Making Silicon Valley:
Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970
by Christophe Lécuyer
I haven't written a book report for 64 years. Now I have two that deserve comments. This one is on Making Silicon Valley: Innovation & the Growth of High Tech – Charles Lécuyer, and the other is The Inventor and the Pilot: Russell and Sigurd Varian – Dorothy Varian.
In Steve Black's web page, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret History of Silicon Valley, he has these two books among his list of 160 or so references. He specifically recommends six authors in which his comment is "read everything." Charles Lécuyer is one of those authors.
My interest in these books is that they explain the history of much of my electronics career, and they mention many of the people and situations I remember. The books have similar time frames and over lapping subjects, but from different points of view. Making of Silicon Valley follows the technology and economics from amateur radio in the 1920's to the silicon chip era, arguing that trained electronic personnel on the San Francisco Peninsula were the reason microwave electronics flourished here not elsewhere. The Secret History tells how and where the technology was used in Electronic Warfare in WWII. The Inventor and Pilot is a biography and history of the Varians and Varian Associates, and details the same period as it related to a single company.
After reading the book and writing these comments about my connections to the events he describes, I realized what a comprehensive narrative Lécuyer has achieved. He did not attempt to tell everything about every company in Silicon Valley, but he went into significant detail for a few of the leaders thereby illustrating what was occurring to all. He gives us a complete picture describing the personal desires, economic factors, sale potential, sociological impact, employee availability, supplier availability, competition, Eastern vs Western management style, etc. You achieve a thorough understanding of how each part of Silicon Valley grew. The most amazing to me was his ability to describe the technical details in layman's terms, and still be accurate. In a paragraph of two he gives you an understanding of a triode or a VacIon pump sufficient to understand the business, but not so much detail that you abandon the book. A job well done. I liked it a lot!
Lécuyer and Black point out there are many different theories as to why Silicon Valley became the center of electronics in the world. Some give credit to Terman and the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford. Others point to the large influx of government research funds, or to Shockley and/or Noyce's semiconductor start-ups. The venture capitalists were also a factor. Another common one is that Jobs, Wozniak and Apple invented Silicon Valley.
Lécuyer argues it really started 40 to 50 years earlier with the amateur radio enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area in the years 1910 to 1930. Naturally I like that theory. The American Radio Relay League celebrated it's 100 anniversary in 2014. I received my license in 1947, which means I was a ham in the first third of the hobby. I have been looking at amateur radio history, and have been amazed at how early the major radio concepts were developed. For example, single sideband modulation was patented in December 1915.
The book is organized into seven chapters, each covering significant eras and highlighting one or two companies of that era.
In Steve Black's web page, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret History of Silicon Valley, he has these two books among his list of 160 or so references. He specifically recommends six authors in which his comment is "read everything." Charles Lécuyer is one of those authors.
My interest in these books is that they explain the history of much of my electronics career, and they mention many of the people and situations I remember. The books have similar time frames and over lapping subjects, but from different points of view. Making of Silicon Valley follows the technology and economics from amateur radio in the 1920's to the silicon chip era, arguing that trained electronic personnel on the San Francisco Peninsula were the reason microwave electronics flourished here not elsewhere. The Secret History tells how and where the technology was used in Electronic Warfare in WWII. The Inventor and Pilot is a biography and history of the Varians and Varian Associates, and details the same period as it related to a single company.
After reading the book and writing these comments about my connections to the events he describes, I realized what a comprehensive narrative Lécuyer has achieved. He did not attempt to tell everything about every company in Silicon Valley, but he went into significant detail for a few of the leaders thereby illustrating what was occurring to all. He gives us a complete picture describing the personal desires, economic factors, sale potential, sociological impact, employee availability, supplier availability, competition, Eastern vs Western management style, etc. You achieve a thorough understanding of how each part of Silicon Valley grew. The most amazing to me was his ability to describe the technical details in layman's terms, and still be accurate. In a paragraph of two he gives you an understanding of a triode or a VacIon pump sufficient to understand the business, but not so much detail that you abandon the book. A job well done. I liked it a lot!
Lécuyer and Black point out there are many different theories as to why Silicon Valley became the center of electronics in the world. Some give credit to Terman and the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford. Others point to the large influx of government research funds, or to Shockley and/or Noyce's semiconductor start-ups. The venture capitalists were also a factor. Another common one is that Jobs, Wozniak and Apple invented Silicon Valley.
