Editing Nixie tube (section)

==History==
[[File:NixieFrequencyCounter.jpg|thumb|Systron-Donner [[frequency counter]] from 1973 with Nixie-tube display]]

Nixie tubes were invented by David Hagelbarger.<ref>{{cite web
 |title        = The Computer Museum Report
 |url          = https://tcm.computerhistory.org/reports/TCMReportWinter1987-88.pdf
 |year         = 1987
 |access-date  = 2023-07-24
 |url-status   = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20140810153557/https://tcm.computerhistory.org/reports/TCMReportWinter1987-88.pdf
 |archive-date = 2014-08-10
 |publisher    = The Computer Museum
 |volume       = 21
 |page	       = 3
 |quote	       = The prototype Nixie Tube and the patent material were presented to the Museum by its Inventor, David Hagelbarger.
}}
</ref><ref>{{cite web
 |last         = Pike
 |first        = Robe
 |title        = Microblog post, 24 July 2023
 |url          = https://hachyderm.io/@robpike/110768696007449946
 |date         = 24 July 2023
 |access-date  = 2023-07-24
 |url-status   = live
 |website      = Hachyderm
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20230724113837/https://hachyderm.io/@robpike/110768696007449946
 |archive-date = 2023-07-24
}}</ref> The early Nixie displays were made by a small vacuum tube manufacturer called Haydu Brothers Laboratories, and introduced in 1955<ref>'Solid State Devices--Instruments' article by S. Runyon in ''Electronic Design'' magazine vol. 24, 23 November 1972, p. 102, via Electronic Inventions and Discoveries: Electronics from its Earliest Beginnings to the Present Day, 4th Ed., Geoffrey William Arnold Dummer, 1997, {{ISBN|0-7503-0376-X}}, p. 170</ref> by [[Burroughs Corporation]], who purchased Haydu. The name ''Nixie'' was derived by Burroughs from "NIX I", an abbreviation of "Numeric Indicator eXperimental No. 1",<ref name="sciam">{{cite journal |last1=Sobel |first1=Alan |title=Electronic Numbers |journal=Scientific American |date=June 1973 |volume=228 |issue=6 |pages=64–73 |doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0673-64 |jstor=24923073|bibcode=1973SciAm.228f..64S }}</ref> although this may have been a [[backronym]] designed to justify the evocation of [[Nixie (folklore)|the mythical creature with this name]]. Hundreds of variations of this design were manufactured by many firms, from the 1950s until the 1990s. The Burroughs Corporation introduced "Nixie" and owned the name ''Nixie'' as a [[trademark]]. Nixie-like displays made by other firms had trademarked names including ''Digitron'', ''Inditron'' and ''Numicator''. A proper generic term is ''cold cathode neon readout tube'', though the phrase ''Nixie tube'' quickly entered the vernacular as a generic name.

Burroughs even had another Haydu tube that could operate as a [[Counter (digital)|digital counter]] and directly drive a Nixie tube for display. This was called a "Trochotron", in later form known as the "Beam-X Switch" counter tube; another name was "magnetron beam-switching tube", referring to their derivation from a [[magnetron|split-anode magnetron]]. Trochotrons were used in the [[UNIVAC 1101]] computer, as well as in clocks and frequency counters.

The first trochotrons were surrounded by a hollow cylindrical magnet, with poles at the ends. The field inside the magnet had essentially-parallel lines of force, parallel to the axis of the tube. It was a thermionic vacuum tube; inside were a central cathode, ten anodes, and ten "spade" electrodes. The magnetic field and voltages applied to the electrodes made the electrons form a thick sheet (as in a cavity magnetron) that went to only one anode. Applying a pulse with specified width and voltages to the spades made the sheet advance to the next anode, where it stayed until the next advance pulse. Count direction was determined by the direction of the magnetic field, and as such was not reversible. A later form of trochotron called a Beam-X Switch replaced the large, heavy external cylindrical magnet with ten small internal metal-alloy rod magnets which also served as electrodes.

Glow-transfer counting tubes, similar in essential function to the trochotrons, had a glow discharge on one of a number of main cathodes, visible through the top of the glass envelope. Most used a neon-based gas mixture and counted in base-10, but faster types were based on argon, hydrogen, or other gases, and for timekeeping and similar applications a few base-12 types were available. Sets of "guide" cathodes (usually two sets, but some types had one or three) between the indicating cathodes moved the glow in steps to the next main cathode. Types with two or three sets of guide cathodes could count in either direction. A well-known trade name for glow-transfer counter tubes in the [[United Kingdom]] was [[Dekatron]]. Types with connections to each individual indicating cathode, which enabled presetting the tube's state to any value (in contrast to simpler types which could only be directly reset to zero or a small subset of their total number of states), were trade named ''Selectron'' tubes.

At least one device that functioned in the same way as Nixie tubes was patented in the 1930s<ref>{{cite web
 |title        = Boswau, Hans P., Signaling system and glow lamps therefor, United States Patent 2142106A, filed 1934-05-09, Issued and published 1939-01-03
 |url          = https://patents.google.com/patent/US2142106A
 |year         = 1934
 |access-date  = 2023-07-31
 |url-status   = live
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20230731130004/http://www.jb-electronics.de/downloads/elektronik/nixies/patente/US2142106.pdf
 |archive-date = 2023-07-31
 |publisher    = United States Patent Office
 |volume       = 21
 |page	       = 3
 |quote	       = 70 appear in approximately the same place. In this manner, any one of the ten numerals may be displayed by causing the corresponding cathode to glow.
}}</ref>
. There were a number of relevant patents filed by Northrop and others around the early 1950s, and the first mass-produced display tubes were introduced in 1954 by National Union Co. under the brand name Inditron. However, the construction of the first Inditrons was cruder than that of the later Nixies, lacking the common anode grid, so that the unlit numerals were held at anode voltage to function as the effective anode. Their average lifetime was shorter, and they failed to find many applications due to their complex drive needs.