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From: kchen@imagen.UUCP (Kok Chen)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: "Magic Eye" tubes
Message-ID: <1345@imagen.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Jul-87 20:31:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: imagen.1345
Posted: Mon Jul 13 20:31:04 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jul-87 03:44:50 EDT
References: <1004@speech1.cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: Imagen Corp., Santa Clara CA
Lines: 27

in article <1004@speech1.cs.cmu.edu>, phd@speech1.cs.cmu.edu (Paul Dietz) says:
> 
> What exactly is a "Magic Eye" tube? (I think I'm showing my age, or lack
> thereof...)
> Overheard the other day: "I'm so old, I even remember when calculator
> displays were LED!"                                        ^^^^^^^^^^
  ^^^^^^^^

OK, who remembers Nixie tubes?  (Any old fogies from Wang and Burroughs
still alive? :-) :-)

By the way, for Magic Eyes, you may be able to find Mullard and Philips
EM80 valves (used in wireless hacking in the early 1960's!  A poor high
schooler's S-meter.)

Also, you may be able to get the Magic eye tube that was used in the 
Dyna (Dynaco) FM-3 tuner from Stereo Cost Cutters in Ohio. (They advertise
in low-end "hi-"fidelity magazines.)  Unlike the better classical Cats-eyes, 
where you look into the *end* of the valve cylinder and see two rays (with
different sensitivities, so that one ray would close before the other, with
greater applied grid bias), the one on the Dyna tuner has it's florescent
target on the *side* of the valve.  Instead of the dark ray(s), you have a 
single dark band that opens and closes.


Kok S. Chen			..!decwrl!imagen!kchen
Imagen Corporation