Talk:Nixie tube

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)

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.

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.

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)

Things have moved on since this was first written. Dalibor Farney is well established as a new tube manufacturer, and there are other people producing new tubes (e.g. Millclock ZN-18) on a commercial basis. Isparkes (talk) 10:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I would also like to update the section about electronics. SuperTex (now Microchip) produce shift register based high voltage drivers, and have done so for some time. Isparkes (talk) 10:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

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.


 * 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)

I worked with Coherent brand Argon Lasers. One variant eliminated gas-fill solenoid valves in favor of argon-filled glass ampules with a gas-ballast tank. As gas pressure dropped, external copper tubes protruding from the gas-ballast tank could be crimped to break glass ampules within, releasing contained argon to replenish lost gas. Four pinched-off copper tubes containing glass ampules protruded from the gas ballast tank. How this relates to the Nixie: inside some Burroughs Nixie tubes a glass ampule can be seen, surrounded by a heater or filament of sorts. After learning about the Coherent Argon Laser refill function, I inferred the glass ampule seen inside the Nixie also performs a gas-refill function, presumably activated by heating the filament. Ampule gas release might happen gradually by heating and diffusion or increased permeability, or incrementally by thermal-shock-fracture or glass-liquefaction/bubble-burst preceding gas release. Or maybe another imperative was addressed by the designer(s) who incorporated a glass ampule for another reason. I would be interested in learning more about this engineering artifact, and about how to reactivate a spent Nixie using the filament surrounding the ampule, if this was indeed the original intent. Jeffreagan (talk) 21:42, 25 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Most nixies have a small amount of mercury in them to improve their lifespan. The mercury was held in the filament-wrapped bulb. The nixie received its fill of argon and neon and was then sealed. Only then would the filament receive a current to vaporize the mercury. You can't regenerate a nixie by applying a current to the filament. Hellbus (talk) 09:20, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

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)

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.


 * A.

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)

references tag
(I'm more or less copying my response from 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 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)

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.


 * A.


 * 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)

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)

Animated image
I believe there are guidelines against using animated images on wikipedia, because when you print it, you don't see the animation. I'm trying to dig those up now.--58.230.124.16 (talk) 03:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note that it is not recommended to use animated GIFs to display multiple photos. The method is not suitable for printing and also is not user friendly (users can not save individual images and have to wait before being able to view images while other images cycle round).Image_use_policy. This image should be split if its felt that it is necessary to have all these numbers in the article.--58.230.124.16 (talk) 03:04, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * A line from a certain movie comes to mind: "The pirate's code's more what ye might call guidelines than actual rules." I don't consider the printing issue to be a serious one. Also note that this image cycles rather quickly, so user friendliness (a term I've never heard with regards to an animation) isn't really a concern either. Hellbus (talk) 10:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Completely Incorrect Trochotron History
Trochotrons were not developed by Haydu. Their specific origin has been traced back to Ericsson. Ericsson engineers Hannes Alfven and Harald Romanus patented the first linear trochotron in 1946, and another Ericsson engineer, Nils Backmark, patented the first cylindrical trochotron in 1949. Burroughs patented their first improved cylindrical trochotron variant in 1952 (they added the switching grid and various geometry-related improvements), several years before they acquired Haydu. Haydu had little or nothing to do with the development of either the Nixie or the Trochotron. They merely produced them for Burroughs after the merger/acquisition. Burroughs needed a tube fabrication division to manufacture their pre-existing designs, so they bought Haydu. The primary innovators of the mature Nixie and trochotron are Saul Kuchinsky and Sin-Pih Fan, Burroughs engineers. Another Burroughs engineer named Roger Wolfe was directly involved with Kuchinsky in the development of the Beam-X Switch internal-magnet trochotron. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Accutron (talk • contribs) 13:47, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Text that needs clarifying
Second paragraph: "Such tubes rarely exceed 40 °C (104 °F) even under the most severe of operating conditions in a room at ambient temperature. [2]"

Does that mean that these tubes are rarely operated in an ambient hotter than that? They don't dissipate much power, so they don't get hot. Kindly clarify?

