Nine-segment display
A nine-segment display is a type of display based on 9 segments that can be turned on or off according to the graphic pattern to be produced. It is an extension of the more common seven-segment display, having an additional two diagonal or vertical segments between the top, middle, and bottom horizontal segments. This provides a minimal method of displaying alphanumeric characters.
In some Russian digital calculators of the 1970s, such as the Elektronika 4-71b , 9-segment displays were used to provide basic alphanumerics and avoid confusions with representing numbers in Russian postcode.Nine-segment displays are used in many Timex digital watches, and some pagers, such as the Nixxo XPage, , the Arch BR502 pager , and the Scope Geo N8T . They are also used in some Epson Stylus printers, and Newport iSeries digital meters . The display used in the iSeries is unique in that it has a vertical extra segment at top, and a fully backwards-leaning slant for the extra segment at bottom. This allows for a somewhat more natural-appearing R and M and N. The Burroughs Panaplex is a commercially produced nine-segment alphanumeric display.
The letters displayed by a nine-segment display are not necessarily consistently uppercase or lowercase in shape. A common compromise is to use a lower-case "n" instead of "N". Depending on the design of the display segments, the use of the extra two segments may be avoided whenever possible, as in the Nixxo XPage's tall-lowercase "r" and "y". Perhaps to avoid this awkward inconsistency, the Scope Geo N8T does not allow the use of the letters J K Q W X Y or Z.
A nine-segment display has been developed for displaying Bengali and Roman numerals.[1]
See also
- Seven-segment display
- Ten-segment display
- Fourteen-segment display
- Sixteen-segment display
- Dot matrix display
References
- ↑ Mahmud, Samiran; Thomas Chowdhury and Manzurul Hasan (2005). "Designing a 9 Segment Display for Bengali and English Numerals". Asian Journal of Information Technology (Medwell Journals) 4 (7). Retrieved 2008-10-07.