History
The first VFD was the single indication DM160 by Philips in 1959. It could easily be driven by transistors, so was aimed at computer applications as it was easier to drive than a neon and had longer life than a light bulb. This was made obsolete by LEDs. The 1962 Japanese single digit seven segment display in terms of anode was more like the Philips DM70 / DM71 Magic Eye as the DM160 has a spiral wire anode. The Japanese seven segment VFD meant that no patent royalties needed to be paid on desk calculator displays as would have been the case using Nixies or Planaplex neon digits. In the UK the Philips designs were made and marketed by Mullard (almost wholly owned by Philips even before WWII). The Russian iv-15 VFD tube is very similar to the DM160. The DM160, DM70/DM71 and Russian iv-15 can like a VFD panel be used as triodes. The DM160 is thus the smallest VFD and smallest Triode valve. The iv-15 is slightly different shape. Photo of DM160 and iv-15.
Of the three prevalent display technologies, VFD, LCD, and LED, the VFD was the first to be developed. It was used in early handheld calculators. LED displays displaced VFDs in this use as the very small LEDs used required less power, thereby extending battery life, though early LED displays had problems achieving uniform brightness levels across all display segments. Later LCD's displaced LEDs with significantly lower power requirements.
Read more about this topic: Vacuum Fluorescent Display
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—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)