VFD

Ise Electronics in Japan built the first practical vacuum fluorescent display in 1967: filament cathodes, control grids and phosphor-coated anodes inside a flat evacuated glass envelope. Segments under voltage glow in the characteristic blue-green — bright, wide viewing angle, and none of the LCD's sluggishness in the cold. Japanese consumer electronics made it ubiquitous: the blinking 12:00 clock in millions of VCRs was a VFD.

In retail it still sits at the checkout as the customer display, where the digits must carry across the shop floor. Noritake and Futaba still manufacture the tubes; hobbyists build clocks out of old stock purely for the glow.