Nixie Clocks

To further explain my earlier post about Nixie clocks, what made it a Nixie clock were the Nixie tubes used to display the digits. They were originally developed back around 1952 by the Burroughs corporation. The display tubes were used in things like the early computers that filled an entire room. They didn't have computer monitors like we have now.

How they were is kind of interesting. Each character that was to be displayed from a tube had an actual piece of wire bent into that shape, and they were all stacked on top of one another. If the number "5" was to be displayed, electricity would pass through that wire. The tube was filled with neon gas. The gas touching the number 5 wire would then glow orange, and you would see the number 5. Because they were all stacked on top of each other, all of the numbers, except for the one at the very front, would have little breaks because of where the wires in front of it passed over. The tubes mostly displayed numbers because of the way the tubes were designed. It would be difficult to get 26 little wires crammed into a tube for each letter of the alphabet. Plus the connector for the tubes would need 27 contact points.

The name "Nixie" came from a working acronym for of "Numerical Indicator eXperimental", e.g.. NIX-1, and the name stuck.

No one uses them anymore for any real product. I don't know if they even make them anymore. Someone came across a bunch of spare nixie tubes and came up with idea of making a clock from them. Pretty cool, huh?

That is why the prices for the clocks are on the high side; each one is hand made; no big factory churning them out. Plus, the supply of the tubes is limited. They are literally antiques.