Editing Sixteen-segment display (section)

==Applications==
Sixteen-segment displays were originally designed to display [[alphanumeric]] characters (Latin letters and Arabic digits). Later they were used to display [[Thai numerals]]<ref>[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/73651/;jsessionid=F26705B78D7B6CF7C96765CC68B862E0?tp=&arnumber=73651&isnumber=2478 ''Standard sixteen segmented display for Thai numerals''], IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, Volume 35 Issue 4 1989</ref> and [[Persian alphabet|Persian characters]].<ref>[https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/106908/;jsessionid=652DBFCDBEA2AD1BD6665D9A73DA1450?tp=&arnumber=106908&isnumber=3257 ''Alphanumeric Persian characters using standard 16-segment displays''], IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics Volume 37 No. 1, 1991</ref>  Non-electronic displays using this pattern existed as early as 1902.<ref>[https://patents.google.com/patent/US744923A/en ''Means for controlling illuminated announcement and display signals''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221084634/https://patents.google.com/patent/US744923A/en |date=2016-12-21 }}, US Patent 744,923 filed 1902-08-15</ref>

Before the advent of inexpensive [[dot-matrix display]]s, sixteen and [[fourteen-segment display]]s were used to produce [[alphanumeric]] characters on [[calculator]]s and other [[embedded system]]s.  Later they were used on [[videocassette recorder]]s (VCR), [[DVD player]]s, [[microwave oven]]s, [[Vehicle audio|car stereo]]s, telephone [[Caller ID]] displays, and [[slot machine]]s.

Sixteen-segment displays may be based on one of several technologies, the three most common [[optoelectronics]] types being [[light-emitting diode|LED]], [[liquid-crystal display|LCD]] and [[vacuum fluorescent display|VFD]]. The LED variant is typically manufactured in single or dual character packages, to be combined as needed into text line displays of a suitable length for the application in question; they can also be stacked to build multiline displays.

As with seven and fourteen-segment displays, a [[decimal mark|decimal point]] and/or [[comma]] may be present as an additional segment, or pair of segments; the comma (used for triple-digit groupings or as a [[decimal mark|decimal separator]] in many regions) is commonly formed by combining the decimal point with a closely 'attached' leftwards-descending arc-shaped segment. This way, a point or comma may be displayed between character positions instead of occupying a whole position by itself, which would be the case if employing the bottom middle vertical segment as a point and the bottom left diagonal segment as a comma. Such displays were very common on [[pinball]] machines for displaying the score and other information, before the widespread use of [[dot-matrix display]] panels.

===Examples===
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IIDX 16seg display.jpg|A sixteen-segment display on a ''[[Beatmania IIDX]]'' arcade machine
Индикатор ИВ-4.JPG|An eighteen-segment [[vacuum fluorescent display]]. Two extra segments are used for lower elements of [[Cyrillic letters]] Д, Ц, Щ.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Лампа ИВ-4 (Индикатор) Datasheet |url=https://rudatasheet.ru/tubes/iv4/ |access-date=2024-01-17 |language=ru-RU |archive-date=2024-01-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240117132601/https://rudatasheet.ru/tubes/iv4/ |url-status=live }}</ref> 
File:Single Board Computer AIM-65 (1978) (26589109399) (cropped).jpg|A sixteen-segment display on an [[AIM-65]]
</gallery>