27 Sep
2012
27 Sep
'12
8:58 p.m.
On 09/27/2012 10:54 PM, Mouse wrote:
Except that
that's not at all how VFDs work.
No, of course not.
I wasn't trying to suggest that it was likely the original device
worked this way; I feel moderately sure it's vacuum fluorescent. I was
taking issue with the dogmatic statement that "*NO* green displays are
Nixie tubes". I don't know of any, but I see no reason it couldn't be
done and, since there's a plausible way to do it, I am not nearly as
confident as you are that it's never been done.
That's nice.
(why are we even talking about this?)
[cracks knuckles]
Yes, one can put a green filter over a Nixie tube. Then you'd
have...surprise! A Nixie tube with a green filter, not a "green Nixie
tube".
"Nixie" is a trademarked name, owned originally by Burroughs, for an
orange neon display tube with fully-formed metal digits as cathodes.
That's the definition of "Nixie tube". You may try to rewrite history
if you like, by talking about such madness as re-filling Nixie tubes
with some gas other than neon and then there'd be Nixie tubes that don't
glow orange, but that would be...well, madness...and it doesn't change
the damn definition of "Nixie tube".
But I forgot, this is classiccmp, where a fact isn't a fact unless
it's printed in a book. But wait! I have a STACK OF BOOKS that talk
about Nixie tubes and present these facts. You may come here and peruse
them if you like, but this is where it ends for me, because this is a
waste of time...I know what a damn Nixie tube is, and I really don't
care if you unilaterally decide to redefine the term because you don't
know any better.
Kee-HRIST.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
*NO* green
displays are Nixie tubes.
But for the more genericized meaning [of
"Nixie"], 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.