Multiplexing Nixies

At 07:21 PM 3/6/2007 -0500, you wrote: My great treasure is a box of Burroughs 7971 nixies. I have five, or maybe six of them. As you may know, these are "British Flag" displays that can do any number, letter, and some punctuation. They're 4.55 inches high, excluding the pins, and the characters are 2.5 inches high. They have 15 segments each making designing for them a challenge. What I want it a device I can build with a PIC or two that will display the time and maybe the temp, plus a scrolling alpha numeric message uploaded to it via a USB port. I see USB port boards for PIC use all over the place, but I'm fairly daunted by the prospect of designing a circuit flexible enough to drive 6x15 segment nixies. Maybe a character generator in addition to the main PIC?? The other thing I want is a WWV decoder so it sets itself. Yes, I know I could periodically set it over a USB port, but I want it to be self sufficient if no PC is handy. The only suggestions I've gotten so far are to cut up a cheapo atomic clock from a big-box store and salvage the 1 PPS output from it. That might help me keep it accurate, but won't help me set it automagically. Others have suggested a GPS eval board. Those are certainly cheap enough and some require no more than power and spit out NMEA strings the minute you power them up. But GPS won't work indoors and certainly not in the basement. Still looking, -Tom ----- 445. [Humor] I just got skylights put in my place. The people who live above me are furious. --Steven Wright --... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -... tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixweb.com/tpeters 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531