Discovered an old advertisment

[Richard Scales]

Whilst looking for something else I discovered this from Wireless World, May 1975, I wonder if they've got any left?

Discount for bulk too  ... sigh....

[Robert G. Schaffrath]

I am not sure what the exchange rate was then but I recall seeing an old Burstein Applebee ad not too long ago from around that time where they were around USD$2.50 each IIRC. By 1980, they were USD$4 each for pulls or USD$5 each for the seven NOS I purchased.

[Robert G. Schaffrath]

I found a link to that old ad: http://www.nixiebunny.com/b7971ad.jpg

It was a complete board for USD$4.95/each (paid that for my first board from Poly Paks that had one defective tube). So basically you got a tube and a socket for USD$2.50/each. Could have had FOUR for $8.88!

[jf...@my-deja.com]

Back in those days, the GBP was about US$2, so they were much more expensive in the UK.

The tubes were even cheaper from Meshna

I think they were $1/tube with sockets but without the circuit board, which is the deal I went for since I was a cheapskate and did not realize that the boards had the hard-to-find HV transistors.

[Robert G. Schaffrath]

Yes, Meshna is where I got three boards from in 1979 and later on my seven NOS tubes. By 1980, the prices had almost doubled (used tubes were USD$4 and NOS were USD$5) which is understandable considering the massive inflation in the 1970's. I do not recall what I paid for the 3 boards in 1979. Definitely needed the HV transistors from those boards. I still have one complete ticker board left with sockets but without the tubes. The clock schematic provided by (I think) Poly Paks, that I built, had several serious flaws. Most notable was they used the wrong transistors for the anodes. Each board had two anode transistors (the two transistors on the far right in the picture) and the other 30 were cathode transistors. They mislabeled the transistors on the schematic indicating to use the cathode transistors for the anodes. When I discovered the error, because my clock did not work, I changed them out. I needed three boards to supply the six anode transistors for my clock. As I already had a board purchased earlier, I was able to keep one complete board as a spare.

[Jeff Walton]

Anyone need complete Ultronic  boards?  I have 3 or 4 that could use a home. 

Jeff

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[jf...@my-deja.com]

How could you tell they were NOS?  I have this religious belief that everything on the surplus market consisted of NYSE pulls, as suggested by the words "removed from operational equipment".  Did your NOS actually come in Burroughs boxes marked with the tube type, or were they just covered in bubble wrap?  Did they look any different than the ones you got with the boards?

[Michail Wilson]

I’ve never even seen a Burroughs box for these.

I have seen a premade Styrofoam case that held many tubes on ebay before.

 

I’ve purchased many of the tubes which were ‘pulls’ and they were all wrapped in newspaper from 1970-1972  - I still have the newpaper wrappings.

 

I also have about 20 of the complete boards (tubeless).  Only recently rediscovered when we were moving from one office space to another.

 

Michail Wilson

206-920-6312

 

From: 'jf...@my-deja.com' via neonixie-l [mailto:neoni...@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Friday, April 3, 2020 8:05 AM
To: neonixie-l
Subject: [neonixie-l] Re: Discovered an old advertisment

 

How could you tell they were NOS?  I have this religious belief that everything on the surplus market consisted of NYSE pulls, as suggested by the words "removed from operational equipment".  Did your NOS actually come in Burroughs boxes marked with the tube type, or were they just covered in bubble wrap?  Did they look any different than the ones you got with the boards?

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at 7:44:07 AM UTC-7, Robert G. Schaffrath wrote:

Yes, Meshna is where I got three boards from in 1979 and later on my seven NOS tubes. By 1980, the prices had almost doubled (used tubes were USD$4 and NOS were USD$5) which is understandable

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[Robert G. Schaffrath]

At the time I bought, ~1980, I had to take them on their word. The ad offered used/pulls for $4 or NOS for $5 that were supposedly from a repair depot. The pins have no scratch marks and another good indicator is they are all Burroughs branded. Except for boards that may have had tubes replaced, all used tubes that were pulled from ticker boards I have seen are Ultronics branded.My first board had one Burroughs and one Ultronics tube. Someone repaired the board to display a dummy zero as there was an internal short in Ultronics tube between two segments. Not sure what caused the board to be a problem in the first place but it is possible it was subjected to some kind of mechanical damage that broke one tube and caused the segment short in the other. They replaced the broken tube with an "antenna" variety Burroughs tube and modified the board for the dummy zero. Really weird but it was almost 50 years ago now and who knows?

