Greetings!
TubePad 6.0 Beta release: Now Available!
I have finished the basics of TubePad 6.0, and am posting
it as a Zip file from the TubePad page. For those who are
using the older browsers (pre I.E.4) i am keeping TubePad 5.0
up as well. There had been a delay in posting this zip file
to my site because of the fairly large size. Seems that
this server just didn't like it, so i found a doner site
(one of the sites i develop and manage) and was able to place
the file there. So the link you see on the TubePad page is
indeed active, just not to my site ( for those who like to
right click web pages to read the HTML. Hey, i encourage
that practice, best way to learn the art and mystery of
web-weaving!)
The Beta version has still needs some updating, for instance i plan to add VR tubes to the "Short List", and more schematics to the "Schematics" links. Apart from that, and the possibility of adding another calculator, she's pretty well done.
As usual, there are those who for some reason or other cannot download these programs. Let me offer some advice:
These are not executable files. All they are are image and html files, similar to what you would find on a web page. When they are downloaded, i recommend the use of WinZip 8.0 to unzip them. You can download WinZip's evaluation version at their site. These are not self executing zip files, although some have suggested i make them so. I chose not to from my own experiences with them. If all fails, and your on-board unzipper just won't unzip them, contact me. I can, for a small charge (primarily the cost of production) provide you with a CD in two different formats, the mini or standard CD. Burning, handling, 2 cups of coffee, and shipping would come to 5 bucks U.S. Obviously, i am not in this for the money. Feel free to Contact Me.
Also, i plan to make available scalable dial faces, a sample of which is posted on the TubePad page, both in encapsulated post script and Adobe Acrobat (.eps and .pdf). This will be another continuous work in progress. The culmination of this will result in a new version of TubePad: 7.0.
Scalable Dial Faces: these are vector designed, as such one needs to have a vector application to manipulate them. The .pdf version can be viewed and printed from Adobe Acrobat. Eps can be manipulated by Corel Draw, Quark, and other systems. Simply download the file, and she's all yours. You might have to ungroup the components of the dial to change, for example, the number fonts, or do whatever changes you may want. Naturally, you can scale it to whatever size you need. If you have Adobe Illustrator, and find the .eps does not convert well, let me know, i will post a third file in that format, too.
A Tube "Short-List":
This is one of the TubePad 6.0 features which
i decided to release on my site in beta form. It is set up similarly as
the rest of my site, with the scrolling nav. bar containing the tube designations.
Each tube is a link to an info page which is shown in the main window. The
pages are fairly packed with appropriate information as i could find it
in the various source materials i have on hand. Note that while there are
over 12,000 different varieties of tubes, i have endeavoured only to treat
the tubes which are: 1- Consistently used in simple radio projects through
the years, 2- Not hard to find or order, 3- Not exotic. In our hobby we
usually do not utilise even 5 percent of the varieties available.
Now, having said that, know that the Tube Info page is constantly in a
state of updating, and i will be adding more tubes, and also putting
the ones i have listed (about 120 types) in alphabetical order!
Note that the tubes are grouped according to their types: Diode, Triode,
Tet/Pentodes, Visual Indicators (yet to be added), Multigrid or multi-element
tubes, and Voltage Regulator tubes.
I hope you find this tube "Search-List" handy
vy 73 es good Providence in all your endeavours.
gary // wd4nka