Neon clocks first cast their light in the early 1930s. ... the vintage models are hardy. A transformer, which boosts the voltage needed to run neon, can last well over 10 years; tubes, ...

Kevin Flankey reminisced about his college days in Tampa, when he drove to campus on a long, lonely stretch of highway in dense early morning fog. Like a sea captain seeking a lighthouse, he watche… ...

This is an oldie, but oh, man is this ever good. It’s a Nixie clock made without a microcontroller. In fact, there aren’t any logic chips in this circuit, either. As far as we can tell,… ...

"All of a sudden, at 10 o'clock at night, zap! We lost all the power, and it was, we blew the transformer," Talbot recalled. Talbot's fascination with Studebakers is rooted in family history.

A piece of the neon sign at Doc's Clock bar in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, May 25, 2017. Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle.