The Haydu Brothers made a lot of odd tubes for others, and developed many innovative products until being bought out by Burroughs in 1954 and moved to Plainfield, New Jersey from nearby Warren, New Jersey.

In their work, the Haydu Brothers employed a number of tube designers, mostly experienced men from New Jersey's cradle of American electron tube manufacture in Essex and Hudson Counties: DeForest, DuMont, RCA, and other area tube firms notably including National Union. The latter was formed in a survival-driven merger of Magnatron (Hoboken, New Jersey), Marathon (also of Hoboken), Sonatron (NYC) and Televocal (West New York, New Jersey) in 1929, as none were previously RCA licensees.

National Union made very good tubes and had a decent development shop. Hygrade-Sylvania might have been bigger and in some ways, superior, but NU was fairly clever, and sometimes beat RCA to market with new types. They made a lot of tubes for the war effort, second-sourcing RCA, of course...

I wholly disagree with their statement that the G-10 was developed in the 1930s, as RCA hadn't even yet developed the T-6-1/2 noval 9-pin base upon which the G-10 sits. (The noval was a postwar outgrowth of RCA's pioneering 7-pin-through glass (T5-1/2 bulb) design first developed just before the war for portable radios... The noval base was released in 1948 to accommodate more complex / multi-section tubes, and became an industry standard. NU was licensed to use it, of course) Accordingly, I place the G-10 no earlier than 1948, although it is likely that some flying-lead experimental devices might have been built a year or two earlier.

I've seen G-10s in the hands of other tube collectors, and own a couple of ancient INDITRON variants (NIB) called G1-045A, here. Both are marked "Research Division, NU", patents pending. The green, black and white box is likely late 1940s, and has handwritten type numbering. These displays are in T6-1/2 bottles on 10-pin bases, with no keying, just a yellow paint mark for the user to abide by when installing the tube. Easy to goof!

No center pin in these, like the G-10 has, but rather an exhaust tubulation is there instead. That makes me think the G1-045A was designed to avoid the side tubulation, but I've not been able to establish which tube came first. My guess is that mine are lab variants, designed to use conventional tube envelopes and manufacturing equipment, including rotary Sealex machines. These look like very elongated Nixie tubes, missing the front mesh, and having lots of painted on insulation on the internal wiring to the various cathanodes. Trouble is, they needed a special 10-pin socket, and I've never, ever seen any of those.

The pre-Haydu tube most often cited is the National Union GI-10, not G-10 (sic) as I'd written. Perhaps "GI" might mean "gas indicator". After going downstairs and finding the carton with little gas bottles, sure enough the ones I have might well be GI-054A, and not G1-045A, but that is difficult to say for sure. The stamped yellow ink isn't very clear, and that is understandable as these are certainly handmade toys from time when the earth was still flat.

The NU INDITRONs seem quite difficult to find. In 40 years I've only seen a half dozen or so, including the ones here. Mine came unsolicited in a heap of postwar tube cartons from the estate of a good friend who liked tube audio, old radios and musclecars. I am certain that he never even noticed them, much less cared what they were. Sadly, all the NU 2A3 and NU 50 boxes were empty...

Given the close knit tube-design community in this area, one might expect the Haydu Brothers were well acquainted with NU's designs, and improved by adding a front cathode mesh to make driving the numerals simpler. Haydu often took R&D products and productized them for others, including RCA, in an early form of outsourcing. Who knows what went on between NU, Haydu and Burroughs? Government (AEC) money may have been involved, but that is just conjecture that needs discussion within the Tube Collectors Assocation.

Also by 1952 or so NU was getting out of vacuum tubes to become more diversified, and I have no information regarding patent issues, but suspect that Haydu must have legitimately acquired some rights to the underlying design and manufacturing technology. (NU, in 1965 bought Emerson TV & Radio, who had previously acquired the DuMont name. All were fine area companies, and I knew people who worked at each of them.)

From the patent:

This invention relates to signaling devices and more specifically to glow lamp indicators for selectively signaling numerals, letters or other characters or symbols.

The patent describes the operation of the device:

In the well-known space discharge devices or glow lamps, a pair of metallic electrodes are sealed within a glass bulb filled with neon, mercury, sodium or other suitable gases at a definite very low pressure. When a unidirectional (direct current) potential is applied to the electtrodes and gradually increased, the glow discharge will set in at a certain definite potential called an "igniting potential." The luminous glow discharge is produced by negative electrons and positive gas ions and takes place within a certain small distance from the exposed surface of the cathode or negative electrode, which appears to be surrounded or coated with a thin film of light. This film of light follows the contours of the cathode surface in all details.

When the potential is further increased, thbe glow discharge becomes somewhat brighter. When the potential is gradually reduced, the glow discharge is maintained down to a potential considerably below the igniting potential, until at a certain definite minimum potential the discharge ceases.

If an intermediate potential somewhere between the igniting and minimum potential is applied to the electrodes, there will be no glow discharge, but if the potential is momentarily raised to or above the igniting potential and thereafter reduced to the intermediate potential, the discharge will be started by the igniting potential and thereafter be maintained by the intermediate potential until the potential is reduced to or below the minimum potential. This characteristic of the glow lamp makes it possible to control the starting and stopping of the glow discharge by means of brief momentary impulses of high and low potentials, with the lamp normally connected to an intermediate potential.

