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I just finished testing and sorting all the Nixie tubes we got in that were left over production stock (from long ago). You may recall I offered sets of 6 new tubes a few weeks ago, and they went quickly. These were referred to as "Super" size tubes by Burroughs, the factory data sheet is here:


This tube is long life and wide viewing angle rated, and still runs on the regular +170VDC supply. They have the same base, socket and pin-out as the famous B5092. Great looking tubes when lit!

These are in two groups, "appear to be new" and "probably used", but still look great. Every tube has been thoroughly tested, and every marginal tube was kicked out, these are from the early 70's so there were a few that just didn't light correctly, or had base flash-over.
Want some "duds" to experiment with? ask and I will toss a few in with your order, I always have a big reject box).

For list members only, a set of 6 "appear to be new" tubes is US$139,
and we will throw in 6 NEW chassis sockets. We can ship anywhere in the USA or Canada for $23 (expresspost) or less if you want uninsured surface mail. We can take visa/MC directly for orders, or Paypal if you want to cover the exchange fee.

The "probably used" sets of 6 are US$125, also with free chassis sockets. I can make up about 4 more sets in total, so email me if interested. You will love these for clocks, the big digits really look great, and of course the true-form characters and US-made quality of these tubes is a real bonus. No, these are not up on our web site, this is just a one time offer for list members. We get these so seldom, I thought they might be a nice summer treat for everybody here to experiment with, and a nice change from Russian tubes.

all the best,
Walter (walter2 -at- sphere.bc.ca)
sphere research corporation

Could be, but I'm more inclined to believe they're the earliest known

neon

multi-segment (panaplex-style) readouts. At least until someone says
otherwise. Either way, it's quite a find, congratulations!

Hmm I don't think so, National Union has at least one 7 segment tube in
their product line, the NUP100. They were some on Ebay a few weeks ago.
I have taken several pictures already, I will upload them eventually,
but now I am under quite some stress.

I believe the NUP100 is only one from the "segmented tube series" from
National Union, given the index number 100 (we know there are tubes like
NUP118). The NUP100 reminds me of some patent applications for these
tubes I have seen, maybe some other NUP tubes will surface over the time
to give us certainty. Sadly, there don't seem to be records on National
Union and teir product line.

These 14 segment tubes from ETL are something completely different. They
are labelled ETL, and furthermore, lab sample. Their prefix "VX" implies
that they are not from the usual display tube product line.

Well, I am dying to see some pictures, too. ;-)

Best regards,
Jens

I just spent some time on DigiKey looking for a sufficient transistor. I plan on using a BJT, because its the only type I'm familiar with at the moment.

I found the MPSA43 to be a great candidate.
-Vce up to 200V
-Vcb up to 200V
-Veb up to 6v
-Ic up to 200mA

C - HV PSU -> collector
B - PIC output -> resistor -> base
E - emitter -> resistor -> anode of nixie tube

Now I think this would work. However, I then looked at some of the nixie tube designs in the Files section. What do you know, he used the MPSA42 also. So I've got some validity to that decision. However I noticed oz2cpu used two resistors for each set of on/off switches. I don't quite understand why. I would guess perhaps to protect the PIC I/O pins from any faults/leaking current. I know transistors somewhat, but not as much as I will after next semester. There is a lot I don't know, and this is a good example. Could someone please explain this to me. Thanks.

Also, whats with the 100n capacitor on the VCC/GNDs?

-Mike

Thank you all. Great insights. I'm def gonna end up using the interrupt. This isn't that hard after all! I was actually just thinking of a similar algorithm to yours yhbcoggs. Awesome!

On a slight side note, so since this is 4800bps, I could safely assume that I will receive more than once time code per second. And that, I assume, is the ".ss" part of "hhmmss.ss" - So I could, assuming I was always connected, use a compare within this string to know when a second in time has occurred. Also, it seems like many instructions on the pic are executed within either the nanosecond range, or low microsecond range. Since I don't have that much code for the interrupts I could perhaps say its negligible time. I plan on using a 32.whatever oscillator and using an interrupt count to compare for each second (I stil have some research to do in that area). But then when should I have the clock sync? I think it makes more sense to use an oscillator as the timing mechanism then the string compare mentioned above. Or maybe moth? I was thinking maybe every five minutes I would have it sync with the GPS, just incase its off by a second or two. A bit of scattered thoughts here, sorry. Any thoughts?

Well it looks like I won them, I am not sure what I got ...
Well see when they arrive.

inclined to believe they're the earliest known ...
(panaplex-style) readouts. ... congratulations!

I guess you have a growing crowd, who'd definitely like to see what you've gotten, including me. So when it arrives, take lots of pictures. Hopefully, a few of it lit up. Nice find !

