Talk:Nixie tube

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1 Sectioned format
2 Haydu Nixies?
3 Photo?
4 Revival
5 Longevity
6 Foreign import
7 Were these in Goldfinger?
8 Why delete links to the main nixie resource (and it really is) on the web?
9 references tag
10 Seven-segment neon displays
11 Weston book reprints no longer available

[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.

[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.

[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?

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

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".

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?

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.

Yikes, you were right. I built 2 clocks with 4 IN-14's each (one with also 2 IN-17's) 6 months ago. One of the clocks has already lost 2 IN-14's.

Achra 07:16, 05 Feb 2007 (PDT)

[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 less 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.

[edit] Why delete links to the main nixie resource (and it really is) on the web?

I added a link to the neonixie-l Yahoo! group which is undoubtedly (and, yes, I can probably provide proof of that) the premier source of nixie and related tubes' expertise online. (*Yahoo! NEONIXIE-L group Very active discussion group with archives, links & support for everything to do with nixies & related tubes).

I realise that the WP:EL redirect says that links to discussion forums should "normally be avoided", but this is not a rule cast in stone, and the link specified is not just a very balanced and informed forum, it has substantial files on the history, usage & types of nixies etc. BTW, I have no connection with neonixie-l, other than being one of the nearly 1700 members of that group.

I should also point out that you have left links to reference sites that have a commercial side, and neonixie-l is completely non-commercial.

Why remove it, Femto? Nickds1 20:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The question that needs to be answered about external links isn't "why not keep them" but "why are they needed". Forum links are encyclopedically useless. If there is any specific WP:EL-compliant content, link to it directly. Besides, the site is full of Yahoo-ads and far as I see access is members-only. Usually the decision about one link has no impact on the others, commercial or not. If you think a link is overly commercial please remove it. Femto 11:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] references tag

(I'm more or less copying my response from Wikipedia:Help desk. See also User talk:MsHyde and Special:Contributions/MsHyde.)

MsHyde has been adding that tag to a truckload of articles, and I find it disruptive. For instance, this edit was wholly inappropriate. She seems to be adding the tag to articles willy-nilly without any regard as to whether it is needed; she also isn't going through the trouble of helping out by adding references to any of the articles she's tagged.

Yes, the nixie tube article is borderline. There are a number of external links, and they are not formal references, but they seem to be about the best one can do for such a subject. I would appreciate someone coming up with a compromise for this article or a plan for finding sources for this article. Lunch 20:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

This article does not have any references. If any of those external links are meant to serve as references, then please put them in a references section, ideally linking them to the paragraphs/sentences/ideas they reference. If you don't know how to do references, post which ones belong where on here and I will put them in for you. This article needs references, and the appropriate action on finding an article (particularly a lengthy article) which has no references, and about which you do not know enough to reference it yourself, is to add that template. It may be that this user has added this template in places in which it is inappropriate, but it absolutely belongs here unless you are going to provide references really soon. That way, people who might have access to sources are alerted to the lack of references, and can add them. Skittle 23:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I've added three of the standard references for nixie data, and will add more as time permits. The Weston book is the definitive source of data (so far as we [on neonixie-l] know). I've also taken the liberty of removing the unreferences article tag. Nickds1 06:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Nick, that's great. If you could try to add at least one of the references to each paragraph (but only, obviously, if the reference supports that paragraph!), that would make the whole thing much more verifiable. If you like, when you've added them in to the right places, I could convert the references to footnote form, but not if you'd rather keep the Harvard style. Skittle 17:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Some of these books have no ISBN (they pre-date that) but have Library of Congress numbers. Is there a way to add these to a citation? Nickds1 21:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't know what is normally done (I don't have much experience with Harvard-style referencing), but I would just add [[Library of Congress Control Number|LCCN]] (whatever the number is) in the same way that you've added the ISBN to the first reference. Skittle 01:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Seven-segment neon displays

Somewhere in a drawer I have some seven-segment neon-filled displays; these are in flat packages like an IC, but with a glass window over the front and with wire leads coming out the back (not in IC-style parallel rows, just randomly arranged). What were these called and who made them? I'll have to search for these and see if there's any maker's data stamped on them. They must have been uncommon since I don't ever recall seeing equipment using them (not even at hamfests). --Wtshymanski 14:23, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

There was a place where I worked that had a postal scale with a neon seven segment display. I can't remember who made it, though. You might see them here. Hellbus 21:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it sounds like you're describing Panaplex displays (developed by Burroughs just before their merger with Sperry, then later produced by Beckman and currently by Babcock.) However, it's also possible that what you have are actually incandescent rather than neon. The most common brand of these subminiature Numitron-style displays is Minitron.

I'd completely forgotten the name "Panaplex" - used to be big ads in the back of "Computer Trader" looking for NOS Panaplex devices. I also have some of the seven-segment incandescent devices which I bought for a digital clock project (back when digital clocks were made from about a score of TTL chips). I'll put taking photos of these devices on my to-do list. If I could get them all lit up at the same time, I could do a photo of an LED display, neon, incandescent and vacuum flourescent - the surplus bins at Radio Shack and my local surplus dealer were a favorite haunt of mine. (My 30-year-old LED digital clock still runs, and the display seems as bright as ever.) --Wtshymanski 13:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weston book reprints no longer available

I have received confirmation today (Nov 16 2007) from jan wuesten that reprints of the weston book are no longer available. The last print copy was sold and the data files used for the reprints are lost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.109.251.120 (talk) 08:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)