11 Jul
2007
11 Jul
'07
3:04 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
And here's the GE glow lamp applications guide
that I referenced:
http://www.donsbulbs.com/cgi-bin/r/t.pl/library1965geglowlamps.html
Note the sections on using glow lamps for logic and memory.
Or the reference at the top of this page:
http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/oldbooks.html
Neon bulb circuitry is cctech standard discussion #13 on a 10 month cycle.
I know it's off-topic a bit, but I stumbled on
this clock using neon
bulbs for counters and nixies for display. No vacuum tubes--just
caps, resistors, diodes and neon.
http://wwwhome.cs.utwente.nl/~ptdeboer/ham/neonclock/
Neat, if you remember we were discussing doing just this on the list last year:
Subject: Re: Vacuuum tube digital circuits (50 year rule)
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:08:14 -0700
From: Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca>
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
References: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
woodelf wrote:
Well can't you use neon tube logic and nixie tubes
+ a few diodes to
make a clock. This ain't high freq stuff here.
Neat idea .. looked up the glow bulb logic manual and there is a circuit for a
ring counter. Each stage requires 1 neon bulb, 1 diode, 1 resistor and 1
capacitor. So in theory one could build a 12-hour 6-digit digital clock
(60Hz-line timebase) with 3*(10+6)+12=60 neon bulbs. Perhaps 61, using another
bulb to square up the 60Hz line trigger. Might need amplifiers between digits.
However, my understanding of neon logic is that it's great in theory, but not
so much in practice. The characteristics between bulbs vary enough to make
implementation awkward and the characteristics of the bulbs vary over time,
leading to reliability problems.
As the description of ring counters in the the manual says:
"Lamps should be aged for best results and some selection may be desirable."
There was a discussion about these issues for neon-lamp-memory on the list in
May 2005.