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One of the sadder things about the current
state of gadgetry is the absolutely uninspired

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informational displays we’re stuck with
now.

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Full-color LCD panels are so dang cheap that
ya might as well just put a crappy little

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UI together and call it a day.

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But not long ago, your favorite whatsits and
doodads would have their own little custom

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displays of various technologies.

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Which technologies?

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Why… 
(whimsical music plays)

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There’s the wonderful Nixie tube, though
that’s not really custom.

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It’s just numbers, really.

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You’ve got your classic pea-soup LCD panels
like you’ll find on the original Game Boy.

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Then there’s the grey and black LCD, offering
a less nauseating experience.

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Simple LEDs can and do work to make seven-segment
displays, and sometimes you’ll see that

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tech get expanded out into more complicated
symbolical imagery like this oven display.

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But perhaps my favorite piece of display tech
is the vacuum fluorescent display.

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Yes, these VFDs, while not the obsession of
a certain Lemony Snicket,

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are still very interesting indeed.

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Their bright, self-illuminating elements,
high contrast (with the aid of color filters)

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and nearly limitless design potential made
these things a staple of a/v equipment,

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delightfully eighties car dashboards,

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appliances, and of
course,

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vending machines.

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Who could forget vending machines?

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They work surprisingly like the vacuum tubes
of days gone by, with a series of heated cathode

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wires at the front of the display emitting
some anxious electrons, arbitrarily shaped

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anode targets coated with the phosphors hanging
out at the back of the display, and a control

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grid that sits between the two to control
things.

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If you want to light up a segment, you simply
make sure that the control grid is positively

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charged to let some of those electrons through, and
then you also positively charge the target

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so the electrons will go careening towards
it, hit it passionately, and with the help

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of our friends the fantastic fluorescent phosphors,
those electrons become photons and the anode

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plate will glow.

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How neat!

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Adding the control grid allows the display
to be multiplexed.

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If you’ve got 64 things you need to light
up, you might think you’d need 65 wires

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to control it all, one for each element and
one for the common cathode.

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But, stick some control grids in between,
and you can wire a bunch of the elements together,

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and allow only one at a time to be lit by
cycling through the control grids and selectively

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blocking the elements from being lit.

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If you use 8 control grids each in charge
of 8 elements, you can use only 17 wires,

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some rapid switching circuitry, and our dumb
brains to make it appear as though the whole

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display is being lit at once when in fact
it’s being lit in segments very rapidly.

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See our brains are dumb and we can’t see
really fast things,

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engineers have exploited that a lot.

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Anyway, vacuum fluorescent displays have largely
fallen out of favor since they require custom

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tooling to make custom displays, and they’re
fragile glass things which need to be pulled

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into a vacuum and kinda it’s just an ordeal.

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Plus they only really make sense for certain
applications.

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Now that we are willingly buying microwave ovens
that connect to the internet for some reason,

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having a fixed display can become a real limitation,

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so VFDs are becoming an increasingly rare sight.

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Now of course, VFD dot matrix displays are
a thing so it’s not like you couldn’t

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just update one of those, and those do have
some relevant applications, but we’re gonna

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ignore them for right now.

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Wanna see a great VFD?

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Take a look at this thing that’s been sitting
on the table this whole video!

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It’s a stereo amplifier from the 1980’s.

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Right?

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Well, I think so.

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And look at that beautiful amber and red VFD,
such a nice…

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Wait a minute!

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This ain’t what it seems.

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Oh, JVC, pulling tricks on us again!

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This display is in fact a backlit LCD panel,
made in the style of a VFD!

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Huh.

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That’s kinda peculiar, isn’t it?

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I mean, it’s clearly trying to mimic a VFD,
lots of real vacuum fluorescent displays use

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this exact color scheme, like this Pioneer
Laserdisc player.

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But, if you take a closer look at this display,
you’ll realize it doesn’t have the characteristic

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grid pattern of a VFD, and it has some weird
viewing angle distortions.

