Philips Technical Library Book IIIA, Data and Circuits of Radio and Amplifier Valves, Second Supplement, covered the radio valves developed during the Rimlock era, inclusive of the Rimlocks themselves, the battery miniatures and the very early novals. The English Edition was dated 1952, but as best I can tell, the original Dutch version covered developments up to the end of 1950.
The valves actually covered are listed in the index excerpt, attached. The section on the noval valves, following the Rimlock and miniature sections, started with the following commentary:
“In the foregoing a number of valves have been described which could be manufactured without difficulty in the Rimlock or miniature techniques. There are, however, valves which, because they employ more than eight electrode connections, cannot be made along these lines. Such valves are therefore made in a new 9-pin range, these being known as "Noval" valves. In appearance Noval valves are very similar to the miniature types, except that they are of larger diameter (max. 22 min) and have 9 pins, at 9 points of a decagon, the tenth point being vacant. This asymmetrical spacing of the pins, also employed in miniature, valves, obviates the need for a special pilot to guide the valve into its holder. The pitch circle diameter of the pins is 11.9 mm, which very nearly corresponds to that of the Rimlock valves. The Noval range so far comprises the double diode-pentodes EBF 80 and UBF 80, and the F.M. detector EQ 80, each of which is described in the following pages.”
That was quite prosaic, with no mention of applying Rimlock constructional techniques to the novals, nor any use of the “Innoval” name. It suggested that the noval base was to be used for valves where 8 pinouts were insufficient. That was certainly true for the E/UBF80, but not for the EQ80, which had started life as the Rimlock EQ40. There was no mention of the 6AN7 (ECH80), 6M5 (EL80) or 6BD7 (EBC81), all of which were in the initial Australian Innoval range, and all of which were (In)noval versions of existing Rimlock issues. Along with the 6N8 (EBF80), these were announced as the initial Australian Innoval releases before the end of 1950.
All of that underscores Philips’ regionally selective marketing approach. Australia got the Innoval range from the start. In Europe, the noval radio valves were presented as additions to what was basically a Rimlock range, with the implication that the radio valve offering would now be a mix of Rimlock and noval types. It was not stated that all future issues would in fact be novals (that would have been somewhat counterproductive from a marketing perspective), but it was likely the plan. By the end of 1950, Philips had decided that its standard TV valve range would be (mostly) on the noval base, and in fact the EF80 had already been mentioned late in 1949.
One imagines that there were internal Philips documents that delineated all of this in careful detail. But absent access to such, when a transnational organization uses different and potentially contradictory messages in different markets, then post facto outside observers are left to make deductions from whatever information is available. I think that we have now pretty much closed the loop on the Philips Rimlock/noval question that came up early on in the old “Valve Questions” thread of a decade ago,
https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...591#post233591.
Cheers,