tubetime

Check hamfests if people want to find some. They were used in early 60's Motorola PT-100 Handie-Talkies

https://www.ebay.com/itm/389641463449

Motorola Handie talkie radiophone vintage Walkie Talkie 1950-1960 untested | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Motorola Handie talkie radiophone vintage Walkie Talkie 1950-1960 untested at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

eBay
@tubetime I'd never heard of these until a recent YT video by 8-bit Guy. I don't even remember seeing them in the electronics I poked around in when I was a kid. I guess they were pretty spendy to make as they hadn't had a chance to scale production much, so they didn't make it into a lot of stuff. But, wow, what a cool lil dude. If semiconductors weren't a thing, we could've eventually had Pip Boys instead of smart phones (probably wouldn't have been very "smart" though).
@tubetime
I can't imagine what a pain in the ass it was to get a good vacuum in a metal can, not even counting the seal around each pin…
@RealGene they'd gotten really good at metal/ceramic seals by that point.