James Nadolski25 6Th St, Bergen Point, NJ 07002

4307394, Dec 22, 1981

May 12, 1980

6/148620

James J. Nadolski - Bayonne NJ

Sangamo Weston, Inc. - Norcross GA

G09F 932

340789

An improved system for driving a gas discharge display which prevents streamers of ionized gas from forming between adjacent character positions. Each of a plurality of character positions has an anode driver to which anode drive signals are sequentially applied. All odd character positions share a first cathode decoder/driver and all even character positions share a second cathode decoder/driver. Cathode drive signals are simultaneously applied to the first and second decoder/driver circuits. A first logic device, responsive to all odd position anode drive signals, outputs a blanking signal which is applied to the blanking input of the even character cathode decoder/driver to bias all even character cathodes into a non-conducting state whenever an anode drive signal is applied to an odd character anode. A second logic device, responsive to all even position anode drive signals, outputs a blanking signal which is applied to the blanking input of the odd character cathode decoder/driver to bias all odd character cathodes into a non-conducting state whenever an anode drive signal is applied to an even character anode. Thus, when a particular character position is scanned by the anode drive signals and selected cathode segments thereof are energized the cathodes of adjacent character positions are biased into a non-conducting state making it impossible for streamers of ionized gas to form between the energized character and its neighbors.