Williams Tube memory, Selectron question, and Charactron

From: Dave McGuire <mcguire_at_neurotica.com>
Date: Sun Aug 15 17:19:53 1999

On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
>There was a thing in the UK called a DM160. The 'D' indicated a 1.5V heater,
>the 'M' meant is was an indicating tube (the same code is used for
>'magic eye' tuning indicators) and the '6' meant it was a sub-miniature
>device.
>
>This was a small valve about 30mm long and 6mm in diameter. It had 4
>external connections - the 2 ends of the filament, the anode (plate), and
>the control grid.
>
>If you applied 1.4V to the filament and about 30V to the anode, you got a
>nice blue/green glow. Applying about -3V bias to the grid turned it off.
>
>They were used as 'blikenlights' on computers/paper tape stuff over here.
>The 3V change in bias interfaced easily to transistorised logic, they
>were pretty reliable, and quite bright.

  This sounds like an ancestor of the modern vacuum-fluorescent display.
Similar in theory, I think, yes?

               -Dave McGuire
Received on Sun Aug 15 1999 - 17:19:53 BST