
Magic Eye Tube - Hooke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_eye_tube
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tibbon
These look way cooler in person than videos and photos show them for online.
I’ve played some guitar amps that had them for indicators (Selmer Zodiac) and
they were so damn cool looking and futuristic feeling. I keep hoping they will
make a comeback on some amps.

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Isamu
They should definitely bring these back for tube amps!

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Jamwinner
Many high end ones have them. I have a few 50s and 60s hifi sets with magic
eyes, but most are for tuning. Newer designs use them as a gain or VU meter.

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macjohnmcc
My father owned a Phillips AM/FM/SW/LW radio from the 60's that had one for
tuning. It was the most magical part of the whole item.

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nickjamespdx
My hope was this was somehow related to the "Magic Eye" book series and
finally those who'd spent years "Magic Eye"-challenged could experience the
joy of hidden 3D objects!

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reilly3000
Lol, me too. Your comment prompted me to Google for it and found this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=2AKtp3XHn38&...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=2AKtp3XHn38&feature=emb_title)

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Isamu
Wow, I forgot about these. And the smell of warm tube electronics in a wooden
housing.

>Magic eye tubes were used as the recording level indicator for tape recorders

Pretty sure that's where I saw them, in old reel-to-reel tape decks.

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theophrastus
Old radios too [1]. A few years back there was an intense discussion on some
antiquarian site about what the function was for a central hole in an
otherwise beautiful antique wooden philco radio cabinet. Finally some bright
old duffer shows up and allows: "Oh, that's where the 'magic eye' went". Of
course, the rest thought he was just pulling their legs about there being a
"magic eye" on these things.

[1]
[https://mikesradiosandstuff.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/8/7/10875...](https://mikesradiosandstuff.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/8/7/10875761/1351260_orig.jpg)

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jakedata
The Korg NuTube would be an interesting basis for a new display device.
[https://korgnutube.com/en/](https://korgnutube.com/en/)

While it doesn't have the cool visuals (Feature request for 2.0?) it can
actually do tube-y things in your circuit. I imagine a VFD magic eye simulator
would be possible and you could actually use it as an active component.

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_sbrk
Already done, see here:

[http://techlib.com/electronics/roberts_radio.htm](http://techlib.com/electronics/roberts_radio.htm)

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tr352
Surprisingly these can still be bought easily on Ebay, Aliexpress etc. Many
seem to be Soviet "new old stock" models (or perhaps actual new items?). This
might be explained by the fact that they've been used quite a lot in Soviet
military equipment, even long after they were considered obsolete in the west.

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bashcoder
These have always been magical devices to me. I still use and maintain an old
Heathkit capacitor tester that uses one as its indicator.

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ralphc
I have a few of this on my vintage vacuum-tube shortwave radios. They're used
to indicate how strong the signal is for tuning.

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spennant
These things were standard on vintage Blaupunkt Radiograms, indicating the
strength of the signal.

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kfichter
One of my favorite tubes, happy to have a working one in my Grundig 4010.
Original EM34s can be quite expensive, unfortunately. Luckily the 6E5C is much
more common and can usually, with some effort, replace an EM34.

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Raphmedia
Oh, I believe I've seen similar devices on the little boxes next to railways
in Canada. Is this the case?

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upofadown
From what I have seen, those are some sort of neon glow lamps. Probably used
instead of incandescent lamps for much longer life.

