Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mark (AE2EA), with the Antique Wireless Museum who shares the following:
This isn’t a SWL, or even a ham radio story, but it’s a nice technology story about a vacuum tube at the beginning of the digital age and near the end of the tube age, that I thought you might be interested in:
Computer guy here & this is amazing! It immediately reminded me of this & was probably derived from it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube