On a CRT with storage for oscilloscopes or computer monitors, you looked at the stored image, which is why they were called "Direct-view bistable storage tubes".
On the Williams tubes, the processor read back the data stored in the tube, i.e. the stored image was used by the CPU, not by humans, so Williams tubes had no need to contain fluorescent screens. On a viewing tube, there was usually no need to implement a read back method, but only means for writing and erasing.
Both the Williams tubes and the direct-view storage tubes were derived from the iconoscope tubes used before WWII in the early television cameras, according to a proposal made in the famous von Neumann report. In iconoscope tubes, illumination caused by an external image projected on the tube face created an electric charge distribution inside the tube, which was read electronically, generating thus a video signal, so it was the inverse of a direct-view tube, where an electric charge distribution is written inside the tube, where it controls the fluorescence of the screen, creating an image that can be viewed outside. Both iconoscope tubes and direct-view storage tubes differ from simple CRTs by having inside an insulating or semiconducting surface on which a distribution of electric charge can be stored.
The Williams tubes were a form of DRAM. An even earlier kind of DRAM had been used in the Atanasoff-Berry computer, where it was implemented with discrete capacitors and John Atanasoff had been the first who proposed to make a computer memory based on storing electric charge and refreshing it periodically, to prevent discharging.
If they are fused on their faces, i.e. with the connection pins on their opposite sides, it may be a combination of a viewing storage tube with a TV camera tube, which could have been used for conversion between different TV standards, e.g. American <=> European.
I believe it's fused on the pin side >=<. I will double check and thanks for the idea. I'm about to start documenting all of the artifacts I have purchased over the past (gulp) 25+ years.
It's not a viable heat sink because it's a thermal insulator that doesn't support transport of heat. The thermal conductivity of lunar regolith is lower than rock-wool insulation,
(Imagine, for entertainment purposes, what would happen if you wrapped a running server rack in a giant ball of rock-wool insulation, 50 meters in radius).
Only way to dissipate large amounts of heat on the moon is with sky-facing radiators.
> "Maybe even smarter as there was no lead poisoning their brains!"
It's a good guess the people who made these artifacts (the bronze ones particularly) suffered from lead poisoning: lead was a primary alloying metal for bronze. You can even look up elemental analysis for BMAC bronze artifacts specifically: "...contain appreciable amounts of arsenic (up to 3%) and lead (up to 4%), as did bronzes of the preceding chronological horizons"[0].
The early smelting techniques simply released everything into the open atmosphere, as fine particulate fumes. Environmental samples going back 5,200 years show regional-scale lead pollution[1] from Bronze Age metals smelting.
("The smelting- and cupellation-related release of Pb into the environment is predominantly via the fine-particle fraction and, as such subject to large-scale atmospheric transport, resulting in a supra-regional to hemisphere-wide distribution9,10,11,20,21,22,23")
> "In September 2023, the Commission used unlawful micro-targeting on Twitter (X) to promote its heavily criticized chat control regulation... This move both undermined the established democratic procedures between EU institutions and violated the EU GDPR."
> "The installation will supply heat to the Vääksy district heating network and is expected to lower fossil-based emissions by approximately 60% annually, primarily through an estimated 80% reduction in natural gas consumption and reduced reliance on wood chips."
Those are the energy sources they're replacing with this tech - according to <https://reneweconomy.com.au/new-worlds-largest-sand-battery-...> it's surplus energy from renewables that will 'charge' the battery (so likely wind, hydro and solar that is produced but surplus to the grid's requirements)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43208973 ("Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting (bbc.com)")
5044 comments, or 5349 with "showdead"
I used a null query,
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity
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