Lighting up old vacuum tubes and making them turn on/off
The filaments in electron tubes have a long time constant. This means that when you apply the power so current flows it can take many seconds for the filament to reach its full glowing hot temperature. This means that any "interesting pattern" that you may have anticipated will have a very slow rate. I suspect that your thinking may have been based somewhat on what you have seen with LEDs that can switch on and off quite fast in comparison. 

Switching the filament on a electron tube on and off in a repetitive manner can greatly shorten its life span due to the thermal cycling that the tube will experience. 

To deal with the actual switching you need to find the voltage rating and current at that voltage that the filament operates at. A cold filament will draw a lot of current until it heats up over the course of seconds. You will need to ensure that any power source and switching circuitry that you use is fully able to deal with this inrush current.