31 Aug
2006
31 Aug
'06
6:40 p.m.
On Thursday 31 August 2006 09:13 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 9/1/2006 at 12:25 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk
wrote:
I don't remember counting them, but the only ones I saw that would display
alphanumerics were also segmented, as you describe here. On display and lit
up in some store that was on Canal St. in NYC years ago, they sure aren't
there any more.
But segmented displays aren't always the best choice. If you have a display
where that last digit is reading "4" and it occasionally bobbles to 3 or 5,
a Nixie will show you this by the relative brightness of those electrodes,
while a 7-segment display will show you "8"...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
Obviously you can use 'decimal' nixie
tubes to display in octal (just
ingore the 8 and 9 cathodes. Did anyone ever make hexadeximal nixie tubes
with 16 cathodes of the appropriate shapes? I've not seen them in the
databooks.
I've never seen one either. I wonder if it's a limitation of the geometry
where it's just not possible to pack 16 alphanumerics into a bottle without
too many things being obscured by the electrodes. AFAIK, the only fully
alphanumeric nixies were the 13 segment varieties.