The 1960's-70's was the period of greatest popularity of Nixie tubes as a mean to display information without having to electrically heat a filament such as in the case of cathode ray tube (CRT) displays and light-emitting diode (LED) displays. The confusion between CRTs and Nixie tubes comes from the fact that they both look a whole lot the same. However, the cathode element inside a Nixie tube does not heat up. The Nixie tube works more like a neon lamp with metal cathode elements inside it. When the neon gas inside a Nixie tube is excited (plasma) and the metal cathode element is energized, the reaction causes the peculiar orange glow to appear very near to the metal cathode element. Believe it or not, the actual cathode element itself doesn't produce the glow.
Nixie tubes were used mostly as digital displays in early scientific equipment and instruments, and many of these old instruments have been turned into cool modern gadgets that resemble technology of the wild west or the Victorian era! By the way, if you are wondering where the name Nixie comes from, it comes from NIX1 (for Numeric Indicator eXperimental #1).
Below are some cool gadgets that used Nixie tube displays:
Nixie Tube Calculator
Nixie Tube Tuner
Hi-Fi receivers such as the SAE Mark VI digital tuner were FM-only tuners with analog tuning knobs and mechanical tuning capacitors, but had the digital frequency display made with Nixie tubes. There was also the sci-fi looking Scott T33S digital tuner, which had perforated cards acting as memory presets that you had to perforate yourself with the Scott-supplied perforate! The Revox A720 was another popular choice at the time as it was a digital FM Tuner pre-amplifier with beautiful Nixie tubes.Nixie Tube Watch
Nixie Tube Voltmeter/Multimeter
Nixie Tube Frequency Counter
One of the first times I remember seeing a Nixie tube frequency counter was in the movie Futureworld which came out in 1976. Nixie tube frequency counters are almost 50 years old now and pretty much obsolete, though you can still find them around at flea markets or boot fair for as little as $30. You can even find Nixie tube frequency counters on eBay. It's quite amazing actually how the Nixie tubes in the frequency counters do not loose contrast. No wonder Nixie tubes were one of the most popular methods for displaying information.HP 5321B frequency counter with Nixie tubes.
Nixie Tube Pinball
I've come across unusual modifications for a pinball machine display, and one of the coolest I've seen is Nixie tubes installed in an arcade pinball machine display.The enthusiast behind this particular Nixie tube pinball display project used a Bally Star Trek table from 1978 “mirrored” and re-worked into a Star Trek Mirror Universe pinball table with 7 digit Nixie Tube Displays which he reversed engineered by custom-making an Arduino compatible Audio tester to verify the Audio card design of the original. The table art, backglass and plastics had to be also custom-made, while the physical rollover switches were replaced with magnetic eddy sensors to sense the ball. The original Bally Transformer was replaced with an ATX power supply.
Here is the intro scene to the Six Million Dollar Man show I was telling you about. Watch for the digital counter counting down from 59 while he's running on the treadmill machine.
Here is the intro scene to the Six Million Dollar Man show I was telling you about. Watch for the digital counter counting down from 59 while he's running on the treadmill machine.
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