Nixies are also not a generic term; it's trademarked by, I believe,
<Honeywell. When other manufacturers made similar displays (sometimes
<incadescent, even) they were called "Numerons", "Numatrons", "Decatrons"
<and various other terms. Quite often these displays were more dissimila
<than similar, to tell you the truth (there were probably patent issues
<involved in addition to trademark issues.)
Yes patent issues and different drive methods. The decatron or Numatrons
I forget which had 10 pins around the permimiter that would glow ehn
active and there was a steering electrode to force a "shift up" or "shift
down". They took advantage of the hysterisys of Neon gas displays (turns
on at higher voltages than turn off.
There was also a dot matrix display by burroughs "self scan" I have a 32
char version.
Allison
Received on Fri May 08 1998 - 12:44:29 BST