Mercury use (WAS RE: hospital surplus)

[William Donzelli]

> I love the old names for thermionic devices; we've lost that knack for
> naming.  Any gas-filled thermionic diode is a phanotron, any vacuum-filled
> diode is a kenotron.  So an 866 is a phanotron (has mercury), but a 5U4 is
> a kenotron.  A vacuum triode is a pliotron and a gas triode is a thyratron.
>  Ya gotta love it!

Outside the marketing department of General Electric, nobody actually used
these terms, other than thyratron.

William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org