Hmm, interesting question. Since meshless tubes tend to be older, I guess that people found that a uniform fine mesh was more readable than using another thick digit that would obscure the digits behind it.
Some tubes have a fine mesh that you can barely see and uniformly dims the digits, which our brains can process more easily than having several thick interference lines going different directions. So, people can read the tubes further away. Only Nixie addicts look at them up close & personal. ;-) Power considerations must have been a factor, too. A meshless tube probably requires more power to run as the numbers get further away. Many tubes had numbers stacked sequentially (0-9) but some had them carefully stacked to minimize how the front numbers obscured the back ones. It makes a lot of sense when designing a display that can be read from far away. It's probably why large tubes have an upside down eight as an intermediate anode and may be another reason why some biquinary tubes have an intermediate anode mesh. It all just shows how designs improve over time and try different things along the way. Pretty neat... It's Nixie Evolution! :D -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/d9878d95-4d4a-4e40-8676-f570edf51d76%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
