Segment display
display type
A segment display is a display device comprising several segments, which switch on and off to give the appearance of digits or alphanumeric characters. The segments are usually single LEDs or liquid crystals. Segment displays are often used in digital watches and pocket calculators. Common types include seven-segment displays (which are used for numerals only) and alphanumeric fourteen-segment displays and sixteen-segment displays (which can display numerals and Latin alphabet letters).
Seven-segment display
A seven-segment display is a display device for digits and some letters. It is often used in a device to display numbers – for example, in a digital clock or calculator. To a lesser extent, but still common, it is used to display alphanumeric information. Since a seven-segment display tends to be less expensive than a display that can better represent any character and even a graphic image such as a dot matrix display, the design choice to use a seven-segment display is a tradeoff to minimize cost over providing richer functionality.
History
Seven-segment representation of figures can be found in patents as early as 1903 (in U.S. patent 1,126,641), when Carl Kinsley invented a method of telegraphically transmitting letters and numbers and having them printed on tape in a segmented format. In 1908, F. W. Wood invented an 8-segment display, which displayed the number 4 using a diagonal bar (U.S. patent 974,943).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Segment display” is display type. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Segment, display and type, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q54006507. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1903 and 1908.
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This entry incorporates text from “Segment display” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.