[Milsurplus] Re: kicking ourselves for what we didnt buy back then

[J. Forster]

Scott Johnson wrote:

> At the same time, strides
> were being made in the electronics art so fast that almost everything
> designed for and even during the war was obsolete by its end, hence the
> large glut of electronics after the war.

I disagree with this part of your assessment. Certainly lessons learnt in WW II
were making their way into service, but the move was evolutionary rather than
revolutionary. ART-13s were in service into the early 60, for example. There was
certainly a general reduction in size and weight and a move from octal tubes to
7 and 9 pin miniature and eventually to some subminiature, but these changes did
not render the earlier systems completely obsolete.

Only in the mid 60s when transistors developed to the point they could perform
most functions, except RF power amplifiers and CRTs, did the WW II stuff become
really obsolete.

Just my $0.02

-John

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