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Head-on, this looks rather convincing.

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But, move your head around a little and you’ll
start to see the inactive elements become

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more visible in that weird LCD way.

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Truthfully it took me a while to realize this
thing was playing tricks on my like some sort

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of trick player, but once I did I exclaimed
to the heavens, “I’ve been tricked!”

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And it was very unpleasant.

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Of course I’m kidding, it’s pretty cool!

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You can see the big ‘ol LEDs providing the
backlighting, both amber and red.

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*buzzer sound*

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Never come to conclusions until you’ve taken
the thing apart.

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Those LEDs?

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Are really just incandescent bulbs!

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Yeah.

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Which makes the next line particularly silly.

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And I think this is why it looks so convincing,
as the two distinct wavelengths of light would

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produce an effect quite similar to that of
real phosphors in a real vacuum fluorescent display.

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(HA)

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And of course, since the display operates
inversely from most LCDs which have a bright

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background and darken the active segments,
the illusion is pretty good.

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But here’s an interesting question.

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Why?

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This is a pretty large display, so perhaps
it would have been prohibitively expensive

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to make a VFD of such proportions.

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But then again, this LCD seems like a pretty
novel thing.

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Maybe it isn’t, but I’ve not seen this
sort of technique used before so I can only

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assume that it’s kinda rare.

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*buzzer sound*

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No, you have seen this sort of thing before.

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On your own microwave.

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You silly person.

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OK, OK yes I have seen this sort of thing
before, but it was never in a color scheme

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that so closely matched the delicate glow
of my beloved VFDs!

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It’s always been a sickly green, or a sickly
orange, or a stupid piercing blue, or some

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other usually unappealing color.

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And also making LCDs like this is a way more
recent trend, isn’t it?

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Am I off my rocker?

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Well as it turns out my rocker is in the corner
so I am indeed off of it but that’s just

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a silly joke, the fact of the matter is this
thing is neat.

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And I think it’s sorta unique.

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Not absolutely.

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But probably a little.

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Oh man I should google this, shouldn’t I?

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Let’s see…

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JVC RX-222…

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some pictures.

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OK, yeah, yeah that’s it.

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Oh, it’s from 1989 it looks like that’s
good we were right about that, barely.

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Oh, and look at that, there’s some other
models over there

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that look to have very similar displays…

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well then it looks like JVC was
all-in on this little quirky display thing,

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at least for a while in the late ‘80s.

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But was anybody else?

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Truthfully, I have no idea because if this
is a special kind of backlit LCD,

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I don't know what it’s called.

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And without knowing if it’s got a special
name, perhaps LiquiTron Luma+, it’s difficult

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to search for.

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If any of you people out there know if this
has a specific name, or if it’s just an

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underutilized style of backlit LCD, do let
us know because I couldn’t be bothered to

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check that very thoroughly.

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Well.

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That’s all I had for this video.

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Yeah.

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Umm, but, hey!

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Let’s just play this random CD I found.

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I’m sure there will be some appropriate
music on it.

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[ mechanical noises ]

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♫ recklessly smooth jazz ♫

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Just because the video is super short and
off the cuff doesn’t mean I ain’t got

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any bloopers!

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Wait.

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This isn’t a blooper, I planned this.

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But it is during the credits…

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Hey credits, is this a blooper?

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Ah farts.

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...that of real phosphors inside a real phosphor
fuh fuh fah!

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I’m not enunciating very well at all.

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This video is what, seven minutes long?

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Why is it taking me so long to do this?

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[straining noises]

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...and our dumb brains to make it appear as
though the whole euh the ble bleugh

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[angry snarl]

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One for each of the an…

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ah! ba bu buh.

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By selectively selecting the control grids,
or selectively controlling the control grids.

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Hmm.

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Me again.

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The spirit of the endscreen!

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Do you know what a pirate's favorite aisle of the craft store is?

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Why, it be the Isle of Yaaarghn.

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Shut up you loved it.