Pulsar Displays Up Close

[abem]

Hi.

I figure you've all looked at your Pulsar displays up close before, but have you ever seen one REALLY close?

Here are a few pictures:

Close:
http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/2010 ... 0x1200.jpg
Closer:
http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/6426 ... 0x1200.jpg
Closest:
http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/914/ ... x1200r.jpg

A few observations:
1) The line type displays are actually broken up into little segments
2) The dots in the display are actually little rings
3) There are a multitude of tiny, tiny wires connecting everything. It's a wonder that they aren't more fragile!

-abe.

[abem]

One other thing - I found it curious that the digit used for the "1" at the left of the display is actually a normal digit that has been sawed in half. Notice that it has vestigial upper and lower half segments that are never used. Apparently, they found it more economical to saw in half a standard digit than to build special digits just to display a "1". How they sawed these in cleanly in half, I have no idea.

Like any technology or other human creation, don't look too close or you're bound to see kludges and imperfections.

-abe.

[Led-Time]

A good set of pictures you did there, well done...

Have you got any close-up pictures of a LED dot display as it should look even better.

Amazing to think this was all done nearly 40 years ago it just goes to show the technology used at the time was first rate that so many displays are still working as good as the day they were made.

[J Thomas]

[LEDluvr]

Wow! Thank you abem for those pictures and JThomas for the insight on the manufacturing process. Simply Amazing!

[azimuth_pl]

I prefer the early Pulsar displays by Litronix, made of individual bars with dots, no cutting necessary.