Regards, Nikevich (talk) 05:54, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that "ambient" refers to room temperature. Because they consume very little power, they do not get hot, and thus the tube's temperature does not exceed 40 °C (104 °F). I'm not sure how to reword the article to reflect this. Hellbus (talk) 11:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Trochotron Article
I support the previous paragraph re "Completely Incorrect Trochotron History".The prime inventor of the trochotron was Prof. Hannes O. G. Alfven, who was at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), in Stockholm, Sweden. It is misleading to include the description of the Trochotron in the History section of the Nixie tube article. Trochotrons were vacuum tubes (based on the technology of the magnetron), with hot cathodes - not cold-cathode, gas-filled, tubes. Until a few weeks ago, there was a "Trochotron" article heading in Wikipedia, but it was empty and the reader was redirected to the Nixie article. Now it's disappeared and the redirect, from the index of trochotron-related sites on the Web, goes straight to the Nixie article. The Trochotron definitely deserves its own article, for which the two relevant paragraphs in the Nixie article could be a start. If the Dekatron has two pages, then the trochotron should have two! The trochotron was NOT similar in function to glow-tansfer tubes as most did not (with one exception - see below) give a visible indication of the count position, but did operate 1,000 times faster than most gas-filled tubes. The Vintage Technology Association has a detailed and accurate document on Beam-Switching Tubes (i.e. Trochotrons) at www.decadecounter.com/vta/tubepage.php?item=18. The key points of that report could be summarized for the Trochotron entry. In the summer of 1953 I worked in Stockholm and met several times with a small team (in LM Ericsson's then head office site, at Midsommerkransen), which was trying to develop an electronic telephone exchange based on the trochotron. The LME engineers saw the trochotron's potential as a fast, electronic replacement for the crossbar switch. The poor crosstalk characteristics of the tube inhibited its use to carry telephone traffic and this work ended around 1958. By then it was clear that other technologies would be more viable. As explained in the VTA article, the trochotron was used successfully by Burroughs as a counting tube (with speeds of up to 10Mhz), for the best part of a decade. For the year of 1956, I used a frequency counter, which was based on the Philips' E1T trochotron, while working at Mullard Equipment (a subsidiary of Philips Telecommunication Industries), in Wandsworth, London.This counter was vital in the accurate tuning of oscillators and filters, for frequencies up to 105khz, in a seven-channel Transistorized Rural Carrier system (TRC-7). John Roger A. (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Fuel pump displays.
Nixie tubes were used in fuel pump displays. I remember them first appearing sometime in the 1980's on the first pumps with non-mechanical numeric displays, which I thought odd, why would new pumps be equipped with old technology like nixie tubes instead of LED or VFD. If you happen to gas up at an older station that still has pumps with nixie tubes, snap a pic for the article. Bizzybody (talk) 11:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Same reason nixie tubes were used for displays on station platforms. They are self-illuminated at night, have good contrast in bright sunlight, and they have wide viewing angles. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:47, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Are we talking about actual nixie tubes with stacked cathodes, or flat seven-segment neon displays? If it's the latter case, I think they're called Panaplex displays. I can think of a gas station near my apartment that has pumps with Panaplexes. Hellbus (talk) 01:45, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Both. As they're the same illumination tech, they both have the same advantages. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:13, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Capitalizing proper noun Nixie
I've capitalized the proper noun Nixie in the article. Like Kleenex, it's a trademark, and has been capitalized in all the technical and popular discourse I recall reading back in the '70s. Merriam-Webster does not include this definition in its entry, only that of the Germanic water sprite, aka nix. (Cambridge Online and Oxford Online don't even have nixie at all, let alone Nixie.) I recommend sticking with capitalization unless someone can cite compelling evidence to the contrary. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

In the former Soviet Union

 * In the former Soviet Union, Nixies were still being manufactured in volume in the 1980s, so Russian and Eastern European Nixies are still available.

I hope someone can add some explanation on why these countries make this thing111.251.228.212 (talk) 08:12, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * The text refers Russian tubes. nixieshop.com is a Ukrainian clock company whose web page says Ukraine had two Nixie manufacturing plants. Any objection to changing Russian to Soviet (except where the text says Russian or Eastern European)? Ronstew (talk) 06:40, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

K155ID1 Nixie Driver IC is not obsolete
In the article text its says "...The original 7400 series drivers integrated circuits such as the 74141 BCD decoder driver (or its Russian equivalent the K155ID1) have long since been out of production." That's not true when it comes to the Soviet Version. You can still order it from Integral Semiconductor in Minsk/ Belarus. See here: http://www.integral.by/?section_id=111 or here (english): http://www.integral.by/eng/?section_id=86 213.196.161.3 (talk) 15:30, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

IMHO, this article is poor....
I have contributed substantial parts of this article over many years, but now its so hacked about that it has lost its structure and the use of English, in part, is not good. Actually, I'll go further - it's poor, contains errors and lacks cohesion.

Over the next few weeks I'll seek to completely rewrite this article with a better structure, improved use of English, no duplication, expanded references etc. If others feel that this is not appropriate, please contribute below; if you feel something is missing and needs to be added, please say so. Let me know your thoughts.

Nick de Smith (moderator of the neonixie-l forum). Nickds1 (talk) 10:07, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * As a member of that group I am in favor of this. Hellbus (talk) 22:20, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Read the explanation of nixie physics and came away disappointed. Not really much to explain why it glows. Also notice the phrase "adding power to". What is that supposed to mean? Needs improvement.Longinus876 (talk) 14:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Nixies in modern media
I recently saw the movie, Tomorrowland, and it contained numerous images of Nixie displays. Perhaps that should be listed? Also, I recall that in about 1969, desktop calculators made by the Wang Corporation employed Nixie tubes. Sluefoot (talk) 22:34, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Tomorrowland isn't a good source for anything, as it's not only fictional, it's deliberately retrofuturistic. Are nixies used because they belong in that period? Or where they added to the film to create a particular effect? You might find something in Hipster Monthly that sources "Tomorrowland deliberately adds nixies to create a vintage effect", but that's about it. We certainly can't rely on Tomorrowland itself as a source.


 * Mains-powered desk calculators, and shop weighing scales, used nixies well into the '70s. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)


 * In the Netflix series Wednesday, the title character has a Nixie clock on her desk. Which is what brought me to this article. Ronstew (talk) 06:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Pronunciation
I'd like to add to the article. I wasn't aware of how to pronounce it, and seems like this bit of info could be helpful. Let me know your objections. Kyleleitch 4:40 UTC, 20 Nov 2016

Alternatives and successors
This section has almost no citations when it lists other forms of display technology. What on earth is a "backlit columnar transparency?" I searched for this phrase and came up with nothing except this page and bot-driven copies of this page. Saying "thermometer displays" in parenthesis only further confuses things. Someone please edit, elaborate, or delete this sort of thing!

Anonymous grouch editing as 173.66.167.67 (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)