Gas panel with improved drive circuits

A driving circuit arrangement for a gas discharge display of the type including a plurality of individual cells having a pair of insulated electrodes defined by respective row and column conductors comprising:

• a source of low voltage pulses insufficient to discharge the electrodes in a cell;
• first switching means coupled to said voltage source and said row conductors for supplying said voltage pulses to one of said electrodes when operated;
• second switching means coupled to said voltage source and said column conductors for supplying said voltage pulses to another of said electrodes when operated;
• a transformer member having its primary windings coupled to said voltage source and its secondary windings coupled to said column conductors;
• means for generating a plurality of clock pulses;
• control means coupled to said clock generating means and each of said first and second switching means for alternately operating said first and second switching means in response to receiving said clock pulses when enabled;
• third switching means coupled to said clock generating means and the primary winding of said transformer member and operated by said clock pulses to continuously switch the current flow in said primary winding to produce a high voltage pulse in said secondary windings;
• and
• address generating means coupled to said control means and said source of first voltage pulses for outputting address signals enabling said control means to alternately operate selected first and second switching means whereby the low and high voltage pulses are applied over selected row and column conductors to discharge selected cells of said display.

A circuit for driving a plasma discharge display having a plurality of segment and column electrodes comprising:

• a first set of switching members coupled to each of said segment electrodes;
• a second set of switching members coupled to each of said column electrodes;
• a source of low voltage pulses having a level insufficient to discharge said electrodes;
• means for outputting said voltage pulses to selected first and second sets of said switching members;
• means for generating a plurality of out-of-phase clock pulses;
• gating means coupled to said first and second sets of switching members, said outputting means and said clock generating means for alternately operating said selected first and second sets of switching members upon receiving said voltage pulses from said outputting means and said out-of-phase clock pulses;
• a transformer member having its primary winding coupled to said low voltage pulses and its secondary windings coupled in series to each of said second sets of switching members;
• and a third set of switching members coupled to said primary winding and said clock generating means for switching the current flow in said primary winding to continuously produce a high voltage pulse in said secondary windings in response to receiving said out-of-phase clock pulses whereby the supplying of said low voltage pulses by the operation of said gating means together with the supplying of said high voltage pulse to the selected row and column electrodes respectively provides a voltage level sufficient to discharge the selected column and row electrodes.