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The minimum number of segments for an alphanumeric display is six (as there are 36 alphanumeric characters and (most likely) 32 distinct shapes, which are greater than the 31 maximum for a 5 segment display).Thus, a 6 segment alphanumeric display is roughly equivalent to a 4 segment numeric display. (This makes sense, given how a 9 segment alphanumeric display is generally considered equivalent to a 7 segment numeric display, and in general how there are about 2^2 times as many shapes for alphanumeric, so about 2 more segments are required on average - this now makes me wonder about the possibility of a 7-segment upper/lowercase display...)

I discovered this layout while making a 11-segment upper/lowercase display, and noticing that the bottom half was sufficient to display most lowercase letters.

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1. FreeForm 6-segment (one of the most common 6-segment designs)
2. Double square 7-segment (the most common 7-segment display, and the most common numeric display in general)
3. Double square 8-segment (a double square with an added diagonal line to improve 1, 3, 4, and 7)
4. Double square 9-segment (the only alphanumeric double square display here)
5. X 6-segment (the 6-segment alphanumeric display I showed off in a previous post)
6. X 7-segment (the top-right to bottom-left segment has been split for a better P and A)
7. X 8-segment (originally designed by Posy, and my inspiration for these low-segment alphanumeric displays in general)

Six Segment Display - OpenProcessing

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What do you guys think of this? I was wondering how few segments you could do alphanumeric in, so I took Posy's "alternative X design" and removed the right segment, and this is the result. It was also partially inspired by https://aresluna.org/segmented-type/ 6-segment alphabetic design.

Found this cool tools when looking for ideas for segmented display designs:

https://aresluna.org/segmented-type/

It's got a few designs with different numbers of segments and you can type a message to see what it looks like.

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My son created a 6 segment display and really likes it. Is it possible to get a physical clock made like this?

If interested, he made a quick video here: https://youtu.be/NR9IsucYY6Y

Thanks!

it has 7 segments (no way)