Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tubes can also just be very _clever_ in a way that transistors generally are not. For instance, counting tubes that would contain a decimal counter in a single glass bubble (that's quite a few transistors even in TTL, and about twice as many in CMOS). Multiple approaches to building such tubes existed. This is one: https://lampes-et-tubes.info/cd/cd053.php?l=e Or the complicated and impressive storage tubes, that wou…
That RAM component is wild. Do you know if there are any equivalent analog RAM components today? By which I mean RAM elements that are similarly capable of storing an analog as opposed to a digital signal.
For a while, you could get things like bucket-brigade CCDs for analog signals (used for reverbs and suchlike). They're still made in small quantities, I think, by boutique operations like Xvive.
Also, there was the ISD ChipCorder, which was actual analog Flash. (Current devices are digital, but the old ones were for a while sold as "MLS ChipCorder" by Nuvoton.)