kinda sorta maybe OT: Nixie tube display wristwatch

From: Paul Koning <pkoning_at_equallogic.com>
Date: Tue Feb 8 08:54:59 2005

>>>>> "Roger" == Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com> writes:

>> I think Nixe tubes stopped production with the advent of LCD's.

 Roger> You mean LEDs -- they arrived much sooner, and were much lower
 Roger> power than Nixies... (albeit not nearly as low-power as LCDs)
 Roger> -- and I would think they could be made much more
 Roger> inexpensively. Early on, I believe LEDs were also much less
 Roger> fragile than early LCDs; but that's an assumption.

 Roger> Like almost everything in this world, production costs make a
 Roger> huge outcome to the availability of products...

The other big issue with Nixies is the high driving voltage needed. I
remember the 7440 (?) binary to 10 output decoder, capable of handling
Nixie voltages. But those were always expensive.

7 segment displays took care of that. Not just the LED ones, but
(somewhat earlier still?) the incandescent wire types. Those didn't
stay around long, but in the early days were preferred because they
were cheap when LEDs were still very pricy, and very limited in size.

I still have a somewhat-working rack mount counter-timer with Nixie
displays. Should spend some more time on it, I could use a frequency
counter and this one may serve...

     paul
Received on Tue Feb 08 2005 - 08:54:59 GMT