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., "A.J." <a.j.franzman@...> wrote:

I've never seen a Burroughs/Sperry/Beckman/Babcock neon Panaplex
with a mesh anode or grid

* disregarding the Burroughs B-x971 series, of course.

A.J.

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., "Tidak Ada" <offline@...> wrote:

This reminds me a display, a friend showed me yesterday, build in a HP 432B
RF-powermeter. It looks like panaplex, including the triangular
decimalpoint, but a fine mesh grid in front of the segments is visible when
lit (I haven't opened the instrumentand there is a dark FP-style filter in
front of the display).
Is this mesh ever used in panaplex displays, or is it no genuine Panaplex?

We are also wondering this is original in this instrument version, while he
has also a HP 432C, that has normal nixietubes in the front.

Can you (or others) tell me more?

I've never seen a Burroughs/Sperry/Beckman/Babcock neon Panaplex with a mesh anode or grid, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. There were other makers of similar displays too, such as Vishay and Telefunken. However, as you know, mesh grids are common in VFDs. Putting a typical blue-green VFD behind a dark amber filter like that which HP used for nixie displays, will give a color nearly indistinguishable from neon glow. Do you by chance remember whether the characters had any fuzziness to their edges, or if they were very sharp?

Another possibility is that it was a normal neon panaplex display with the usual near-invisible printed indium tin oxide anodes, but the equipment (being meant for use in an RF environment) has a mesh Faraday cage in front of the display.

A.J.

On 2 Jul 2010, at 20:52, Dmitri Vorobiev wrote:

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 10:15 PM, yhbcoggs <rdcjr@...> wrote:

I can't believe I had to work late today and missed the end of this auction!!!

You need an ebay sniper program. I use auction sentry www.auctionsentry.com/

Very nice program, thanks for the hint!

Dmitri

I have been using Jbidwatcher for a year or so. It works OK for me and has the benefit of being free. It is also java-based, so it might even work for those of you whom still use Microsoft Windows jobbies. (I know, as if...)
<>

John S

On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 10:15 PM, yhbcoggs <rdcjr@...> wrote:

I can't believe I had to work late today and missed the end of this auction!!!

You need an ebay sniper program. I use auction sentry

Very nice program, thanks for the hint!

Dmitri

I can't believe I had to work late today and missed the end of this auction!!!

You need an ebay sniper program. I use auction sentry

..c

True, you don't need to buffer up the whole line; I did it by just looking at the last 3 characters; Just write a state machine that goes something like:

Say the NMEA sentence with the time 00:31:07 looks like this:

$GPGGA,003107<don't care about the rest>

Each time you see a character (every time you get a serial rx interrupt):

If current character is a $, reset state to 0

If state is 0 and the next to last character was a G,
and the last character is a G, and the current character is an A set state to 1

If state is 1, watch for a comma, set state to 2

If state is 2, set H tens, set state to 3
If state is 3, set H ones, set state to 4
If state is 4, set M tens, set state to 5
If state is 5, set M ones, set state to 6
If state is 6, set S tens, set state to 7
If state is 7, set S ones, set state to 8

no matter what the state do these things:

next to last character = last character

last character = current character

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., "A.J." <a.j.franzman@...> wrote:

-----

Well it looks like I won them, I am not sure what I got, I thought they
might be numitron style? Well see when they arrive.

Could be, but I'm more inclined to believe they're the earliest known neon multi-segment (panaplex-style) readouts. At least until someone says otherwise. Either way, it's quite a find, congratulations!

A.J.

From the description, which states there are 14 wire segments I was envisioning something like the Burroughs 5971. I asked for a photo of the top of the tubes, but did not receive one. You'll have to let us know when they arrive!

Mike

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., "msilv3r" <msilv3r@...> wrote:

Now my question to you guys, on the PIC side of things.
-From my current understanding, I will have a byte by byte buffer. This means I will have to do some type of compare with each character. I'm not sure how to do this.

When a byte is received by the pic an interrupt bit is set. If you have the serial data interrupt enable flag set the program execution can be made to jump to your own interrupt routine. If the serial data interrupt enable flag is not set then the relevant interrupt bit is still set and you can check for it being set using a wait loop, or at least polling at regular enough intervals to make sure you capture every bit.

on my pic the received data interrupt flag is PIR1,5
The corresponding enable bit is PIE1,5

Not that I've ever had to rely on it, the pic's receive buffer is three bytes deep. The first byte to arrive sets the interrupt bit and two more bytes can still be received and read by successive reads of the RXREG register.

