Miniaturized electronic tubes

The invention of the transistor, more compact and reliable than any valve, and subsequently the progressive miniaturization and integration of solid state circuits, was the decisive phase for a rapid progress in computers tecnology. If not mistake, about the control of circuits dimension in the early era of electronic computers, for example, the "eniac" had valves "ad-hoc" of more compact dimensions respect to the traditional electronic tubes used in other technological contexts of the era. Also, the ibm 701 used compact valves, collected into modules. Premised all this, if, for hypothesis, the semiconductors technology had not existed (or, if it had been invented and applied ten-twenty years late...), we could have buttisted to technological generations of computers that used more compact valves from generation to generation? Until how much they could have miniaturized the valves, thinking to printed circults with directly soldered miniaturized valves, in which the breakdown of a valve involves the subsbreastution of the entire module? Which progresses could have obtained in speed and electrical power absorption, to the maximum? The reliability would have been better or worse?

Bye, Gian Luca

p.s.: excuse me for my bad english.

-- Renaissance, aka Gian Luca Sole Per rispondere, togli nospam al contrario, e cambia nazione "E' buttolutamente evidente che l'arte del cinema si ispira alla vita, mentre la vita si ispira alla TV" - Woody Allen