Lécuyer argues it really started 40 to 50 years earlier with the amateur radio enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area in the years 1910 to 1930. Naturally I like that theory. The American Radio Relay League celebrated it's 100 anniversary in 2014. I received my license in 1947, which means I was a ham in the first third of the hobby. I have been looking at amateur radio history, and have been amazed at how early the major radio concepts were developed. For example, single sideband modulation was patented in December 1915.
The book is organized into seven chapters, each covering significant eras and highlighting one or two companies of that era.
In chapter 1, I examine the emergence of an indigenous power tube industry on the San Francisco Peninsula in the mid 1930s and the 1940s. Focusing on Eitel-McCullough, I argue that the power tube industry grew our of the area's vibrant amateur radio community. . . . In chapter 2, I investigate the economic and political forces that sustained the emergence of the microwave tube industry after World War II by foc;using on Litton Industries. . . . Among the startups sponsored by Charles Litton was Varian Associates, and this company is the focus of chapter 3. . . . In chapter 4, I examine the ways in which Fairchild Semiconductor revolutionized the semiconductor industry and transformed the San Francisco Peninsula into the main center for the production of advanced silicon devices in the United States. . . . Chapter 5 traces how firms on the Peninsula moved into commercial markets after a major shift in defense procurement in the early 1960s. . . . Chapter 6 narrates the growth of the integrated circuit business on the San Francisco Peninsula in the first half of the q960s. . . . As chapter 7 reveals, these startups, [Intel, Intersil, and National Semiconductor ] many of them financed by local venture capitalists , relied on the rich repertoire of techniques and managerial practices that Fairchild and its spinoffs had developed since the late 1050s.
You must realize I have only excerpted a total of 3 or 4 pages from the 300 or so pages in the book. There are nearly 80 more pages of notes and references. It is extremely well researched, but reads like a novel. Do not think by reading my excerpts you have read the book. Now my personal remarks.
In chapter 1 William Eitel, Jack McCullough and Charles Litton are his main focus. No one on the Peninsula would have called William or Charles by their given names. The were Bill Eitel and Charlie Litton even to people who had never met them. He mentions their families.
In chapter 1 William Eitel, Jack McCullough and Charles Litton are his main focus. No one on the Peninsula would have called William or Charles by their given names. The were Bill Eitel and Charlie Litton even to people who had never met them. He mentions their families.
Eitel's uncle, E. J. Hall had established the Hall-Scott Motor Car Company in Oakland, one of the first automotive corporations on the West Coast. . . . The firm also designed an built an aircraft engine, the “Liberty engine,” which was used in most American Military aircraft during World War I.
This engine was used in the Curtis-Wright “Jenny,” and known for broken cam shafts.
0n pages 16 and 17, Lécuyer lays out his reasoning for an early electronics interest in the SF Bay Area..
0n pages 16 and 17, Lécuyer lays out his reasoning for an early electronics interest in the SF Bay Area..
A number of geographical and cultural factors seem to have played a roll in the high concentration of radio amateurs in the Bay Area [10% of all U.S. hams] . . . a strong maritime orientation . . . several military bases. . . . The Navy and local commercial shipping firms relied heavily on radio communications . . . in the 1900s and the 1910s when radio was used almost exclusively for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication. In addition to exposing San Francisco youths to the new technology, the Navy and the shipping companies employed a significant number of radio operators, some of whom were involved in amateur radio.
The Bay Area was an active center of radio manufacturing in the 1910s and 1920s. . . . including Remler (which made radio sets), and Magnivox (the leading American manufacturer of loudspeakers) . . . Heinz and Kaufman , designed custom radio equipment. Federal Telegraph, one of the earliest radio companies in the United States, operated a radio-telegraph system on the West Coast and produced radio Transmitters in the 1910s. These firms made radio parts available to local hobbyists and hired radio amateurs.
Remnants of Federal Telegraph and the other long distance radio services were were still visible nearly until 2000. Large antenna installations were on the coastal shores near Half Moon Bay, and in Marin County. I think I read that hams had been using the one in Marin. Radio station KPO was a short wave station on the edge of the bay near San Carlos , and was regularly used by hams to practice Morse code. For many years after I learned to fly, there was a high (100s of feet) antenna tower inside the left traffic pattern for Runway 30 at Palo Alto Airport. I heard it was built by Federal Telegraph.
