misidentification of Nixie tubes, was Re: strange remark about your collection?

displays with Nixie tubes are also not segmented. They have fully-formed digits stacked one atop the other. Nixie tube displays have "depth" to the digits. There are displays with a similar color to Nixie (orange), but use segments to render the digits. These are either individual tube-type gas-discharge displays (which are very frequently misidentified as Nixie tubes, because they look like a "tube"), or planar-style displays like the Burroughs Panaplex. These displays are most definitely not Nixie. There is a pretty rare type of Nixie-like called a Pandicon that is one tube with multiple digits worth of fully-formed digits inside it. Technically, it's not a Nixie tube, but visually, the display it generates looks just like individual Nixie tubes (unless you look closely through the filter). Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum