The Sony CDP-101 was the world's first commercially released compact disc player . The system was launched in Japan on October 1, 1982 at a list price of 168,000 yen (approx US$ 730).
55-572: The Japan-only launch was partially because Philips, Sony's partner in the development of the CD format, was unable to meet the original agreed launch date. Rather than agree to a full postponement, Sony agreed to delay the launch of the format outside Japan by six months. The Philips CD100 launched in the US and European markets in March 1983, although early Philips players contained some Sony components. In line with
110-522: A hot cathode ( filaments ), grids and anodes ( phosphor ) encased in a glass envelope under a high vacuum condition. The cathode is made up of fine tungsten wires , coated by alkaline earth metal oxides (barium, strontium and calcium oxides ), which emit electrons when heated to 650 °C by an electric current. These electrons are controlled and diffused by the grids (made using photochemical machining ), which are made up of thin (50 micron thick) stainless steel. If electrons impinge on
165-524: A 14-bit DAC, and Sony was worried that would allow Philips to get their product to market first if 14-bit encoding had been chosen. Sony continued to produce CD players, with models such as the CDP-30 following soon after. Vacuum fluorescent display A vacuum fluorescent display ( VFD ) is a display device once commonly used on consumer electronics equipment such as video cassette recorders , car radios , and microwave ovens . A VFD operates on
220-400: A 26-pin accessory connector is included, presumably for future developments that did not materialize. There is also a heatsink on the back. The remote control unit, RM-101, has most of the same buttons as the main system. It omits the open/close button and display toggle, but has numbered buttons unlike the main unit, that allow a particular track number to be selected. The model name CDP-101
275-462: A CRT. The insulating layer in a VFD is normally black, however it can be removed or made transparent to allow the display to be transparent. AMVFD displays that incorporate a driver IC are available for applications that require high image brightness and an increased number of pixels. Phosphors of different colors can be stacked on top of each other for achieving gradations and various color combinations. Hybrid VFDs include both fixed display segments and
330-451: A graphic VFD in the same unit. VFDs may have display segments, grids and related circuitry on their front and rear glass panels, using a central cathode for both panels, allowing for increased segment density. The segments can also be placed exclusively on the front instead of on the back, improving viewing angles and brightness. Besides brightness, VFDs have the advantages of being rugged, inexpensive, and easily configured to display
385-597: A limited number of segments in seven-segment displays, a couple of the hexadecimal digits are required to be displayed as lowercase letters, otherwise the uppercase letter "B" would be the same as the digit "8", and the uppercase letter "D" would be the same as the digit "0". The digit "6" must also be displayed with the topmost segment as [REDACTED] to avoid ambiguity with the letter "b". Early decoder IC's often produced random patterns or duplicates of digits for 10-15, as they were designed to use as few gates as possible and only required to produce 0-9. Many letters of
440-421: A marked advantage over fixed-color, fixed-character VFDs. This is one of the main reasons for the decline in popularity of VFDs, although they continue to be made. Many low-cost DVD players still feature VFDs. From the mid-1980s onwards, VFDs were used for applications requiring smaller displays with high brightness specifications, though now the adoption of high-brightness organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)
495-401: A matrix of alkaline earth and very small amounts of group III metals, doped with very small amounts of rare earth metals. VFDs can display seven-segment numerals, multi-segment alpha-numeric characters or can be made in a dot-matrix to display different alphanumeric characters and symbols. In practice, there is little limit to the shape of the image that can be displayed: it depends solely on
550-441: A method of telegraphically transmitting letters and numbers and having them printed on tape in a segmented format. In 1908, F. W. Wood invented an 8-segment display, which displayed the number 4 using a diagonal bar ( U.S. patent 974,943 ). In 1910, a seven-segment display illuminated by incandescent bulbs was used on a power-plant boiler room signal panel. They were also used to show the dialed telephone number to operators during
605-402: A positive potential. The microprocessor cycles through illuminating the digits in this way at a rate high enough to create the illusion of all digits glowing at once via persistence of vision . The extra indicators (in our example, "VCR", "Hi-Fi", "STEREO", "SAP", etc.) are arranged as if they were segments of an additional digit or two or extra segments of existing digits and are scanned using
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#1732775566553660-447: A rectangle, with two vertical segments on each side and one horizontal segment each at the top, middle, and bottom. Often the rectangle is oblique (slanted), which may aid readability. In most applications, the segments are of nearly uniform shape and size (usually elongated hexagons , though trapezoids and rectangles can also be used); though in the case of adding machines , the vertical segments are longer and more oddly shaped at
715-734: A restricted range of letters that look like (upside-down) digits, seven-segment displays are commonly used by school children to form words and phrases using a technique known as " calculator spelling ". Seven-segment displays may use a liquid-crystal display (LCD), a light-emitting diode (LED) for each segment, an electrochromic display , or other light-generating or -controlling techniques such as cold cathode gas discharge (neon) ( Panaplex ), vacuum fluorescent (VFD), incandescent filaments (Numitron), and others. For gasoline price totems and other large signs, electromechanical seven-segment displays made up of electromagnetically flipped light-reflecting segments are still commonly used. A precursor to
770-461: A seven-segment digit template , to compose figures such as product prices or telephone numbers. For many applications, dot-matrix liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) have largely superseded LED displays in general, though even in LCDs, seven-segment displays are common. Unlike LEDs, the shapes of elements in an LCD panel are arbitrary since they are formed on the display by photolithography . In contrast,
825-446: A seven-segment display, including the decimal point. The most popular bit encodings are gfedcba and abcdefg . In the gfedcba representation, a byte value of 0x06 would turn on segments "c" and "b", which would display a "1". The numerical digits 0 to 9 are the most common characters displayed on seven-segment displays. The most common patterns used for each of these are: Alternative patterns: The numeral 1 may be represented with
880-407: A significant drawback for battery-operated equipment like calculators, so VFDs ended up being used mainly in equipment powered by an AC supply or heavy-duty rechargeable batteries. During the 1980s, this display began to be used in automobiles, especially where car makers were experimenting with digital displays for vehicle instruments such as speedometers and odometers. A good example of these were
935-640: A simple LED package, typically all of the cathodes (negative terminals) or all of the anodes (positive terminals) of the segment LEDs are connected and brought out to a common pin; this is referred to as a "common cathode" or "common anode" device. Hence a 7 segment plus decimal point package will only require nine pins, though commercial products typically contain more pins, and/or spaces where pins would go, in order to match standard IC sockets. Integrated displays also exist, with single or multiple digits. Some of these integrated displays incorporate their own internal decoder , though most do not: each individual LED
990-492: A vacuum tube triode . Electrons can only reach (and "illuminate") a given plate element if both the grid and the plate are at a positive potential with respect to the cathode. This allows the displays to be organized as multiplexed displays where the multiple grids and plates form a matrix, minimizing the number of signal pins required. In the example of the VCR display shown to the right, the grids are arranged so that only one digit
1045-405: A wide variety of customized messages, and unlike LCDs, VFDs are not limited by the response time of rearranging liquid crystals and are thus able to function normally in cold, even sub-zero, temperatures, making them ideal for outdoor devices in cold climates. Early on, the main disadvantage of such displays was their use of significantly more power (0.2 watts ) than a simple LCD. This was considered
1100-468: Is brought out to a connecting pin as described. Multiple-digit LED displays as used in pocket calculators and similar devices used multiplexed displays to reduce the number of I/O pins required to control the display. For example, all the anodes of the A segments of each digit position would be connected together and to a driver circuit pin, while the cathodes of all segments for each digit would be connected. To operate any particular segment of any digit,
1155-424: Is illuminated at a time. All of the similar plates in all of the digits (for example, all of the lower-left plates in all of the digits) are connected in parallel. One by one, the microprocessor driving the display enables a digit by placing a positive voltage on that digit's grid and then placing a positive voltage on the appropriate plates. Electrons flow through that digit's grid and strike those plates that are at
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#17327755665531210-518: Is pushing VFDs out of these markets. Vacuum fluorescent displays were once commonly used as floor indicators for elevators by Otis Elevator Company worldwide and Montgomery Elevator Company in North America (the former from the early 1980s to the late-2000s in the form of (usually two) green 16-segment displays , and the latter from the mid 1980s to the early 2000s in the form of (usually 3) green or blue 10x14 dot-matrix displays , one for
1265-593: Is slightly different shape (see photo of DM160 and IV-15 for comparison). Seven-segment display A seven-segment display is a form of electronic display device for displaying decimal numerals that is an alternative to the more complex dot matrix displays . Seven-segment displays are widely used in digital clocks , electronic meters, basic calculators, and other electronic devices that display numerical information. Seven-segment representation of figures can be found in patents as early as 1903 (in U.S. patent 1,126,641 ), when Carl Kinsley invented
1320-499: Is sometimes a problem with VFDs. Light output drops over time due to falling emission and reduction of phosphor efficiency. How quickly and how far this falls depends on the construction and operation of the VFD. In some equipment, loss of VFD output can render the equipment inoperable. Fading can be slowed by using a display driver chip to lower the voltages necessary to drive a VFD. Fading can also occur due to evaporation and contamination of
