Fourteen segment display

A fourteen segment display is an optoelectronic type of display based on 14 segments that can be turned on or off according to the graphic pattern to be produced. It is an extension of the more common seven segment display (adding 4 diagonal, 2 vertical, and 1 horizontal segment[s]). It is sometimes also referred to as a starburst display.

Before the advent of inexpensive dot-matrix displays, fourteen and sixteen segment displays were some of the few options available for producing alphanumeric characters on calculators and other embedded systems.

A fourteen segment display may be based on one of several technologies, the most common being LED and LCD. The LED variant is typically manufactured in single or dual character packages, allowing the system designer to choose the number of characters suiting the application.

Fourteen segment gas-plasma displays (with comma and period making 16 total segments) were used in pinball machines from 1986 through 1991.

See also: Nixie tube