I believe that the Monsanto MAN-1 was the first commercially available 7-segment LED display. It was introduced in 1969, but was so expensive (~$300 each, or $175 in 1000s) that it didn't get much use until later in the 70s.
I was surprised to find that the Numitron (or its ilk: Minitron, Apollo IEEE, and Wamco, and the Russian IV9 and IV16) was also introduced around that time. All of the data sheets I have (that are dated - many are not) were published around 1972. The Numitron was certainly a mature technology by that time, but given that its fundamental technology had been available since the 1920s, I would have thought it to have been available much earlier. ~~ Mark Moulding On Friday, December 18, 2020 at 8:38:45 PM UTC-8 nixiebunny wrote: > The Monsanto MAN-1 was just about the first. It was a calculator sized > single digit in a 10 pin flatpack with staggered pins. > HP made their display with a controller chip in it soon after. > I have a huge three ring binder full of display brochures from 1969 that I > found at Black Hole surplus about 20 years ago. It's an amazing collection > of advanced and obsolete technologies. > > > On Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 6:06 PM peter bunge <bung...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Can anyone remember what the first LED displays looked like? >> My first experience was with a 3 digit multiplexed display with bubble >> magnifiers. Did these come out before the single 7 segment displays with >> bigger digits? >> Did Numitron incandescent come out before the LED displays? >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "neonixie-l" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to neonixie-l+...@googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web, visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/92490683-c82c-4258-aeb7-d80f14cec5f6n%40googlegroups.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/92490683-c82c-4258-aeb7-d80f14cec5f6n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/a52f86a0-c990-4972-be52-5ad027b67d44n%40googlegroups.com.
