Many thanks to all who replied about calculator displays. The general consensus seems to be that it was probably a Sharp EL9, an early and large hand-held calc (I'm sure it was larger than my hand, but never mind) from the early 1970s. To clear up a few misconceptions: It was not a Nixie tube machine. I have a nixie tube calc and a nixie tube voltmeter, so I know what those are. Apart from the trademark issues, I regard Nixie tubes as being ones in which you have an electrode for each _character_ rather than each segment. Usually digits, but as Tim pointed out, other symbols were available. It was not a starburst display. I have seen 14 segment and 16 segment versions, but these are still based on straight lines, not curves, and the numerals are still the good old 7-segment ugly ones. It was also not the display I have in my other digital voltmeter (Dynamco, I think) which has as digits a multilayer Perspex sandwich. Each perspex layer has a dot pattern for a character drilled in it; you light up a character by illuminating the edge of the appropriate perspex wafer, and total internal reflection confines the light to that wafer, thus lighting up the dot pattern of only the one character. Neat. I shall have a look at the website someone mentioned - thanks. But meanwhile, can someone who has a Sharp please e-mail me with a brief description of the segments of this 8-or-9-segment display and which ones light up for which digits. Many thanks. (A bit of background: Talking to my mother about watches, she said she never liked digital watches because she found 7-segment characters hard to read. I remembered this Sharp system and decided to try and find out a bit more. I wonder if it would be possible to revive it for LCDs and things - I still think it is much more readable than 7 seg.) Philip.