Technological innovation seems to have been especially valued in California since the 1890s. California farmers, for example, mechanized their operations earlier than their counterparts in other parts of the country. [Holt Caterpillar] . . . Californians rapidly embraced new technologies such as the automobile and the airplane in the 1900s and 1910s.
He talks about Eitel's education.
Eitel was tutored in the new technology by his mathematics teacher, a radio enthusiast. Eitel also learned about the new field by reading radio books and QST, an amateur radio magazine, in his school library.
At Sequoia High School, we were to have a current event each week in the Social Studies class. The school bus arrived early enough that I could go the the library and get something to share. I believe that I found an appropriate item (I thought) in QST every week during the whole school year.
Ham radio was an unusual subculture in a number of ways. First, it was characterized by camaraderie and intense sociability. . . . Second, the ham culture was characterized by egalitarianism and a democratic ideology. . . . Third, radio amateurs greatly value technical innovation and resourcefulness. . . . Lastly, the ham culture was characterized by its mix of competitiveness and information sharing.
The short waves were then a largely forsaken portion of the radio spectrum. Judging the short waves (under 200 meters) to be worthless, the US Department of Commerce had given them over to radio amateurs in 1922. . . In 1923 radio amateurs discovered that they could use 100-meter waves to communicate with Europe.
All you ham radio operators that attended our technician courses should remember that you divide 300 by the wavelength in meters to get the frequency in mega Hertz. Thus the Commerce Department thought everything above 1.5 mHz, the top of the present broadcast band, was worthless.
In 1924, Litton and a fellow members of the Stanford Radio club were among the first American amateurs to establish communication in the high frequency bands with Australia and New Zealand. In 1928 Eitel pioneered the use of 10-meter waves for transcontinental communication. This important accomplishment opened the very high frequency (VHF) bands to radio communication.
Talking about Charlie Litton:
He [Litton] also may have received technical advice from his neighbor Otis Moorhead. Moorhead a radio amateur and a vacuum tube entrepreneur, had established a vacuum tube firm, Moorhead Laboratories, in San Francisco in 1917. . . . Litton was fascinated by the complex techniques required to make power-grid tubes. In the early and mid 1920s, he experimented with materials and with the processing techniques in his home laboratory. In parallel to his work on glass and metals, Litton mastered the design and construction of the specialized vacuum equipment required to make power-grid tubes. He built, for instance, the vacuum pumps with which he evacuated his tubes. Litton also constructed his own ovens
Moorhead was very early, only five years after Lee Deforest working for Federal Telegraph, invented the triode vacuum tube in Menlo Park, California in 1912. I have wondered at the coincidence that Edison had a laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey.
Forty years later, Litton glass lathes were the gold standard. I expect they still are today. See a picture on page 29. We bought them when we set up the GE Laboratory, and used them at ZRRC. Litton pioneered using oil in the vacuum diffusion pumps. Prior to that they boiled mercury in the pumps. We also built our own ovens at GE in 1954, and again at Zenith when we moved to the new plant in Menlo Park about 1965. Tubes varied so much in size, that the processing stations were designed to match that specific tube type. I put a short description of a glass lather at the end of this page.
Forty years later, Litton glass lathes were the gold standard. I expect they still are today. See a picture on page 29. We bought them when we set up the GE Laboratory, and used them at ZRRC. Litton pioneered using oil in the vacuum diffusion pumps. Prior to that they boiled mercury in the pumps. We also built our own ovens at GE in 1954, and again at Zenith when we moved to the new plant in Menlo Park about 1965. Tubes varied so much in size, that the processing stations were designed to match that specific tube type. I put a short description of a glass lather at the end of this page.
Dissatisfied with the power-grid tubes that were then on the market, Eitel and McCullough set out to engineer a ham radio for their own use in early 1932. They wanted to make one that would be more reliable than the one marketed by RCA. The RCA tube had the added disadvantages of operating poorly at the very high frequencies an;d working only at low voltages. At the time radio amateurs applied high voltages to their tubes in order to get a high output. By doubling the voltage applied to the tube, they could increase the power of their radio frequency signal by a factor of 4.