[jf...@my-deja.com]

I really don't remember anything other than Burroughs brands on the 30+ tube I bought, but it has been 40+ years for most of them.  I recently repaired two clocks for non-Nixie failures, and between the 12 in those two clocks and the 6 that I swapped in on general principles, I only remember seeing Burroughs.  I have no reason to believe that any of them were NOS, and I assume they were all pulls (since I would have been too impoverished to pay the premium for NOS).  Maybe the Ultronics branded tubes were in the newer displays.  BTW, was Ultronics the only manufacturer to use B7971's in their products?

[Robert G. Schaffrath]

“BTW, was Ultronics the only manufacturer to use B7971's in their products?”

No. On eBay right now there is a commercial scoreboard device for sale the that uses 15 B-7971’s. No tubes included.

[Nicholas Stock]

That display housing has been on eBay for a long time. It came from UCSD salvage and the tubes were listed separately (and sold...not to me) for the usual sums. I saw it in person....looked like it was made by the university itself if I remember correctly...probably a long long time ago....

On Fri, Apr 3, 2020 at 11:16 AM Robert G. Schaffrath <robert.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

“BTW, was Ultronics the only manufacturer to use B7971's in their products?”

No. On eBay right now there is a commercial scoreboard device for sale the that uses 15 B-7971’s. No tubes included.

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[gregebert]

If someone could post good-quality pictures of the  PCB (both sides), that would satisfy my curiosity .

I definitely remember the Poly-Pak ads, and at the time I was not electronically-adept enough to design the drive electronics so I bought a bunch of LED displays instead.

I also had a 6-tube nixie display from a frequency counter that eventually became my first nixie clock, but that took 35 years to finally happen in 2011.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday's garbage is tomorrow's gold....what's in your junkbox ?

[Terry Kennedy]

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at 11:12:14 AM UTC-4, M1 wrote:

I have seen a premade Styrofoam case that held many tubes on ebay before.

From the foam trays I've seen (for example: https://www.glaver.org/transient/b7971tray.jpg ) they were simple carriers that the repair techs used to bring tubes to sites with the displays installed. One theory is that Ultronic changed the tubes out before failure, due to the consequences of displaying incorrect information. Or maybe they were replaced only when they failed, but given that we have been operating these tubes in clocks for longer than the LECTRASCAN system was in use, without tube failures, I don't think that is likely, given the amount of wear and tear seen on these trays.

Burroughs likely had some other customers for these, since they did sell a few of the other alphanumeric types. But given the rarity of those compared to 7971's, I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of production went into LECTRASCAN displays.

The "antenna" style 7971 is the older type, and was used to set the height of the display inside the envelope. Quite a long time ago (it may have even been in the Yahoo group) I posted a survey of date codes, branding, and fabrication type (antenna or not, steep or shallow underscore, rivets or not, etc. A number of people added to it.

[Terry Kennedy]

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at 2:58:46 PM UTC-4, gregebert wrote:

If someone could post good-quality pictures of the  PCB (both sides), that would satisfy my curiosity

I thought I had one on this floor that I could easily locate, but I can't find it. I know I have some in the basement and if I'm well enough in a few days I'll go grab one of those and photograph it for you, if nobody else does it before then. OTOH, if you just want the schematic, this should be it: https://www.glaver.org/transient/b7971-brd.png

[alb.001 alb.001]

there is a seller on eBay from France with a whole garden shed full of  Styrofoam boxes of B-7971  nixies.  He puts them up whenever he feels like it.  He does take great photos of them   but I could never afford his prices.

Pharma Phil

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[Nicholas Stock]

Are you talking about Patrick from Electrosurplus?

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[Michail Wilson]

https://imgur.com/a/cwELJzL

 

4 images.  Can click to zoom in.

 

If you need more pictures or various angles, let me know.

 

Michail Wilson

206-920-6312

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[Charles MacDonald]

On 2020-04-03 12:28 a.m., Richard Scales wrote:
> Whilst looking for something else I discovered this from Wireless World,
> May 1975, I wonder if they've got any left?
>
>

> B-7971AddWirelessWorld1975.JPG
>
> Discount for bulk too  ... sigh....

