Hi Ira,
What do you know of Haydu Bros. and their readout tubes, in the early
1950's??
Burroughs launched their Nixie tube campaign as early as 1955, maybe
earlier, but that's not for sure. I am in contact with an old newspaper
archive at the moment, hoping to resolve that issue once and for all.
Haydu Brothers and "their" readout tubes is very misleading. They did
NOT develop the Nixie tube. Before being purchased by Burroughs they
were not involved in the field; it all started in 1954 when Burroughs
purchased Haydu Brothers solely for their vacuum tube making equipment.
The idea of the Nixie tube has been around much longer, the early 1950s
as can be seen by the patents we have collected. The key person is Saul
Kuchinsky who once worked at National Union and then later went to
Burroughs (in 1954). He must have brought a lot of expertise with him.
Burroughs bought them out in about 1956 if I recall correctly.
Almost, they started advertising in 1955 as you can see here:
http://www.jb-electronics.de/html/elektronik/nixies/n_hb106.htm?lang=en
Perhaps you refer to the "Nixie" trademark claim which was from 1956.
Jens
Ira.
On 9/11/2012 1:02 PM, jb-electronics wrote:
Hi folks,
as some of you may know, besides Nixie tube collecting I am also
interested in the history. I am writing an article, and every now and
then I stumble upon something that makes me believe that I will most
likely never finish it ;-)
Here is the confirmed US Nixie tube history: National Union was the
first to sell a readout tube product line (1954), although Northrop
aircraft filed promising patents as early as Nov 1950; however, these
tubes were never manufactured by Northrop (not a single one of these
tubes has been found as of today). National Union was closely
followed by Burroughs in 1955 who then offered their "Nixie" tube.
But National Union beat Burroughs by the nose.
Anyway, I was doing some casual research for patents filed by
Ericsson, and found patent "GB739041", file is attached. The funny
thing is, this baby was filed May 9, 1950, predating the first
Northrop patent (US2618697) by more than half a year. The word
"improvements" in the patent title suggests that this patent bases on
other concepts already around at the time, but I cannot find out
which patents it refers to. Any ideas?
The most interesting thing is that Ericsson was probably the first
company that commercialised the idea of a Nixie tube (and thus
thought it worth to be patent-protected, that is the logic here).
I feel that the European history of the Nixie tube needs further
research. Has anyone been able to piece together the European side of
the story?
To be honest, I don't know if this patent is an entirely new
discovery, but I could not find it on Randall's page:
http://www.scientificsolutions.ca/patents.htm
Jens
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