"At least 850 tragic teens are known to have perished since Deathball 2000 was developed late last year..." lamented the 'News'. "To play it, you have to take off your shoes and stand on an electrified metal platform that is wired to the game itself. If you score less than 100,000, the game ends rather adruptly when a charge of 10,000 volts hits the metal platform and fries you like a slab of bacon!"

A Planar Gas Discharge or Plasma Display Panels (PDP) display utilizes the same principle the Nixie tube does. It's construction consists of sandwiching a hollow center layer filled with neon and a small amount of mercury between a glass front and a ceramic back. A thick conductive paint forms the Cathodes on the inside of the ceramic back. The Cathodes form the segments of each digit. Each digit is covered by a separate Anode that is deposited on the inside of the glass front. The Anodes are formed from a thin transparent layer of tin oxide. When a sufficient voltage is applied between a cathode segment and it's anode, the gas around the cathode segment breaks down and begins to glow. Like the Nixie tube, the digits glow with a orange-red color. Voltage requirements for these displays are typically 180-200 volts DC).