Class, remember, power = voltage squared divided by resistance
In September 1934, Eitel and McCullough left Heintz and Kaufman to set up their own transmitting tube corporation, Eitel-McCullough,Inc. . . . Litton helped Eitel and McCullough set up their own vacuum tube shop by giving them the castings and engineering blueprints of his glass lathe. This gift enabled Eitel and McCullogh to construct their own high-quality glass lathe at low cost. . . . They perfected the processing techniques they had developed at Heintz and Kaufman an devised new ones. In particular they developed a novel sealing and assembly technique, which relied heavily on the use of Litton's glass lathe. . . . Paralleling this new assembly technique, Eitel and McCDullough designed a highly efficient system to evacuate transmitting tubes. Their system enabled them to outgas the power tubes thoroughly and thereby create a very high vacuum. . . . Because of their unique processing, Eitel-McCullough's tubes were substantially more reliable and had better electrical characteristics than products then on the market. . . . The average life oa a power tube was then between 600 and 1,000 hours. Eitel-NcCullough's tubes could last a long as 20,000 hours.
I've mentioned elsewhere that I purchased a ham transmitter from George Trotter who came to General Electric from Eitel-McCullough. With the transmitter was a box of experimental Eimac tubes which are still in the Analog Archive and Museum, (garage). George was the administrative manager to Oldfield and took over when Oldfield left the Mircowave Laboratory to start the GE Computer Division.
(Page 119)
(Page 119)
The rapidly growing demand for high-quality klystrons in the mid 1950s offered a major business opportunity to Varian Associates. It also led to heightened competition in the klystron field. RCE, Sperry Gryoscope, and GE enlarged their klystron operations, and Sylvania and Litton Industries began manufacturing klystrons.
GE established the Microwave Laboratory in 1954. My first task was to oversee constructions of the building. It was to be sure that GE, the consultants from Stanford, and the architects were communicating and in agreement.
But most worrisome for Varian was that Bill Eitel and Jack McCullough sought to establish their firm as a major manufacturer of klystrons. . . . They built a klystron laboratory and organized a klystron engineering group around Harold Sorg . . . and Don Preist. . . . To build this group, Sorg and Preist hired college-trained engineers who were practically oriented and had a background in amateur radio.
George Badger, who was a ham and best man at our wedding, went to Eitel-McCullough at graduation in 1951. I went to GE, then the Army. His biography is included in the Eitel-McCullough web history. There is a klystron story elsewhere here.
Now, two Varian stories the first comes from the next paragraph, (page 127):
Now, two Varian stories the first comes from the next paragraph, (page 127):
The firms' management also made important social innovations, notably the ways in which it related to employees. Varian Associates was the only employee-owned company in the microwave tube industry. . . . “Everybody [at Varian]”, an engineer recalled, “was a stockholder or practically everybody. Engineering people had enough stock so that having the company make money was to their personal profit as well a a matter of pride.”
The story was that a janitor was an early hire, and had amassed enough stock, that he could stop Russell or Sigurd and tell them his ideas on running the company. Now about the VacIon pump. (page 182)
In 1956, Lewis Hall, a research engineer at Varian, invented an new vacuum pump, the VacIon pump, . . . to evacuate klystrons. Unlike other pumps, the VacIon pump depended on electronic rather than mechanical means to create a vacuum. It operated by entrapping gas molecules and atoms through the formation of chemically stable compounds. . . . The positive charged gas ions bombarded the titanium cathode plates, which knocked the titanium atoms from the plate. These knocked or “sputtered” atoms were deposited upon the anode grid, forming stable compounds with gas atoms such as oxygen and nitrogen.
At Zenith, we used the VacIon pumps and they worked very well. We also found that just heating a titanium pellet, so that some titanium was evaporated on the tube's glass envelope would also trap gases.. Other materials had been used previously in the same fashion. The term for them was “getter” and they were “flashed” just after the tube was taken off the vacuum system. We wanted a small pump that could be included permanently with tube. Jim Brush was doing the design. He used a small tungsten filament interwoven with titanium wire. We got most of our tungsten from General Electric. They also made filaments. Jim went to the auto supply store and bought an assortment of GE tail light bulbs, cracked them open, and found a filament that worked. The bulb was probably 10 to 20 cents in those days. He called his contact at GE and asked if he could just buy the lamp filament for a few cents. The GE engineer thought so, but he would check. The next day the answer was, “We put tungsten wire and sand in one end of the machine and light bulbs come out the other. We cannot get to the filaments.” I don't remember whether we paid GE to wind the filaments or we continued to break auto lamps.
