Angry Kitchen Appliances: Creates small images

LED, VFD, GDT, LCD, and CRT displays

What is this?
Copyright
The GIF patent
Set #1, CLASSIC, 7-segment
Set #2, FOURTEEN, 14-segment
Set #3, FIVEBYSEVEN, 5x7-matrix
Set #4, 8-BIT, fancy 8-segment
Set #5, PP2, 7-segment
Set #6, Tio, 10-segment
Set #7, NINE, 9-segment
How can I use this?
What's in a Name?
How are these images created?
Download
Links

What is this?

This is some kind of virtual museum of almost extinct display types and shapes.

The virtual museum has a large number of tiny images (over 3000 right now) that can be downloaded and used to construct virtual LED, VFD (vacuum fluorescent display), GDT (gas discharge tubes), LCD, and CRT displays on devices like calculators and clocks. Composite images can also be generated containing multiple images. Instructions on how you can use the images are available.

The images are divided into styles with each style having a name. Within each style the images are further divided into colors.

Copyright

The display images on this page are Copyright © 2002-2010 Göran Larsson. You are given permission to use, modify and reproduce the display images in the downloadable tar and zip files, however, you can't sell them or include them in compilations that are distributed for profit.

The GIF patent

The GIF files that can be downloaded from this page are written using run length encoding (RLE) instead of the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression algorithm normally used in GIF files. As Unisys have a patent on LZW (from the incompetent US patent office) the GIF files you can download from this page does not use LZW.

The use of RLE sidesteps the Unisys patent at the cost of larger files, perhaps about twice the size. However, using LZW on the tiny GIF files on this page doesn't do much good, so the size disadvantage of RLE is quite small, just a few percent.

Set #1, CLASSIC, 7-segment

I needed some images of red 7-segment LED displays to show the display of an old Texas Instruments SR-52 programmable calculator for a page I wrote for the Datamath Calculator Museum about undocumented features. I found nothing suitable on the web, so instead of wasting time with more searching I wrote a program to generate the images I needed. Just for fun I generated a couple of more images with more glyphs and in colors other than red.

Please take a closer look at the CLASSIC display.

Set #2, FOURTEEN, 14-segment

This is a 14-segment display. The 14-segment display is designed like a 7-segment display with seven extra segments forming a central vertical bar and an X. The segment form a starburst pattern and makes it possible to make reasonable upper case letters. The set of glyphs used in this set mimics the display of the Onkyo Integra T-407 tuner.

Please take a closer look at the FOURTEEN display.

Set #3, FIVEBYSEVEN, 5x7-matrix

This is a 5 by 7 dot matrix display, just like an old glass TTY or dot matrix printer. Two versions are available, one sparse that looks like an old CRT, and one filled that looks like an LCD display.

Please take a closer look at the FIVEBYSEVEN display.

Set #4, 8-BIT, fancy 8-segment

This is a 8-segment display. The 8-segment display is designed like a 7-segment display but with six segments forming an odd hourglass-shape and two segments forming a central vertical bar. The minus sign and arrow are separate and appears at the far right end of the display. This odd looking display design, itron tubes by the Japanese company Iseden, was used on some early Japanese calculators, e.g. Sharp QT-8D, EL-8, and EL-811.

Please take a closer look at the 8-BIT display.

Set #5, PP2, 7-segment

This is a 7-segment display designed to look like the Sperry Panaplex II planar gas discharge display modules.

Please take a closer look at the PP2 display.

Set #6, Tio, 10-segment

This is a 10-segment display. The 10-segment display is designed like a 7-segment display with two extra segments forming a central vertical bar and also a broken middle horizontal bar. Ths makes it possible to get a centrally positioned 1 and a more stylish 4

Please take a closer look at the Tio display.

Set #7, NINE, 9-segment

This is a 9-segment display. The 9-segment display is designed like a 7-segment display with two extra segments forming a central slash. This is used to make more stylish 1, 4, and 7 digits.

Please take a closer look at the NINE display.

How can I use this?

The images can be use in two ways. Displays can be designed by placing the individual images in the correct order or composite images can be generated directly on a web for on this site.

Individual placing

This method is flexible, but a webpage done this way generates more overhead due to the loading of many images.

To make it easier to use the images a list file is included in each display image archive.

