Vacuum tubes powered a whole bunch of gadgets in the past. They even continue to show up in or on our gadgets today. So what could be cooler than a Vacuum tube flash drive? Thanks to the folks at CF14 Industries we now have real Vacuum Tube Flash Drives.

It took some trial and error, but at last they got the interior of a 512MB thumb drive inside of a vacuum tube. The end result looks pretty awesome and should make your laptop look a bit more steampunk. Hit the link and see if you’d like to try it yourself.

This just may be the most awesome and nerdiest chess set ever. You’re looking at Paul Fryer’s Vacuum Tube Chess set. It’s one of only seven made. The pieces actually light up when they’re plugged in to the board.

How cool is that? The only thing that sucks is that you would need to replace blown tubes from time to time, but we don’t care. We just wanna play chess with Vacuum tubes that really light up.

RockridgeSound recently released the somewhat retro looking ISR-VT02 iPod dock. The unit boasts an integrated AM/FM tuner, vacuum tube amplifier, two-stage 12AX7 (ECC83) amplifier, two 3.15 inch speakers, 12W of power, S-Video out, mini stereo input and RCA analog inputs.

The RockridgeSound ISR-VT02 iPod Dock is not only retro looking and “woody”, it’s also compatible with all iPods and the iPod touch. Not the iPhone. This docking station is available in Japan starting today for around $385.