Making large numeric displays

[Fred Cisin]

On Wed, 4 Oct 2006, David Griffith wrote:
> How about a mock-nixie made from electro-luminescent wire?

howzbout: making 7 segment displays from flourescent tubes?
anywhere from about 6 inches  to 16 feet per digit

or howzbout:
rig up a multibit input (parallel port?) on a PC, wire that to the
existing 7 segment displays, and write trivial code to display an image of
7 segment displays on the PC's screen (or projector!)


In ~1979, my partner in a computer business (Elcompco) negotiated a deal
with Lawrence Hall of Science (the museum, not the labs) to make a bunch
of power supplies for Kim-1's.  I still stumble over them.
But, they also needed a classroom display.  We took a picture of a Kim-1,
enlarged and mounted it, and wired up rows of plain LEDs replacing the
digits in the enlarged picture, and put a real Kim-1 behind the poster.
I wanted to make LARGE keypads on the poster, but my partner veto'd the
idea.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com