I bought the few I have from ETCO in Montreal. I am afraid to touch the
box were they are stored as the price has gone up so much. some that
they had were on boards where the edge connectors had been snapped off.
I guess for recover the gold plating. (or maybe just to quickly
disassemble the displays.)



--
Charles MacDonald VA3CPY Stittsville Ontario
cm...@zeusprune.ca Just Beyond the Fringe
No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail.

[Mac Doktor]

On Apr 3, 2020, at 2:58 PM, gregebert <greg...@hotmail.com> wrote:

I definitely remember the Poly-Pak ads, and at the time I was not electronically-adept enough to design the drive electronics so I bought a bunch of LED displays instead.

Ah those were the days. I was in my late teens. One day a new catalog came in the mail and the hot new item was drum memory mechanisms for $15 apiece. Man I wish I could have bought one of those. The last one I saw on eBay was way high.

I do have a couple of core planes I found at hamfests. One of them must be a last-generation model as it's a whopping 1kB x 8 and only about 6" x 3.5".

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor”

"Never install version point-zero of anything"

[Robert G. Schaffrath]

The first time I ever saw an Ultronics board was at a hamfest here on Long Island. It was either 1975 or 1976 making me either 13 or 14. I had no idea exactly what it was but I could tell it was some kind of display tube. The seller wanted $5, which looking back the price Burstein Applebee wanted was about the going rate. I had $10 on me which was a lot of money back then from delivering papers. I wound up spending that $10 on a Navy surplus Dumont oscilloscope. I could not get both. Still have that old scope though in hindsight, the tubes would have been the better investment. But who was thinking any of that stuff would have value in the future? When I saw the exact same board from Poly Paks, then I knew exactly what it was and I had more money saved up to buy a board.

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at 6:29:32 PM UTC-4, Terry Bowman wrote:

 

I do have a couple of core planes I found at hamfests.

[jf...@my-deja.com]

You probably learned a lot more about electronics by having and using that scope, so I think it was the better investment.

On Friday, April 3, 2020 at 4:52:56 PM UTC-7, Robert G. Schaffrath wrote:

>  ... though in hindsight, the tubes would have been the better investment.

[John Rehwinkel]

I’ve purchased many of the tubes which were ‘pulls’ and they were all wrapped in newspaper from 1970-1972  - I still have the newpaper wrappings.

A seller named "USquarters" sold a vast number of tubes wrapped in newspaper like that, that's where I got most of mine, years ago.

- John

[Bill Notfaded]

Over thing is for sure. B-7971 tubes almost never fail. They are some of the most reliable tubes I've ever seen. Minus physical issues internally like segments touching they just go and go and go. I don't think the tubes replaced long ago really even ever needed replacing because most of those are still going today too!

Bill

[Bill Notfaded]

Unless abused I've never had one fail yet. I have a bunch too. Some run 24x7x365 in mod-six. Those four that sold recently in fast slow sign (for too much) a couple you could see were pushed way too hard. You could see blue plasma forming down by the segment wiring... Too much current or voltage. You can do that to any tube... Run them so hard the segment wiring starts to light up too... that's not a good sign at all. Do that long enough and it won't ever not light up.

[jf...@my-deja.com]

My tubes were over driven by 2X-4X compared to the maximum values in the B7971  data sheet:   HV=-195V, cathode resistors=430ohms, MUX duty cycle = 12%.  After running 24/7 for 40+ years, the tubes are very slightly dimmer than the tubes I had kept as spares with a slight color shift.  (You can see this color shift in the PEOPLE LIKE NEON movie at the top of this news group, where tube #3 has some pink in addition to the orange glow.  My spare tubes also glow slightly pink, while all the old tubes are uniformly orange.)  After 40 years, the only significant change was darkening on the inside of the glass and on the back plate under the segments that I used (in a seven segment display mode).  There were two clocks, and the darkening on the glass in each set was uniform, but it was more pronounced in one of the sets; I suspect this may have been exacerbated by the amount of overdrive. 

[Paul Andrews]

Now I can't unsee the pink!

I have a NL7037 that has that pink tinge for the first five or 10 minutes if it has sat for more than a few weeks. It goes away after about 30 mins.