Is anyone familiar with vacuum tube indicators used on transistor logic
machines?
I recently found a small rack filled with small transistor logic modules.
Each module holds a flip flop or two at most.
The modules are small PC boards with a metal frame and handle. Test points
give you the state of each transistor
on the module.
Several modules have some sort of visual indicator tube as well.
These tubes are not much larger than a standard NE-2 bulb, but they more
resemble subminiature vacuum tubes.
The tubes are marked 01037 J3, each had four leads. Two of these leads
shows a resistance of 9.8 Ohms, and
appears to be a low voltage filament. One is grounded, the other is
connected to a bus in the rack of logic.
There is no 'getter flash' inside the glass tube, so they may be some sort
of glow discharge tube.
Looking at the insides of each tube thee appears to be a very fine V style
filament and a grid-like structure, but
I see no clear anode or plate structures. There are two thin 'wires'
outside of the grid, one in front and one
behind the central grid-like / filament structure.
These sound a lot like what we caleld 'DM160's in the UK. These are about
the size of a 1.24" (3AG??) cartridge fuse and have 4 active leads coming
out of one end.
2 of them are a filament (direcctly heated cathode), running at about 1V.
Another is the anode/target, which IIRC has a grid-like structure, It is
normally riun at about 30V +ve wrt the filament. The fourth wire is the
control grid, IIRC with the grid at the smae voltage as the filament the
device glows green, a -3V grid bias cuts it off and it's dark. Needless
to say the actual current drawn y the cotnrol grid from the transistor
logic is minimal/
-tony