Machines · Study 065
Nixie Clock
Six nixie tubes show your local time in warm orange neon, complete with wire mesh, glass envelopes and a slight cathode flicker.
What you're looking at
Each tube is drawn as a glass envelope with a mesh anode in front and a lit numeral behind it. The digits come from your device's clock. A faint 8 sits in every tube to suggest the stack of unlit cathodes, and the glow is a canvas shadow with a little random flicker.
The idea behind it
A real nixie tube contains ten shaped wire cathodes, one per numeral, stacked front to back in low pressure neon. Applying about 170 volts to one of them makes the gas around it glow orange. They were the standard numeric display of 1950s and 1960s instruments until LEDs and vacuum fluorescent displays replaced them.
Try this
Leave it running as a desk clock. Use full screen for the best effect.
