The 8894 is an early vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) tube manufactured in the united States by Sylvania and sold under the brand name “Flurotron”. Its most distinctive feature is the use of “floating” segments; unlike most other VFDs, where the segments are held on a continuous backplane. Another notable difference from later VFD designs is the absence of a control grid. Because of this, multiplexed driving is not possible, resulting in more complex drive circuitry.
The tube does not include a decimal point and therefore requires only nine pins (two for the cathode/heater and seven for the segments), allowing it to be mounted in a standard Noval socket. A closely related version, the 8843, adds a decimal point and uses a tenth pin located at the center which fit through the center hole most Noval sockets have.
Overall, the 8894 closely resembles Tung-Sol’s Digivac VFDs, such as the DT-1704B. These displays also omitted control grids and, at least in early versions, featured a similar floating-segment construction.
Key Specifications
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Sylvania |
| Time period | 1970 |
| Digit height | ~14.5mm |
| Envelope diameter | ~22mm |
| Envelope height | ~50mm |
| Socket | Noval |
References
 |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |
