Remember going to the grocery store with a bag of tubes?
If they did not have the tube you needed, you could look it up in the "substitution book"
I always wondered -- "If the tube was actually the same, why did it have a different number?"
I had a substituted tube in my Predicta, I used this chart/link to double
check. When I bought new tubes, I replaced it with the original type.
The Online Tube Substituting
Chart
Buying Tubes at the Y2K (2000)
Though I have designed many electronic circuits, both analog and digital, I never designed anything that used tubes. I figured that it would be next to impossible to find replacement tubes for the Predicta. To my surprise, on the internet, you can buy just about any tube, brand new. It seems that in Russia, China and a few other Eastern countries, they still manufacture tubes abundantly. Lucky for me!
Check out these sources for purchasing tubes, actually much less expensive than they were 30 years ago!
I ordered from:
Radio Electronic Supply
http://www.vacuumtubes.net/index.html
Here is my order confirmation:
Electron Tube Enterprises
http://members.aol.com/etetubes/
Brent Jessee Recording
http://www.enteract.com/~brentjes/bjtubes.htm
Old Picture Tubes
I am really not sure that you can buy a new picture tube for a Predicta, but I ran across this site and thought I should include it here.
Harry Poster
http://www.harryposter.com
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