{"id":194,"date":"2014-06-09T19:35:17","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T02:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tubetime.us\/?p=194"},"modified":"2014-06-09T19:35:17","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T02:35:17","slug":"p10-dark-phosphor-the-skiatron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/2014\/06\/09\/p10-dark-phosphor-the-skiatron\/","title":{"rendered":"P10 Dark Trace CRT – The Skiatron"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a little story to tell. Years ago, I met someone who had a very large collection of CRTs. He had everything from common 3BP1s all the way to rare little gems like the 1EP1 and some vintage prototype CRTs. He showed me an item in his collection which was a rectangular CRT with a P10 phosphor. Finding a CRT with the P10 phosphor is like finding a unicorn. P10 is not really a phosphor; it designates a screen coated with some sort of alkali-halide (potassium chloride) that darkens when hit with an electron beam–a scotophor<\/a>. The darkening effect lasts until the coating is heated, and typical P10 CRTs have a built-in heater that erases whatever was recorded on the screen.<\/p>\n

Anyway, a few years go by and I lose contact with the guy. Rumors are flying around, and it turns out that he has decided to sell his entire collection. Bits and pieces of it start showing up at auction houses and flea markets. Another friend of mine mentions that he picked up a lot of CRTs at an auction house and asked if I wanted to pick through it. While sorting through it, I recognized the rare beast and bought it on the spot.<\/p>\n

\"P10<\/a><\/p>\n

So I finally got the time to hook it up and try it out. There doesn’t seem to be any documentation. The part number is 06E024P10, made by Thomas Electronics. It works, but not particularly well. Since the pin connections are nonstandard and the electron gun has some extra elements, I’ve probably got it connected all wrong. Anyway, I was able to put some scribbles on the screen.<\/p>\n

\"P10<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice the dark purple areas. I am shining a lamp through an aperture in the top of the CRT.<\/p>\n

\"P10<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking through the aperture, you can see how the CRT has a standard green phosphor section on the top third. This might have been used to verify that the tube’s electron gun was in focus. It could also have been used for status information. Most likely this tube would have been used in an early form of storage oscilloscope for capturing single-shot high speed events, although most examples of P10 tubes were designed for radar displays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a little story to tell. Years ago, I met someone who had a very large collection of CRTs. He had everything from common 3BP1s all the way to rare little gems like the 1EP1 and some vintage prototype CRTs. He showed me an item in his collection which was a rectangular CRT with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p80Z1r-38","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tubetime.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}