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Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Discussion on Nixies, Jump Hours and all other digital watches, clocks and gadgets
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Diginut

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: Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post01 Apr 2008, 16:43

I once did take the big toshiba to work, plugged it in (watched the room lights go dim !) and it got ALOT of attention, escpecially since some of the lads in the office were born in the 80s and just cant comprehend electronic antiques.

Next day they all showed up with various 70s / 80s calculators, mainly Casio's with green flourescant displays from mid 80s that they used at school, or in one case it was his dads at school (gawd, I feel old now) etc.

so next day I brought in the ultimate casio ... a 1969 CASIO nixie tube calculator. History !!! Blew em away !!!!

Plus, below is another gratuitous pic of the Toshiba.



Image

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Led-Time

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: Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post01 Apr 2008, 18:26

Those nixie calc's are superb, what tubes are in them.

If thats a Sharp EL-122 ( I can't tell the number from the picture) I've got a brand spanking one still boxed with the original batteries in their plastic I bought it ages ago for a few £'s, do you think its worth anything.
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rewolf

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: Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post01 Apr 2008, 18:48

It stroke me immediately that pi isn't correct on the Toshiba :mrgreen:
Apart from that ;-), it is a really beautiful machine.
I always wonder why these 60's calculators have SO MANY digits? Kind of madness, having a 16 digits nixie display, but only four functions. That's even enough to account the US national debt accurately to a fraction of a cent (yet).
Getting a bit OT, but I want to show you my dream desktop calculator, the HP 9800 - 3-line digital CRT display, scientific functions, programmable, etc... - and not a single digital IC!
Image


Now I have to get me a nixie clock - only because I won't get into nixie calculators as I have started with DSM and LED calculators already ;-)
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Diginut

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Re: : Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post01 Apr 2008, 19:41

rewolf wrote:It stroke me immediately that pi isn't correct on the Toshiba :mrgreen:
Apart from that ;-), it is a really beautiful machine.



Huh ??? But I quickly hand calculatted Pi to 2000 places and realised that the replaced picture is the correct one. Does this tally with your own findings ?

I know someone who had a 9800 sent to him in the UK from ebay USA and when it arrived the tube was smashed. WHich is just a horrible thing to experience, especially since it took weeks of waiting... Ouch.

Anyway, heres Pi incase anyone needs more accuracy, such as when the sub prime (no pun intended) bubble deforms into something more like a non-circular cow pat, and hyperinflation renders the numerical range of all calculators redundant.


(PS. Theres not really any ascii secret texts burried in this sequence)

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679
82148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128
48111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196
44288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091
45648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273
72458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436
78925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094
33057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548
07446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912
98336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798
60943702770539217176293176752384674818467669405132
00056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872
14684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235
42019956112129021960864034418159813629774771309960
51870721134999999837297804995105973173281609631859
50244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881
71010003137838752886587533208381420617177669147303
59825349042875546873115956286388235378759375195778
18577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989
38095257201065485863278865936153381827968230301952
03530185296899577362259941389124972177528347913151
55748572424541506959508295331168617278558890750983
81754637464939319255060400927701671139009848824012
85836160356370766010471018194295559619894676783744
94482553797747268471040475346462080466842590694912
93313677028989152104752162056966024058038150193511
25338243003558764024749647326391419927260426992279
67823547816360093417216412199245863150302861829745
55706749838505494588586926995690927210797509302955
32116534498720275596023648066549911988183479775356
63698074265425278625518184175746728909777727938000
81647060016145249192173217214772350141441973568548
16136115735255213347574184946843852332390739414333
45477624168625189835694855620992192221842725502542
56887671790494601653466804988627232791786085784383
82796797668145410095388378636095068006422512520511
73929848960841284886269456042419652850222106611863
06744278622039194945047123713786960956364371917287
46776465757396241389086583264599581339047802759009
94657640789512694683983525957098258226205224894077
26719478268482601476990902640136394437455305068203
49625245174939965143142980919065925093722169646151
57098583874105978859597729754989301617539284681382
68683868942774155991855925245953959431049972524680

and so on.
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Re: : Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post01 Apr 2008, 20:57

Diginut wrote:Huh ??? But I quickly hand calculatted Pi to 2000 places and realised that the replaced picture is the correct one. Does this tally with your own findings ?
That's better - but I only know the first 13 digits so I can't tell for the last 3 on the updated picture ;-)
The current world record on memorized digits of pi is 67890 decimal digits by Chao Lu of China :shock: :shock: (some of the ex record holders also know e or sqrt(2) to several thousand digits...)

