Talk:Nixie tube

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Nixie tube article.
Please sign and date your posts using four tildes (~~~~). New discussion topics go at the bottom of the page; click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Frequently asked questions. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.	Talk page guidelines Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Don't bite the newcomers!

Contents 1 Sectioned format 2 Haydu Nixies? 3 Photo? 4 Revival 5 Longevity 6 Foreign import 7 Were these in Goldfinger?

[edit] Sectioned format

I took the liberty of restoring the sectioned format I had structured this article into, after it was reverted by 68.125.53.148 as 'improper'. However, I also updated the article with said contributor's very relevant factual correction about nixies not being vacuum devices. --Wernher 09:49, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Mr. "Wernher":

Why do you keep MESSING UP this article?

I have a copy of the December 1954 ELECTRONICS magazine, containing a PRESS RELEASE stating the Burroughs had bought Haydu and introduced the Nixie display. Why do you keep making it "1950s"???

I will keep FIXING your ignorant "revisions" until you GET THE PICTURE.

What do YOU know about early electronics history?? I'm the Senior Editor of VACUUM TUBE VALLEY magazine, a longtime contributor to GLASS AUDIO magazine, and have been writing about tube electronics for almost 15 years. Please DO NOT presume to tell me I'm wrong. YOU'RE WRONG.

Eh -- if I have mistakenly reinserted the vaguer '1950s' instead of the precise '1954', it was only done totally unintended as a side-effect of reverting to the sectioned format, which I think is better for the article's structure. That is, I have absolutely no reason to, whatsoever (and neither did I), bring into doubt the correctness of the '1954' fact.

I therefore, luckily, do not feel myself being a proper target of the tirade above. Rather, I want to make the positive comment that I appreciate contributions to Wikipedia by people who were actually there when it happened, regarding any subject field. Myself I am only a (very interested) student of tech history, especially digital electronics and analog and digital computing. Best regards, --Wernher 17:17, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Haydu Nixies?

I'm curious about the source of the claims (found in several places on the internet) that Haydu Brothers Laboratories "invented" or "developed" the Nixie tube. I'm not old enough to know firsthand, nor do I have access to authoritative documentation supporting or refuting this connection. But if it's true, it seems to me that in retrospect it was probably one of the most significant contributions made by the Haydus. If so, why then is it not mentioned on the Warren Township Historical Society's Brief history of Haydu Brothers site?

In fact, I've found an internet reference which directly contradicts this: Historical Timeline of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company (see entries under 1954) "Burroughs acquires Haydu Brothers [...] to produce special purpose electronic tubes for data display which have resulted from research at the Paoli laboratory."

This clearly is claiming that Burroughs's own research at their Paoli, Pennsylvania labs led to the Nixie tube, and Haydu was purchased strictly for their manufacturing capability. This webpage is what led me to delete the Haydu reference previously (since restored by another contributor). I'd love to spend some time searching the Burroughs Corporation archive in the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Michigan (or perhaps get it directly from George and/or Zoltan Haydu before it's too late...) to get this straightened out with certainty once and for all.

A.

[edit] Photo?

Anybody got a photo of a Nixie tube display?

If you just want photo(s) of a nixie tube, I have dozens of photos and hundreds of nixie tubes (specializing in collecting the rarest but have many common types too), what kind do you want? Clear or coated with a contrast-enhancing colored lacquer? Side viewed (with or without a "nipple" tip seal on top), end viewed (round or oval), lit (and what number/letter/symbol) or unlit, or perhaps some combination of tubes in one or more photos? I also have a few pieces of equipment with nixie displays (and connections to several people with more extensive equipment collections). This could illustrate how they were used, but the tinted filter lenses on the equipment typically obscure all details of the tubes themselves except for the lit digits.

A.

[edit] Revival

Re the new paragraph beginning, "Citing boredom with conventional, modern displays...", I'm not completely comfortable with the opening line's phraseology, "boredom" in particular. As a member of a group of nixie enthusiasts, I believe that it's more like displeasure with the aesthetic aspects of typical 7-segment and dot-matrix displays (rectilinear, artificial) than simple boredom. The nostalgia aspect is also a very strong part of the motivation for many. I'm not sure how best to rephrase this sentence to better convey typical modern nixie clock builder's reasons for choosing nixie tubes.

Perhaps, "Citing dissatisfaction with the aesthetics of modern digital displays...", would serve better.

Comments?

A.

Since I didn't get any feedback, I went ahead and made a minor change in line with the sentiment expressed above.

A.

Yeah, dissatisfaction sounds right. I'm not a nixie enthusiast but I know exactly how you feel. In fact, I am developing a new 8-segment display that is less rectilinear and – perhaps no less artificial – but certainly closer to ordinary type than the 7-segment is. I've got high hopes for it.

RadRafe 03:57, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is your new display anything like these 1970s vintage 9-segment "Itron" VFD tubes? http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/bc3260.html ;-)

Smaller ones were also made in an 8-segment format without the tiny "tail" segment on digit "4".

A.

Thanks for the link. My design is similar in motivation but rather different in the details. I'm aiming for a slightly more print-like look. For instance, 012 are all half-height, like in text figures.

RadRafe 18:50, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Longevity

Should the paragraph on nixie longevity (in Applications) be given its own section, moved to the first section, or perhaps even removed?

A.

Never mind, it's good now. A.

Does anyone have any real numbers for how long these things last in a clock? I've heard some VERY conflicting numbers in this area. The very popular IN-14's have a MTF of 12,500 hours. But some people claim that they've run their clocks 24-7 for 3 years and no problems so far. Anyone?

Achra 15:02, 21 Jun 2006 (PDT)

The numbers are very conflicting because lifetime varies greatly between types, and even between early and late examples of the same type (among types which had long production lives). IN-14s are Russian-made tubes, and Russian tubes of the era have a well-deserved reputation for extreme variation in quality. Finally, lifetime depends a great deal on several factors such as peak current, average current, temperature, duty cycle, ratio of use of the different symbols in each tube, and probably a few more that I'm forgetting.

A.

[edit] Foreign import

Can someone import the nl:Afbeelding:Nixie.gif pic? Or make their own? It'd be great somewhere in here... Thanx 69.142.2.68 21:59, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Were these in Goldfinger?

I was just curious if this is the same type of display shown at the end of Goldfinger where James Bond is handcuffed to a bomb inside the Fort Knox vault. This display is shown in a close up. --65.190.140.201 01:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

No, the atomic bomb countdown display in Goldfinger was another technology from the same period: edge-lit lightguide readouts. These use small incandescent light bulbs at the edges of plates of clear plastic stacked together with narrow gaps between them. In each plate, a single numeral is formed from a series of "dimples" drilled from the back side. The plates are assembled in a holder so that their edges are not easily seen. A bulb shining in one edge will cause little or no light to be emitted from the smooth faces, due to the optical phenomenon known as "total internal reflection". However, the drilled dimples are at a more obtuse angle to the approaching light rays, and have rough surfaces, therefore scatter the light more nearly perpendicular to the plane of the plates' front surfaces, where it can escape to be seen by the viewer. Thus, the digits appear as a group of bright white dots apparently floating in a small dark space without any visible support. Contrast this with nixies, which display figures as continuous lines broken only by the fine anode mesh and the lines of other digits which may lie in front of the lit digit, always glow in the pink-orange-red range, and are usually placed behind red or dark orange filters to enhance contrast. Although the white(ish) light of edge-lit displays could be filtered to any desired color, historically this was almost never done.

A.