A tube caddy was a very large carrying case sometimes with hundreds of compartments for vacuum tubes. They were carried by repair technicians who did home service calls in the days when radios and television sets were too large and heavy for the average homeowner to bring to the repair shop. The tube caddy had to be large enough to hold several of each type of tube likely to be needed on a typical day of service calls so that the technician did not need to return to the shop during his rounds. Because tubes are quite light the caddy did not have to accommodate a large payload and could also be constructed with very light materials so the overall package weighed far less than it appeared to. Most repairs could be effected with the replacement of tubes since there were few other active components in electronic equipment at that time so this was a very efficient way to accomplish fixes.
Famous quotes containing the word tube:
“One of the great natural phenomena is the way in which a tube of toothpaste suddenly empties itself when it hears that you are planning a trip, so that when you come to pack it is just a twisted shell of its former self, with not even a cubic millimeter left to be squeezed out.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)