The list file is an ordinary text file containing set name, color name, glyph name, and HTML code for each image. The HTML code has image sizes and alternate text representation already filled in. Here is an example of one line from a list file:

8bit vfgreen 6 <img src="8bit/vfgreen/6.gif" width="15" height="20" alt="6">

Look at the example list file for a complete example.

Generate composite images

This method is offers lower overhead and eliminates the risk that some users web browser moves the images around (e.g. due to a small window size) ruining the display appearance.

The images generating program is available online for immediate use.

What's in a Name?

No question about it, each display image set must have a name. So why did I choose just these names? My requirements was that the name should reflect some aspect of the display and it should also be possible to write the name using the display itself. The last requirement is difficult for displays intended to show only numbers.

: This is THE classic seven segment display. Written as C L A 5 5 1 C it can be displayed on the display itself.
: This display has 14 segments in its startburst pattern. Written in upper case as F O U R T E E N it can be displayed on the display itself.
: This display has a 5x7 matrix. Written in upper case as F I V E B Y S E V E N it can be displayed on the display itself.
: This display has 8 segments in an hourglass shape. Written using some tiny cheating as 8 - B I T it can be displayed on the display itself.
: This seven segment display is intended to look like a Panaplex II display. Written in upper case as P P 2 it can be displayed on the display itself.
: This is a ten segment display. Tio is the Swedish word for ten, so written in mixed case as T i o it can be displayed on the display itself.
: This is a nine segment display found on an old Soviet calculator. By using faked Cyrillic letters it can be displayed on the display itself.

How are these images created?

No, I did not draw every one of these small images by hand. I made some templates, just like the paint-by-numbers paintings common in childrens paint books, and wrote a small program that did the painting for me. This method makes it very easy to create new types, sizes, glyphs, and colors.

You can view the templates (source code for the images) if you are interested.

Download

Note

The reason for the excessive size difference between the tar.gz files versus the zip files are due to how the files are compressed. A zip file contains individually compressed files and can therefore not take advantage of similarities between individual files inside the zip file. A tar.gz compresses all files at the same time and are therefore able to elliminate much more redundant information.

The contents of the tar.gz and zip files are exactly the same.

The GIF files are written using run length encoding (RLE) instead of the patented Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression algorithm normally used in GIF files.

GIF (RLE) images.

Set #1, CLASSIC slanted, classic_slanted_gif .tar.gz (20kB) .zip (97kB)
Set #1, CLASSIC upright, classic_upright_gif .tar.gz (19kB) .zip (96kB)
Set #2, FOURTEEN slanted, fourteen_slanted_gif .tar.gz (28kB) .zip (127kB)
Set #3, FIVEBYSEVEN CRT, fivebyseven_crt_gif .tar.gz (35kB) .zip (172kB)
Set #3, FIVEBYSEVEN LCD, fivebyseven_lcd_gif .tar.gz (39kB) .zip (176kB)
Set #4, 8-BIT, 8bit_gif .tar.gz (10kB) .zip (47kB)
Set #5, PP2, pp2_gif .tar.gz (2kB) .zip (11kB)
Set #6, Tio, tio_gif .tar.gz (12kB) .zip (55kB)
Set #7, NINE, nine_gif .tar.gz (2kB) .zip (8kB)

PNG images.

Set #1, CLASSIC slanted, classic_slanted_png .tar.gz (21kB) .zip (107kB)
Set #1, CLASSIC upright, classic_upright_png .tar.gz (20kB) .zip (104kB)
Set #2, FOURTEEN slanted, fourteen_slanted_png .tar.gz (29kB) .zip (139kB)
Set #3, FIVEBYSEVEN CRT, fivebyseven_crt_png .tar.gz (38kB) .zip (191kB)
Set #3, FIVEBYSEVEN LCD, fivebyseven_lcd_png .tar.gz (39kB) .zip (192kB)
Set #4, 8-BIT, 8bit_png .tar.gz (11kB) .zip (53kB)
Set #5, PP2, pp2_png .tar.gz (3kB) .zip (12kB)
Set #6, Tio, tio_png .tar.gz (13kB) .zip (61kB)
Set #7, NINE, nine_png .tar.gz (2kB) .zip (9kB)

Links