Adobe Stock Modern incarnations of the technologies of yesteryear – such as Nixie tubes and 21-segment Victorian displays – add charm to modern devices. My current hobby project involves creating a 21st Century incarnation of a super-tasty 21-segment Victorian display technology. I will explain more in a moment, but first... I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of the steampunk aesthetic, which I feature in many of my hobby projects. This is especially true in the case of display technologies. Take Nixie tubes, for example, which first appeared on the scene in the 1950s. Nixie tubes are similar in appearance to vacuum tubes except they don’t actually contain a vacuum. Instead, they are loaded with a gas such as neon mixed with a little mercury or argon, all at very low pressure. The glass tube also contains a wire-mesh anode along with multiple cathodes that are shaped like numerals or other symbols. Applying power to one of the cathodes causes it to be surrounded by an orange glow discharge.