Cold-cathode Neon
A few different versions of the fourteen segment display exist as cold-cathode neon lamps. For example, one type made by Burroughs Corporation was called "Panaplex". Instead of using a filament as the incandescent versions do, these use a cathode charged to a 180-V potential which causes the electrified segment to glow a bright orange color. They operated similarly to Nixie tubes but instead of the full-formed numeric shapes, used segments to make up numerals and letters.
Read more about this topic: Fourteen-segment Display
Famous quotes containing the word neon:
“A pragmatic race, the Japanese appear to have decided long ago that the only reason for drinking alcohol is to become intoxicated and therefore drink only when they wish to be drunk.
So I went out into the night and the neon and let the crowd pull me along, walking blind, willing myself to be just a segment of that mass organism, just one more drifting chip of consciousness under the geodesics.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)