1375-425: Is then partially etched to create holes which are then filled with a conductor like graphite , which in turn is coated with phosphor. This transfers energy from the trace to the segment. The shape of the phosphor will determine the shape of the VFD's segments. The most widely used phosphor is Zinc-doped copper-activated Zinc oxide , which generates light at a peak wavelength of 505 nm. The cathode wire to which
1430-437: The latin alphabet can be reasonably implemented on a seven-segment display. Though not every letter is available, it is possible to create many useful words. By careful choice of words, one can sometimes work around unavailable letters. Uppercase letters "I", "O", "S", "Z" conflict with the common seven-segment representation of digits "1", "0", 5", "2", and the lowercase letter "g" with digit "9". Upper case I could be put on
1485-442: The 1970s. Many early (c. 1970s) LED seven-segment displays had each digit built on a single die . This made the digits very small. Some included magnifying lenses in the design to try to make the digits more legible. Other designs used 1 or 2 dies for every segment of the display. The seven-segment pattern is sometimes used in posters or tags, where the user either applies color to pre-printed segments, or applies color through
1540-464: The 7-segment display in the 1950s through the 1970s was the cold-cathode, neon-lamp-like nixie tube . Starting in 1970, RCA sold a display device known as the Numitron that used incandescent filaments arranged into a seven-segment display. In USSR, the first electronic calculator "Vega", which was produced from 1964, contains 20 decimal digits with seven-segment electroluminescent display . In
1595-577: The VFD was the first to be developed. VFD and LED displays were used in early handheld calculators. LED displays were an alternative to VFDs in this use as they had simpler power requirements, not requiring the high voltages. Choice of display technology varied through commercial decisions by the manufacturer, with companies such as Casio, Canon & Sharp dropping LED displays in preference to VFDs and early LCDs, whereas Texas Instruments and Hewlett Packard, both manufacturers of LED displays, continued with LED technology for much longer. Later, once LCD technology
1650-518: The agreement, the system was launched worldwide in March 1983. Demonstration CD players from Sony had the disc placed vertically in the machine allowing the CD face to be visible through a transparent front whilst playing. The CDP-101 instead opted for a horizontal tray-loading system. The case and front panel of the system were manufactured from plastics. The front of the unit featured a vacuum fluorescent display panel to provide information such as track number and playing time, an infrared receiver for
1705-484: The arrow and the other two for the digits). In addition to the widely used fixed character VFD, a graphic type made of an array of individually addressable pixels is also available. These more sophisticated displays offer the flexibility of displaying arbitrary images, and may still be a useful choice for some types of consumer equipment. Multiplexing may be used in VFDs to reduce the number of connections necessary to drive
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1760-581: The case using Nixie tubes or Panaplex neon digits or for LED displays on pocket calculators. In the UK the Philips designs were made and marketed by Mullard (almost wholly owned by Philips even before WWII). The Russian IV-15 VFD tube is very similar to the DM160. The DM160, DM70/DM71 and Russian IV-15 can (like a VFD panel) be used as triodes . The DM160 is thus the smallest VFD and smallest triode valve. The IV-15
1815-441: The cathode. Phosphors that contain sulfur are more susceptible to fading. Emission may usually be restored by raising filament voltage. Thirty-three percent voltage boost can rectify moderate fade, and 66% boost severe fade. This can make the filaments visible in use, though the usual green-blue VFD filter helps reduce any such red or orange light from the filament. Of the three prevalent display technologies – VFD, LCD, and LED –
1870-466: The color of the (usually light blue) light emitted by the phosphors. High power consumption and high manufacturing cost contributed to the demise of the VFD as a videogame display. LCD games could be manufactured for a fraction of the price, did not require frequent changes of batteries (or AC adapters) and were much more portable. Since the late 1990s, backlit color active-matrix LCD displays have been able to cheaply reproduce arbitrary images in any color,
1925-464: The controlling integrated circuit would turn on the cathode driver for the selected digit, and the anode drivers for the desired segments; then after a short blanking interval the next digit would be selected and new segments lit, in a sequential fashion. In this manner an eight digit display with seven segments and a decimal point would require only 8 cathode drivers and 8 anode drivers, instead of sixty-four drivers and IC pins. Often in pocket calculators
1980-502: The digit drive lines would be used to scan the keyboard as well, providing further savings; however, pressing multiple keys at once would produce odd results on the multiplexed display. Although to a naked eye all digits of an LED display appear lit, only one digit is lit at any given time in a multiplexed display. The digit changes at a high enough rate that the human eye cannot see the flashing (on earlier devices it could be visible to peripheral vision). The seven segments are arranged as
