Why were dekatrons still manufactured as recently as 1992 ?

[gregebert]

I bought a few spare A-101's and at least one had a 1992 manufacturing date.

So I'm wondering what could the former Soviet Union have needed with such old technology in the 1990's ? I would have expected that they would have replaced all their dekatron equipment by then, so even spare tubes should not have been needed. Or, am I entirely wrong and they continued to use 1950's era technology for another 30-40 years ?

Or perhaps was there rampant waste & excess that old factories kept churning-out obsolete devices, only to store them in warehouses, just to keep workers employed ?

Too bad the soviets didn't make tons of CD47's........

[Marcin Adamski]

Well, B-52 Stratofortress are early fifties design. In service at lest
up till 2050. ;)
The Russian dekatrons: My guess is they were made as spares for the
forces. I believe US was/is doing the same. Not to mention that the
vacuum technology is so much more immune to nuclear attack (or so I was
told, never verified it myself).
Marcin

[threeneurons]

For Soviet tubes, we see lots of nixies with 1992 date codes, so dekatrons with like date codes are no surprise. As mentioned, if it was used in their defense industry, then they probably would keep making the parts, until that equipment was no longer in service. In any bureaucracy, that could be a while. The Soviet Union collapsed ~August of 1991. Probably took a few months to close down the factories.

In "the West", most tube production, other than CRTs and microwave magnatrons, ended ~1975. 

[Nick Sargeant]

I was in Lithuania in the early 90s, shortly after the exit of the Russians. There were factories there still making ICs and stockpiling them, even though the products they were targeted for were history. As I recall, they were making DEC VAX clones, and that is what the ICs were aiming for. Since I was working for IBM at the time, talking to the Ministry of Informatics about their grand plan to take our PowerPC motherboards, it was all very strange.

Mind you, their unemployment level was close to 0%.

[Charles MacDonald]

On 16-03-18 03:12 PM, 'threeneurons' via neonixie-l wrote:

> In "the West", most tube production, other than CRTs and microwave
> magnatrons, ended ~1975.

Some receiving type tube production continued in the US for a while
after that, but for Military use. Other microwave tubes are/were also
produced, even today satellites seem to use TWT transmitters.


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

[Jon]

On Friday, March 18, 2016 at 7:12:49 PM UTC, threeneurons wrote:

For Soviet tubes, we see lots of nixies with 1992 date codes, so dekatrons with like date codes are no surprise. As mentioned, if it was used in their defense industry, then they probably would keep making the parts, until that equipment was no longer in service. In any bureaucracy, that could be a while. The Soviet Union collapsed ~August of 1991. Probably took a few months to close down the factories.

Soviet dekatrons with such late date codes are not that common. I've been compiling quite a lot of data on this topic for the last several years, and the frequency distribution over about 500 tube sightings is such that about half have 1970s date codes, a quarter are from the 60s and only a few percent from the 90s. My sense is that late 1980s and early 1990s nixies are more common than this, perhaps indicating they were indeed more widely used for longer.

Jon.

[Quixotic Nixotic]

Captions please.

John S

[Dylan Distasio]

One bong to rule them all...

On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 12:50 PM, Quixotic Nixotic <nixc...@jsdesign.co.uk> wrote:

Captions please.

John S

--
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 neonixie-l+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to neoni...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/40C06E8B-EA3B-49AD-967C-143FD54EE319%40jsdesign.co.uk.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Instrument Resources of America]

I can't wait to get this lit up!!!!    Ira

[Jeff Walton]

 A NIXIE BONG!   WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS BEFORE??? 

[Instrument Resources of America]

Hey man!!!  Dat would be cool!!!! 

 
Subject: [neonixie-l] Captions please 

Captions please.

John S

--
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 neonixie-l+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to neoni...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/l1vqf4jql5g47fkb4mh7sw9e.1458411097509%40email.android.com.

[Jonathan Peakall]

In time she will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love...

On 3/19/2016 9:50 AM, Quixotic Nixotic wrote:

Captions please.

John S

--
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 neonixie-l+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to neoni...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/40C06E8B-EA3B-49AD-967C-143FD54EE319%40jsdesign.co.uk.

[SCOTT MCLAIN]

Tobey Maguires' first passion, science.

---

From: Jonathan Peakall <jpea...@madlabs.info>
To: neoni...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2016 12:08 PM
Subject: Re: [neonixie-l] Captions please

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/56EDA3CB.3060203%40madlabs.info.

[Instrument Resources of America]

I found this on Ebay and thought some of you may find it interesting as well.     http://www.ebay.com/itm/Assemble-DS1302-Rotating-LED-Electronic-Temperature-Display-Board-Digital-Clock/121798933850?_trksid=p5411.c100168.m2941&_trkparms=aid%3D333008%26algo%3DRIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140131123801%26meid%3Deca2c7665f504efcae6ebe1d2fb443fe%26pid%3D100168%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D221836505422             Have a great day,  Ira.

To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/56EDA3CB.3060203%40madlabs.info.