“Currently there is a lot of interest in bringing vintage nixie tubes to life. Lot’s of nixie tube clock kits are available on the market. There appeared to be even a lively trade on old stock of russian nixie tubes. Also here on Instructables there are tons of projects on nixie tubes (https://www.instructables.com/howto/nixie/).
This Instructable describes a driver for nixie tubes with I/O extenders, controllable by I2C, using a versatile PCB developed specifically for this purpose.
The microcontroller and its software are not part of this Instructable. There are countless ways to do this, using any microcontroller that speaks I2C, such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone, ESP8266 or whatever is on your desk. I will leave that part to you, and please write an Instructable about your project if you have succeeded.
Supplies:
Nixie tubes with TTL driver, or preferably an old device like my ‘Impulszähler EZK’ from ‘electromatic’.
The PCB described below. You need one for driving two nixies.
Header pins and jumpers for address selection
PCF8574 I/O extender (one per PCB)
10k resistors, you need three for one I2C bus (many PCBs)
A microcontroller capable of I2C, like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beagle Bone, ESP8266, or whatever is laying around on your desk.”