[...]
(are all green displays nixie tubes I should ask?).
*NO* green displays are Nixie
tubes.
Well, if you mean the trademark meaning of "Nixie".
But for the more genericized meaning, I can't see any reason a similar
device couldn't be made and filled with a different gas mixture so as
to produce a green instead of red/orange glow. (It might require some
circuit redesign, as I suspect it means using higher voltages....)
Indeed. And _I_ would call that a 'nixie' tube (generic use), but not a
'Nixie' tube (trademark use) :-)
I think kthe term 'nixie tube' is already reasoanbly genric for
fully-formed-character [1] neon discharge displays, no matter who made
then. I would ertainly use the termi for similar devices made nby
Philips/Mullard.
[1] Not necessarily digits. The 10 digit ones are by far the msot common,
but tehre are others. One that is relatively common has '+', '-',
'~' (AC
symbol), 'A'. 'V', '$\Omega$'. It is commonly used in digital
measuring
instruments. I am pretty sure I saw a neon display years ago that
displayed 1/8, 1/4, 3/8. 1/2. 5/8. 3/4, 7/8. I don;t know if each of
those was separate cathodr, or if there were seaprate cathodes for the 4
psible numerators, 3 possible denominators and the slash.
However, I can't think of a gas that will give a green glow. As you want
to be able to turn it on and off quickly, you want a gasm,, not a metal
that has to vapourise. Any suggestions.
-tony
I've never seen one, though. While that doesn't prove much, I've never
even heard of one, either, so they can't be all that common.
Green displays are either incandescents with
green filters, or more
likely vacuum-fluorescent.
Or LEDs, though I would tend to assume LEDs would be easily identified
as such (eg, by lack of a glass envelope).
Jsut to make thing difficult, I'ev seen an incandescent 7 degment display
(each segment being a filament) in a flat package with no obvious
exhaustion tube/seal.It looked a lot like an LED display package.
-tony
