This is an old photo I took over 4 years ago, but the subject is so old that it doesn’t matter 🙂 It’s some sort of vintage tube-based circuit board displayed in Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. I think I remember reading that no tube equipment actually went to space, so this is most likely some Earth-bound piece of equipment, but still it seems to be well put together. It may give some ideas when laying out guitar circuits point-to-point.

And another photo of some sort of doomsday tube device. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure my tube amp wants to be just like that when it grows up. Sixteen miniature and just as many large bottle tubes! It would make a hell of a guitar amp 🙂

Finally, here’s a photo of an early transistor. Doesn’t look much like TO-92 we use today 🙂

Speaking of NASA, here you can download the NASA Technical Standard for Soldered Electrical Connections. There are some good tips on soldering and circuit board construction in general. Maybe we’re not sending our amplifiers to space, but still we want them to last for long time and trouble free.