© 2000 High Voltage Press, Oregon, USA
I had always believed that first came the vacuum tube, then the transistor, period. But, thanks to an old US Navy tech manual sent in by a reader, I’ve discovered a third "lost" entity. Electronics engineers of the 1950s believed that the rugged little magnetic amplifier was going to replace the fragile vacuum tube in all its functions under a megacycle.
Originating in the USA but adopted and developed by the Nazis for the V-2 missile, the mag amp after World War II found a clique of boosters among US electronics engineers. This document, unusually passionate and well written for a military tech manual, is their promotional brochure.