NIXITUBES ZM1040 AND ZM1020, 1960's

Glass tubes with 10 numbers inside one behind the other, viewed from the front and filled with neon gas. as each number is connected to a high voltage it glows. One side view and one end view. Used in Calculator machines such as the 'Anita' See Item A1157. The early computers of the 1940s and 1950s used the mature vacuum tube technology of the day. In the 1950s and early 1960s transistors were new and undergoing rapid development. They were also expensive and prone to catastrophic failure if badly treated electrically. So it is no surprise that the first commercially successful electronic desktop calculator used vacuum tube technology.

Your comments:

• When I was at Post Office College in Salisbury, Rhodesia in 1963 I built a frequency counter and used these for display. I wrote to Thompson CSF and told them what I wanted them for and they were kind enough to send me 6, free of charge, which was much appreciated
  
  .......... Charles Frizell, Canterbury, UK, 3rd of April 2018
  
  

A0854