In the middle 1960s many mergers took place. (page177)
In the middle 1960s many mergers took place. (page177)
General Electric's microwave research laboratory in the Stanford Industrial Park was another acquisition target. The lab, which had opened with great fanfare in 1954, was doing poorly. Starting in 1960, its research contracts and production orders declined and it became unprofitable. At the same time GE's corporate management lost interest in microwave tubes. They decided to sell the Palo Alto laboratory. This led Chet Lob, the laboratory's manager, to approach Ginzton at Varian Associates. Lob felt that Varian would be a more congenial employer than other rmicrowave tube firms on the Peninsula. In 1965, Varian bought the GE microwave Lab.
When I left the GE lab in 1959, Chet Lob was the manager of the division I was in. We were building the low power, low noise TWTs in that division. Another group was building high power transmitting tubes. Chet Lob is one of three people acknowledged by Lécuyer for sharing their understanding of the microwave tube industry with him. By the way, Ginston taught the microwave techniques course and was my instructor.
There was another event that occurred prior to 1959 which I believe contributed to GE decline. In 1954 when the lab was started General Electric had a world class research laboratory equal to Bell Laboratory. It also had a number of specialized labs dedicated to specific product lines. The GE Microwave lab was in that category. All of the laboratories received funding from corporate headquarters. Several years after the Microwave lab opened, there was a corporate decision to transfer the funding of all of the labs to their product line operating division. The Microwave Lab went to the Power Tube Division in Schenectady. Unfortunately, the Power Tube Division was not making money and had no funds (maybe minimum funds) to give to the Microwave Laboratory. We had many consultants on the staff who were nationally known experts. Many of these left, and I believe it significantly hampered tube development at the lab.
I visited the Power Tube Division once. The engineers complained about the technician staff. Unlike the SF Bay Area where it was possible to hire people with tens of years experience in the tube business, GE was a union shop. In Schenectady they built large things like hydroelectric turbines and generators. American Locomotive was also there in Schenectady. When work got slow and folks were laid off, more senior people bumped the ones with less time at GE. The problem was that a welder that had been arc welding on a two story tall generator would bump a person in the tube plant spot welding tube grids under a microscope. The engineers felt quality suffered due to this.
It is highly likely that Eitel-Mcullough cut into GE's Power Tube sales which then affected the GE Microwave Laboratory.
Finally comments on one more paragraph. Lécuyer compares the goals of the earlier vacuum tube founders and the more recent semiconductor entrepreneurs. (Page 264)
There was another event that occurred prior to 1959 which I believe contributed to GE decline. In 1954 when the lab was started General Electric had a world class research laboratory equal to Bell Laboratory. It also had a number of specialized labs dedicated to specific product lines. The GE Microwave lab was in that category. All of the laboratories received funding from corporate headquarters. Several years after the Microwave lab opened, there was a corporate decision to transfer the funding of all of the labs to their product line operating division. The Microwave Lab went to the Power Tube Division in Schenectady. Unfortunately, the Power Tube Division was not making money and had no funds (maybe minimum funds) to give to the Microwave Laboratory. We had many consultants on the staff who were nationally known experts. Many of these left, and I believe it significantly hampered tube development at the lab.
I visited the Power Tube Division once. The engineers complained about the technician staff. Unlike the SF Bay Area where it was possible to hire people with tens of years experience in the tube business, GE was a union shop. In Schenectady they built large things like hydroelectric turbines and generators. American Locomotive was also there in Schenectady. When work got slow and folks were laid off, more senior people bumped the ones with less time at GE. The problem was that a welder that had been arc welding on a two story tall generator would bump a person in the tube plant spot welding tube grids under a microscope. The engineers felt quality suffered due to this.
It is highly likely that Eitel-Mcullough cut into GE's Power Tube sales which then affected the GE Microwave Laboratory.
Finally comments on one more paragraph. Lécuyer compares the goals of the earlier vacuum tube founders and the more recent semiconductor entrepreneurs. (Page 264)
What set the men who founded Intel, Intersil, National Semiconductor, and American Micro-Systems apart from previous electronics entrepreneurs on the Peninsula was the fact that their primary goal was to bring their corporations public with in 3-5 years of their founding. In essence, they wanted to organize and initial public offering and list their firms on the American Stock Exchange or the New York Stock Exchange. By listing their firms on a stock exchange, entrepreneurs would reap substantial financial rewards . . . One of the major requirements of venture capitalists was to have fast returns on their investments. . . . This close alliance with Wall Street was new to the electronic manufacturing complex on the Peninsula. Eitel, Litton and Varian, who had built the vacuum tube industries on the Peninsula, were hostile to Wall Street financiers and had brought their firms public only after decades of work. . . . In other words, they [the semiconductor founders] did not build their organizations to last but to develop and market new products and sell semiconductor securities. . . . Unlike Litton, the semiconductor entrepreneurs were not paternalistic. Rather, their goal was to make engineers feel and behave like entrepreneurs.