Thus, the glow lmap may be lighted by the application of an igniting impulse and thereafter remains lit, until the potential is reduced momentarily below the minimum potential. This feature offers a means to control glow lamps without external holding relays or other means for keeping the lamp circuit closed with it is desired to have the lamp glow.

The fact that the exposed parts of the cathode of a glow lamp are entirely surrounded by a thin film of luminous discharge may be utilized to display any desired character by means of properly shaped cathodes. A cathode consisting of a wire shaped in the form of the numeral 1 will, when ignited, produce a luminous outline of the numeral 1, and similarly any other desired character may be formed.

The patent also describes a stock quotation system using a coding scheme adapted to the use of these numeric gas discharge tubes as the display device.

J. T. Boyer
Burroughs Corporation
Electronic Components Division
Plainfield, New Jersey

Development of a unique alpha-numeric display is achieved with a device incorporating several new techniques in an unusual construction. This paper discusses human engineering aspects, choice of materials, fabrication, processing and manner of evaluation.

The abnormal glow characteristics of a cold cathode, neon gas discharge are used in presenting an alpha numeric display of high light intensity. Thirteen cathode segments are mounted "on edge" providing a single plane display with a wide viewing angle and a character shape which is continuous rather than sharply segmented. The continuity of stroke is achieved by utilizing the "glow overlap" phenomena. Sputtering of the cathode material in abnormal glow region is a function of the gas, pressure, and cathode material. Shielding precautions required to overcome the problem of sputtering are described.

Also discussed are: 1) Techniques to obtain ultra long life. 2) Effect of spaacing variation on cathode glow uniformity, and 3) Evaluation of the tube in terms of its application.

H. Hampel, Burroughs Research Center, Paoli, Pennsylvania,
S. Kuchinsky and T. Peterson, Burroughs Corporation Electronic Tube Division, Plainfield, New Jersey

The development of a new electronic numerical indicator by the Burroughs Research Center and the ELectronic Tube Division of Burroughs is described.

The new numerical indicator, "Nixie," is a 10-digit gas indicator tube which provides an essentially two-dimensional in-line numerical readout with a wide angle viewing characteristic. The tube is approximately 1" in height and diameter, mounted on a 13 pin stem. The numerical assembly comprises ten "cathodes" configurated to represent the ten basic digits with a common anode. The cathodes may be selectively energized. The resultant gas discharge will make only the selected number distinctly visible to the observer.

The numerical design will be illustrated with the configurations obtained after considerable study in human engineering and standards on character recognition. A unique method of fabrication results in parts tolerances and angular accuracies not readily feasible with standard die techniques. To achieve both an optically free viewing end and a plug-in stem, the standard receiving tube method of tubulation has been modified by an advance production technique to be described.

The compact structure inherently encourages uniform electrical characteristics and predictable firing and sustaining voltages. The number design and assembly obtains a high figure of merit relative to light output with a minimum of power consumption. This new component opens up many applications in combination with other electronic devices such as tubes, transistors and magnetic cores.

NIXIE - Electronic Read-Out Tube

The first mass-produced all-electronic "read-out" tube is now in volume production at Burroughs Corporation's Electronic Tube Division, Plainfield, N.J., the Company has announced. The tube, known as NIXIE, is described as a small, low-cost electron device which converts electronic signals directly to readable characters. It contains all the numeric digits, any one of which can be selected and displayed in a common viewing area. It can be triggered by Beam Switching Tubes or any suitable voltage source requiring approximately 1/4 watt.

Applications for the NIXIE tube include computer read-out, industrial control, electronic instrumentation, military electronic control, and channel selectors.

Unusually good readability is said to result from design features which provide a wide viewing angle and sharply defined digit contours. Other advantages claimed for the NIXIE are compactness, and a rugged construction capable of meeting military requirements for shock, vibration, and temperature.

According to the manufacturer, the NIXIE uses a minimum of power, circuitry and components and is inexpensive to install and maintain. It is believed by Burroughs to be the simplest all-electronic method of performing the read-out function.

American Slang: "Nixie"…

In Mrs. Gertrude Atherton's 'Perch of the Devil' I notice nixie used frequently for "no." The book is concerned with an American mining town, and I presume that the word is current in mining slang. I do not remember it in the mining dialect of Mark Twain and Bret Harte, and it does not appear in Mr. R. H. Thornton's admirable 'American Glossary.' Is it recent in origin? I presume that it is only an enlarged form of nix, which, the picturesque language of Joseph Knight reminded his friends, means "nothing." Nixies in the U.S. mean, according to the 'N.E.D.,' postal matter which cannot be forwarded because it is not properly addressed. Could this special use have led to the simpler meaning? Miners are full of strange metaphor, and one remembers the lingo of billiards and cards used in Mark Twain's 'Innocents at Home' by people who wished to say simply that they did not understand what was said. For instance, "You've banked your ball outside the string" means "I fail to comprehend your remark."