Making large numeric displays

On Wed, 4 Oct 2006, David Griffith wrote: 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