More pi? Click here (pi-searcher, e.g. find you date of birth or your name in pi)
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Re: : Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post02 Apr 2008, 00:41

:-D
Last edited by J Thomas on 30 Mar 2011, 04:31, edited 1 time in total.
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charger105

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: Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post02 Apr 2008, 09:39

Sweet calculators! That CRT one is great. I didn't know they made CRT calculators.

Regarding the rubidium driven Nixie clock........you're playing games ! If you want to get serious, get youself a cesium source :-D .

Rgds.
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Re: : Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post02 Apr 2008, 10:53

J Thomas wrote:You need something even stronger. Stronger than a GPS reference.
And you have to have a giant nixie clock with it's own *built in* Rubidium Atomic Clock reference, maintaining accuracy to within 1 second in 1000 years.
Yes, something along that line ;-)
Don't laugh, a few weeks ago I was searching for a rubidium oscillator, but found nothing to match size and price and precision demands.
Plus there is the problem to synchronize the clock accurately - what's a 1e-11 oscillator (still 0.3ms/year - if you can find one with that LONG term stability) good for when the clock is 10ms off due to internal synchronization delay (signal delays, serial interface to GPS, processing delay in software, etc).
I like the idea of an autonomously running high precision clock - but what about leap seconds ... unless there are provisions for that in the clock's software, like a "add leap second" switch, you'll have to resync again - so much for autonomy.
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: Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post02 Apr 2008, 16:57

Jeff,

Show the guys the bottom of that nixie clock you made, that nuclear warning symbol on the bottom covering the Rubidium source is awsome!!

Your right though, I started off with an IN-12 desk clock, then upgraded to Jeff's NixiChron, and now I can't believe I'm contemplating a Rhodan Nixie clock.

http://www.amug.org/~jthomas/nixzilla.html

Sweet Jesus that's big!!
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: Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post02 Apr 2008, 19:01

Yep, the NixZilla is a great (in any sense) Nixie clock.

But it seems to have a very low WAF: "My spouse asked that I take my personal NixZilla clock back to the office." :lol: :mrgreen:
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Re: : Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post03 Apr 2008, 03:16

rewolf wrote:..... very low WAF
is why 9 out of 10 digital watch puchases are delivered to business addresses. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: : Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post03 Apr 2008, 19:11

:-D
Last edited by J Thomas on 30 Mar 2011, 04:31, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: : Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post03 Apr 2008, 21:12

J Thomas wrote:....a nifty custom HP-01 assembled at the H-P Corvallis facility, acquired while doing my grad work at OSU
Now you made me (and others here I suppose) curious :-) Photo available?
OSU = Ohio State University, or Oregeon, or Oklohoma? Now that we have an idea how OLD you are we want to know where you graduated ;-)

And it sounds like you could make a "vintage technology museum" out of your office building ;-)
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Re: : Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post03 Apr 2008, 21:43

:-D
Last edited by J Thomas on 30 Mar 2011, 04:32, edited 1 time in total.
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: Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post08 Apr 2008, 22:40

Here's a picture of my Nixie clock. A DIGEEC from the '70s.

Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge.

Image

Anyone know what happened to EEC Ltd? They were in Slough according to the address on the back of the leaflet

See the front and back scans of the original leaflet.

Image

(note the Garrard SP25 behind it - that dates it)

Image

I can't find anything about them on the internet.

I bought mine in Leicester back in the late '70's, but I did see them in Holland earlier the same year. I think I paid about £60-£70
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: Not quite LED but Nixie tube watches!

Post09 Apr 2008, 09:50

That's a very nice one :-)
I find it amazing that is consumes only 6 Watts of power, according to the datasheet.

Never heard of the company EEC though.
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