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What's a technology that was cooler in its older iterations? (pawb.social)

submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

481 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I don't mean BETTER. That's a different conversation. I mean cooler.

An old CRT display was literally a small scale particle accelerator, firing angry electron beams at light speed towards the viewers, bent by an electromagnet that alternates at an ultra high frequency, stopped by a rounded rectangle of glowing phosphors.

If a CRT goes bad it can actually make people sick.

That's just. Conceptually a lot COOLER than a modern LED panel, which really is just a bajillion very tiny lightbulbs.

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[–] pastermil 42 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

A nixie tube is a bunch of tiny lightbulbs shaped into numbers in a single pack with different pins each turning on a number.

Clearly the modern number display is better in many ways, but you were asking for coolness.

[–] captain_aggravated 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I think Nixie tubes are actually a kind of neon lamp rather than incandescent bulbs; but yes they are very mid-20th century.

[–] pastermil 6 points 4 weeks ago

They're fluorescent tubes, yes. I wasn't specific about what kind of lightbulbs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

I got a bunch of them to try to build a divergence meter, but I'm too intimidated by the ungodly wiring it would require.