February 6, 2026
Hot takes, hotter neon
Nixie-clock using neon lamps as logic elements
Glow clock built with neon sparks nostalgia, rescue tales, and a legendary typo
TLDR: A 2006 Nixie clock that uses neon bulbs instead of chips charmed readers with clever old‑school logic and quirky fixes like blue LED “moonlight.” Comments lit up with museum‑grade rescue stories, repeat‑thread nostalgia, and a typo‑turned‑meme, turning a glowing gadget into community comfort food.
A 2006 DIY “glow clock” is back to melt hearts and fry brains: a home‑built digital clock that swaps modern chips for tiny neon bulbs to do the thinking. Instead of transistors, the maker built counters from neon lamps—little orange lights that switch on at one voltage and stay on at a lower one—then used light sensors to flip Nixie digits. It even needed a splash of blue LED “moonlight” to keep the logic stable in the dark. Retro magic? Absolutely.
The comments went full retro-romance and lore‑drop mode. One user linked old HN threads, turning this into the internet’s favorite rerun. Another flexed museum‑level cred, connecting the design to a historic quartz clock time standard and casually noting it was saved from the scrap heap by their dad. Cue collective gasps. The practical crowd cheered that the author added a 2020 follow‑up that’s still ticking, while a curious tinkerer confessed they’d never realized neon’s “memory” trick could count time.
Meanwhile, the thread’s comedy crown went to a delightful typo—“None bulbs”—which instantly became the mascot of the day. No fights, just maximal vibes: glowy nostalgia, real‑deal engineering, and a community collectively swooning over a clock that literally runs on ambiance (and a little blue sparkle).
Key Points
- •A 2006 home-built Nixie clock uses neon lamps as logic elements instead of transistors or ICs.
- •Neon-lamp ring counters divide 50 Hz mains down to seconds and minutes, then drive digits for minutes and hours.
- •Modern indicator neon bulbs have smaller striking–maintaining voltage differences than older types, requiring value changes and lamp matching.
- •Nixie cathodes are driven via LDRs optically coupled to neon lamps, with a red-filtered attenuator to limit ambient light effects.
- •Counters are light-sensitive, needing some ambient light; blue LEDs were added, and an extra neon bulb per stage acts as an amplifier for cascading.