<The striking and maintaining voltages of a neon bulb are different. This <can be used to make a bistable using a couple of neons and a few <resistors. No transistors.. Also tunnel diodes and sever types of bilater switches (four layer semis). <> Or, how about a one bit readable, writable memory circuit consisting of <> one neon bulb, two resistors, and a capacitor? <> How about a ring counter with no ICs, no transistors? < <There's an interesting little book called 'cold cathode tube circuit <design' that I have somewhere. It covers the use of neon bulbs and related <devices as stabilisers/triggers/counters/shift registers/etc, etc, etc I have samples of similar circuits. The most common use was octave dividers in early electonic organs as it was the most commonly used circuit in an organ and therefore required lowest cost. At the '64 worlds fair Bell labs showed a TIC-TAC-TOE machine that was largely neon lamps, Cold cathode thyratrons and relays. Allison