I use a similar header trapping technique with my Smartsockets as you do with your NMEA header (I've also used this technique for NMEA data), where I detect the existence of the header "$B7" before each instruction. The following assembler code is in an interrupt and if you are not up to speed with assembler just bear in mind that the receive progress is recorded by setting bits in the 'RX_progress' register. If the first byte matches a comparison with character "$" I set bit 0 or rx_progress. The next byte to arrive is compared with character "B" and if it is a match I set bit 1, then bit two with the next correct match "7".

I use the set bits to control program flow and keep a track of how far into the received string we are. once I get the first three correct bytes I set bit 3.

Sample code >>>>>

Datain:
btfss PIR1,5 ; is the received data flag set ?
goto do_something_else
movf RCREG,w
movwf _RX_BUF ; save the received byte immediately


; progrss register bits 0-3 get set as each element of the header
; is received. If a bad byte is detected then progress is reset
; and the code starts waiting for another $ sign


prog0:
btfsc _RX_PROGRESS,0 ; has the progress,0 step been completed

bra prog1 ; yes, test for progress,1
movf _RX_BUF,w
xorlw '$' ; test if this byte is a $ sign
btfss STATUS,Z
goto dump ; not a $ sign, clear the progress register
bsf _RX_PROGRESS,0 ; no, set this bit now
movf TMR1L,w
subwf _randnum,f
goto out ; is a $ sign, don't clear progress, allow more

prog1: btfsc _RX_PROGRESS,1 ; same as above, validate the received data/header
bra prog2
movf _RX_BUF,w
xorlw 'B'
btfss STATUS,Z
goto dump
bsf _RX_PROGRESS,1
goto out

prog2: btfsc _RX_PROGRESS,2
bra prog3

movf _RX_BUF,w
xorlw '7'
btfss STATUS,Z
goto dump
bsf _RX_PROGRESS,2
goto out



; The fourth byte to be received is the 'type of message' character
; as for prog0 to prog2, if the fourth byte doesn't meet the test
; criteria of being a valid message type this data sentence is aborted

prog3: btfsc _RX_PROGRESS,3
bra prog4
clrf _M_type
clrf _M_type1

End of Sample code >>>

I'll take a look to see if I can find my NMEA code, but from memory it was pretty much the same techniques I used to trap headers and make comparisons.

Chris

Regards,
Christian Bjelle
christian@...

Hello.
May I suggest some literature that might be useful here?
The first is "Designing embedded hardware" by John Catsoulis (ISBN 0-596-00755-8). It is what the title says, and has covers topics like: assembler, basic electronics, how to build stuff, SPI, I2C, USB, CAN, Ethernet, ..., and has separate chapters for PIC, AVR and even 68000.
Second: "Programming embedded systems with C and GNU Development tools", Michael Barr & Anthony Massa (ISBN 0-596-00983-6).
And finally: "Programming embedded systems in C and C++", Michael Barr (ISBN 1-56592-354-5).
(All three O'reilly-books)

They all help straighten out a beginner's questions, and provide answers to some you didn't know to ask :)

Regards,
Christian B

1 jul 2010 kl. 16.06 skrev Bjorn Again:

Hi Mike,

normally I would've placed a bid on these tubes, I cannot believed I missed it, too... What a shame ;-)

They remind me of very early U.S. indicator patents.

Kind regards,
Jens

--- In NEONIXIE-L@..., laingt@... wrote:
-----

Posted by: "yellow74ghia" mjrippe@... yellow74ghia
Wed Jun 30, 2010 3:17 pm (PDT)
ETL Multi-segment Nixie Tubes on Ebay - Who won?

I can't believe I had to work late today and missed the end of this
auction!!! Did someone here win item #320552926621, because I'd love to
hear and see more about these tubes.

-----

Well it looks like I won them, I am not sure what I got, I thought they
might be numitron style? Well see when they arrive.

Could be, but I'm more inclined to believe they're the earliest known neon multi-segment (panaplex-style) readouts. At least until someone says otherwise. Either way, it's quite a find, congratulations!

A.J.

Hi!
I made some updates and additions:

You must see the IN-2 with blue LED bottom illumination!
(???`.._..??????`.._..-DIETER-.._..??????`.._..??????)

Well it looks like I won them, I am not sure what I got, I thought they
might be numitron style? Well see when they arrive. Tim Laing

ETL Multi-segment Nixie Tubes on Ebay - Who won?
Posted by: "yellow74ghia" mjrippe@... yellow74ghia
Wed Jun 30, 2010 3:17 pm (PDT)


I can't believe I had to work late today and missed the end of this
auction!!! Did someone here win item #320552926621, because I'd love to
hear and see more about these tubes.

Mike