A proper generic term is cold cathode neon readout tube, though the phrase Nixie tube quickly entered the vernacular as a generic name.īurroughs even had another Haydu tube that could operate as a digital counter and directly drive a Nixie tube for display. Nixie-like displays made by other firms had trademarked names including Digitron, Inditron and Numicator. The Burroughs Corporation introduced 'Nixie' and owned the name Nixie as a trademark. Hundreds of variations of this design were manufactured by many firms, from the 1950s until the 1990s. 1', although this may have been a backronym designed to justify the evocation of the mythical creature with this name. The name Nixie was derived by Burroughs from 'NIX I', an abbreviation of 'Numeric Indicator eXperimental No. The early Nixie displays were made by a small vacuum tube manufacturer called Haydu Brothers Laboratories, and introduced in 1955 by Burroughs Corporation, who purchased Haydu. Nixie tubes were invented by David Hagelbarger. History Systron-Donner frequency counter from 1973 with Nixie-tube display Vacuum fluorescent displays from the same era use completely different technology-they have a heated cathode together with a control grid and shaped phosphor anodes Nixies have no heater or control grid, typically a single anode (in the form of a wire mesh, not to be confused with a control grid), and shaped bare metal cathodes. Such tubes rarely exceed 40 ☌ (104 ☏) even under the most severe of operating conditions in a room at ambient temperature. It is hence a cold-cathode tube (a form of gas-filled tube), and is a variant of the neon lamp. In later nixies, in order to extend the usable life of the device, a tiny amount of mercury was added to reduce cathode poisoning and sputtering.Īlthough it resembles a vacuum tube in appearance, its operation does not depend on thermionic emission of electrons from a heated cathode. The tube is filled with a gas at low pressure, usually mostly neon and a small amount of argon, in a Penning mixture. Applying power to one cathode surrounds it with an orange glow discharge.

The glass tube contains a wire-mesh anode and multiple cathodes, shaped like numerals or other symbols. s iː/ NIK-see), or cold cathode display, is an electronic device used for displaying numerals or other information using glow discharge. The ten digits of a GN-4 Nixie tubeĪ Nixie tube ( English: / ˈ n ɪ k. For a calculator company, see Digitron (company).

Cold cathode lights