I thought the book showed another difference between the vacuum folks and the semiconductor folks. There seemed to have been cooperation between the early tube manufacturers. One of the amateur radio ethics. For example, Litton gave Eitel-McCullough drawings of the glass lathe, and they discussed common problems. Whereas, the semiconductor spin-offs sometimes resulted in cut throat pricing wars between companies.
I was very impressed by the depth and thoroughness of Christophe Lécuyer's history of Making Silicon Valley. I recommend it highly.
ADDENDUM:
What was so special about Charlie Litton's glass lathe?
Glass is a good insulator, It is not porous, although hydrogen will sometimes seep through borosilicate glasses. It is a super cooled liquid. It is brittle when cold and soft, even runny when hot.
A standard metal working or wood turning lathe has a head stock with a chuck driven by a motor to hold and turn the work piece. It has a tail stock that supports the far end of the work piece via a center pivot which sometimes is fixed and other times has a bearing. The center is not connected to a motor and does not help turn the workpiece. The metal or word workpiece is rigid and when the head stock turns the entire workpiece turns. Generally, the tail stock is locked against the workpiece and is not moved until the job is completed.
A glass lathe needs two head stocks and no tail stock. Picture a piece of glass pipe in the lathe as it turns. The glass blower heats up the center of the pipe and it becomes soft. Because the glass is not rigid, the lathe needs two head stocks to drive both ends of the pipe in synchronism so that the pipe does not twist.
When the glass is hot, the glass blower blows to support the glass. Therefore, the two head stocks must be relatively air tight to maintain pressure inside the glass tube.
One of the head stocks must be movable to allow for changing diameters and lengths as the glass blower works. A glass blower might start with a small diameter glass tube and blow it into a large diameter shape. As it gets bigger, it becomes shorter.
Finally, the two head stocks must always be accurately aligned. When the glass cools it is rigid again. Any miss alignment or variation in rotation speed would then shatter the glass.
With a Litton glass lathe, the glass blower could work a piece of glass in one end of the lathe. Then work a second piece on the other end, and when satisfactory, join them together as one assembly.
I was very impressed by the depth and thoroughness of Christophe Lécuyer's history of Making Silicon Valley. I recommend it highly.
ADDENDUM:
What was so special about Charlie Litton's glass lathe?
Glass is a good insulator, It is not porous, although hydrogen will sometimes seep through borosilicate glasses. It is a super cooled liquid. It is brittle when cold and soft, even runny when hot.
A standard metal working or wood turning lathe has a head stock with a chuck driven by a motor to hold and turn the work piece. It has a tail stock that supports the far end of the work piece via a center pivot which sometimes is fixed and other times has a bearing. The center is not connected to a motor and does not help turn the workpiece. The metal or word workpiece is rigid and when the head stock turns the entire workpiece turns. Generally, the tail stock is locked against the workpiece and is not moved until the job is completed.
A glass lathe needs two head stocks and no tail stock. Picture a piece of glass pipe in the lathe as it turns. The glass blower heats up the center of the pipe and it becomes soft. Because the glass is not rigid, the lathe needs two head stocks to drive both ends of the pipe in synchronism so that the pipe does not twist.
When the glass is hot, the glass blower blows to support the glass. Therefore, the two head stocks must be relatively air tight to maintain pressure inside the glass tube.
One of the head stocks must be movable to allow for changing diameters and lengths as the glass blower works. A glass blower might start with a small diameter glass tube and blow it into a large diameter shape. As it gets bigger, it becomes shorter.
Finally, the two head stocks must always be accurately aligned. When the glass cools it is rigid again. Any miss alignment or variation in rotation speed would then shatter the glass.
With a Litton glass lathe, the glass blower could work a piece of glass in one end of the lathe. Then work a second piece on the other end, and when satisfactory, join them together as one assembly.