[BC] For you 'old-timers'...

[Harold Hallikainen]

>> I wonder why they didn't use nixies for the digits.  Would that not have
>> saved considerable space and make the units more compact and more
>> straight-forward to read when "stacked" for multiple places?
>
> Oh, yeah. But the "stacked" displays were first, then nixie numeral
> diaplays. I was always intrigued by the little nixie tubes, and how
> they worked. Now that I see that they're available and inexpensive, I
> might just pick up a few. Nostalgia, and all that.
>
>> ...I'd really love to have one of those nixie tube clocks, but the
>> irony is I don't have the time to build one.

A couple years ago I ran across multiplexed Nixies! I'd never seen these
before. They had a common pin for odd numbers and another common pin for
even numbers. They then had 5 more pins for the even/odd pairs (a pin for
0 and 1, another for 2 and 3, etc.). I designed a driver to drive those
odd tubes.

Before that, the clock that came with the Broadcast Products AR-2000 used
Nixies. The main controller, though, used Numitron tubes (incandescent
seven segment).

Harold

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