![]() Nixie Clocks and Thermometer at Millclock The owner can communicate with them, watch themwork, touch their surfaces, hear their sounds, and share their history. Thus, our moving stories becomeindication appliances. And we accomplish it in a statement visualdesign with allusive and reliable materials. We render our concept in a technicaldesign with reifying set of functions. It is a visible natural process that is seen as glow discharge and isextracted by people from electric current. Based on them, wecreate our concepts.In our appliances, the Nixie Tubes technology plays the role of a precious stoneelement. We find universally valuableexperiences and create succession of moving life stories. As we make our journey, we explore technicalprogress as embodiment of what people value. And appreciation of our buyersmade us, who we are now. It began, when we started todo, what we loved, for people, whom we cared. Futures that were promised, but never realized.Īnd if the renewed interest in Nixie clocks is any indication, the future might still light up with the glow from a vacuum tube.We are a guild of technicians, who hand-craft Nixie Tubes indication appliancesof unique conceptual and technological design. If nothing else, Nixies let you create pasts that didn’t exist but could have. There’s still some room to innovate here when it comes to technology (longer life spans, app controls, and so on) and it’s a way to make things that never were. Still, the hobby remains popular, and some enthusiasts, have even resorted to manufacturing new Nixie tubes. This interest has led to a spike in Nixie tube prices, and the rarest ones can go for hundred of dollars on eBay. Even the high-luxury watchmaker MB&F has produced Nixie clocks created by German artist Frank Buchwald for the brand’s collaborative M.A.D.Gallery. Sourced from old Soviet warehouses, found in junk shops, and discovered from ancient electronics stores that have since closed down, hobbyists have been using them to create electronic art with wildly varied designs: steampunk clocks, streamline moderne thermometers, wood-and-glass timers: you name it. Now, the resurgence of the Nixie tube owes more to its looks rather than its practicality. Slowly, the tubes were replaced by screens, and while the new displays were more convenient and required less power, they didn’t have the romance of a flashing wire going for them. And they looked the part, too.īut, by the 1970s, the advent of LED and other digital technologies put an end to their long reign. Like the ultra-high-resolution screens of today, or augmented reality, or the latest iGadget, these tubes heralded a new age. Considered too expensive for mass-market use, they were rarely found in homes, though they could be seen on elevators and the display boards of the buildings that could afford them. ![]() Nixie tubes were initially used as digital displays for equipment like voltmeters, early calculators, and frequency counters (you know, science stuff). While other companies came up with their own versions-Digitron, Numicator, and other old-school sci-fi-sounding names-the tubes were still collectively called Nixies. Haydu was later bought by a company called the Burroughs Corporation, which introduced the tube in 1955, calling it the Nixie (Numeric Inidicator Experimental No. ![]() The tubes shot into popularity in the 1950s, and some of the early ones were made by Haydu Brothers Laboratories. Nixie tubes were created by the Hungarian brothers George and Zoltan Haydu, who had a company that specialized in making vacuum tubes (which are also used in amplifiers). They look like the height of retro coolness.Īt one time, they were going to be the future. Decades-old tech that looks straight out of early sci-fi and still works, too? It’s not hard to sell. Nixie clocks have been making a resurgence for the past few years, with enthusiasts building new clocks purely for the aesthetics.Īnd you can’t really blame them. Nixies have even made brief appearances as set pieces in films like Watchmen and 2001: A Space Oddysey. They’re essentially small vacuum tubes with glowing wires that display numbers, each one burning a bright red-orange before blinking out to make way for the next number to fire up.Īnd you’ve probably seen them before: at a maker faire, a furniture boutique, an antiques store. ![]()
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