brian@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Brian Kantor) (07/15/87)
In Electronics World Magazine in the middle 60's there was a circuit for a quartz crystal clock with Nixie display. As I recall, you could build it either with 12AU7 twin triodes, or 6SN7s, depending on whether you had more octal or 9-pin tube sockets sitting in your junk box. I got it about half built and couldn't afford the timebase crystal. Sigh. There were a number of ICs on the market in the early 70s that were Nixie tube drivers - you could use ICs to divide down the timebase and count the minutes, but LED displays were too expensive, so you'd go to Nixies for output. Nowadays, if I had to use Nixies, I'd use some cheap horizontal output transistors and a BCD-to-10-line decoder. I seem to remember that you had to switch about 5 ma at 250v or so. Ah, the old days of firebottle technology. (Vacuum-packed depletion mode electron-emission devices with built-in indicator lamp and environmental heater.) - Brian I am NOT an old fart.
hoffman@pitt.UUCP (Bob Hoffman) (07/15/87)
In article <3452@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> brian@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Brian Kantor) writes: > Nowadays, if I had to use Nixies, I'd use some cheap >horizontal output transistors and a BCD-to-10-line decoder. I seem to >remember that you had to switch about 5 ma at 250v or so. That's about right. It depends on the size of the Nixie tube being used. I built a clock some years ago that used some old B7971 Nixies that are 2-1/2 inch high 15-segment alphanumeric displays. They take a little more current than the little ones. I have them wired up like 7-segment displays and run them off an MM5314 clock chip with discrete transistor drivers. >Ah, the old days of firebottle technology. (Vacuum-packed depletion >mode electron-emission devices with built-in indicator lamp and >environmental heater.) > - Brian That's pretty good -- I like to think of them as Hot-Cathode FETs. >I am NOT an old fart. Me neither! :-) -- Bob Hoffman, N3CVL {allegra, bellcore, cadre, idis, psuvax1}!pitt!hoffman Pitt Computer Science hoffman%pitt@relay.cs.net
cgs@umd5.umd.edu (Chris Sylvain) (07/18/87)
In article <3452@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> brian@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Brian Kantor) writes:
<
<In Electronics World Magazine in the middle 60's there was a circuit for
<a quartz crystal clock with Nixie display.
< ... Nowadays, if I had to use Nixies, I'd use some cheap
<horizontal output transistors and a BCD-to-10-line decoder.
How about the Signetics DM8880, "High Voltage 7-Segment Decoder/Driver" ?
It can drive a Sperry SP-730 or SP-760 display tube directly, with TTL BCD
input..
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