2035-518: The display. Several radio amateurs have experimented with the possibilities of using VFDs as triode amplifiers . In 2015, Korg released the Nutube , an analogue audio amplifier component based on VFD technology. The Nutube is used in applications such as guitar amplifiers from Vox and the Apex Sangaku headphone amplifier. The Nutube is sold by Korg but made by Noritake Itron. Fading
2090-477: The drive voltage and its timing. The choice of color (which determines the nature of the phosphor) and display brightness significantly affect the lifetime of the tubes, which can range from as low as 1,500 hours for a vivid red VFD to 30,000 hours for the more common green ones. Cadmium was commonly used in the phosphors of VFDs in the past, but the current RoHS -compliant VFDs have eliminated this metal from their construction, using instead phosphors consisting of
2145-463: The ends, to try to make them more easily readable. The seven elements of the display can be lit in different combinations to represent each of the Arabic numerals . The individual segments are referred to by the letters "a" to "g", and an optional decimal point (an "eighth segment", referred to as DP) is sometimes used for the display of non-integer numbers. A single byte can encode the full state of
2200-444: The high-end Subaru cars made in the early 1980s (referred to by Subaru enthusiasts as a digi-dash , or digital dashboard ). The brightness of VFDs makes them well suited for use in cars. The Renault Espace Mk4 and Scenic Mk2 used VFD panels to show all functions on the dashboard including the radio and multi message panel. They are bright enough to read in full sunlight as well as dimmable for use at night. This panel uses four colors;
2255-410: The included remote control, and buttons to control playback, open and close the tray and toggle the display between showing elapsed and remaining playing time. The only dial was for adjusting the volume level of a 1/4" headphone jack. At the back of the unit there are two on/off switches, one labeled Auto Pause and the other Anti Shock. There are two RCA jacks to carry left and right channels of audio;
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2310-439: The left (as lower-case L is shown here) but this is not often done. Lowercase 'b' and 'q' are identical to the alternate numerical digits '6' and '9'. The following are some real world english word examples seen on actual electronic equipment: There are also fourteen- and sixteen-segment displays (for full alphanumerics ); however, these have mostly been replaced by dot matrix displays . 22-segment displays capable of displaying
2365-682: The left segments, the numerals 6 and 9 may be represented without a "tail", and the numeral 7 represented with a 'tail': In Unicode 13.0, 10 codepoints had been given for segmented digits 0–9 in the Symbols for Legacy Computing block, to replicate early computer fonts that included seven-segment versions of the digits. The official reference shows the less-common four-segment "7". The binary-coded decimal (BCD) 0 to 9 digit values require four binary bits to hold their values. Since four bits (2 ) can hold 16 values, this means hexadecimal (hex) digits can be represented by four bits too. Since there are
2420-528: The other is ready, so the left and right channels are out of sync by approximately 11 μs . The output voltage is 2V RMS. Unlike the Philips CD100 which uses oversampling to enable the use of a 14-bit DAC, the CDP-101 features a 16-bit DAC that was designed and manufactured in-house by Sony. The decision to use 16-bit CD encoding was made at Sony's insistence, because Philips had already developed
2475-403: The oxides are applied is made of tungsten or ruthenium-tungsten alloy. The oxides in the cathodes are not stable in air, so they are applied to the cathode as carbonates, the cathodes are assembled into the VFD, and the cathodes are heated by passing a current through them while inside the vacuum of the VFD to convert the carbonates into oxides. The principle of operation is identical to that of
2530-407: The phosphor-coated anode plates, they fluoresce , emitting light. Unlike the orange-glowing cathodes of traditional vacuum tubes, VFD cathodes are efficient emitters at much lower temperatures, and are therefore essentially invisible. The anode consists of a glass plate with electrically conductive traces (each trace is connected to a single indicator segment), which is coated with an insulator, which
2585-670: The principle of cathodoluminescence , roughly similar to a cathode-ray tube , but operating at much lower voltages. Each tube in a VFD has a phosphor -coated carbon anode that is bombarded by electrons emitted from the cathode filament . In fact, each tube in a VFD is a triode vacuum tube because it also has a mesh control grid. Unlike liquid crystal displays (LCDs), a VFD emits very bright light with high contrast and can support display elements of various colors. Standard illumination figures for VFDs are around 640 cd/m with high-brightness VFDs operating at 4,000 cd/m , and experimental units as high as 35,000 cd/m depending on
2640-562: The same multiplexed strategy as the real digits. Some of these extra indicators may use a phosphor that emits a different color of light, for example, orange. The light emitted by most VFDs contains many colors and can often be filtered to enhance the color saturation providing a deep green or deep blue, depending on the whims of the product's designers. Phosphors used in VFDs are different from those in cathode-ray displays since they must emit acceptable brightness with only around 50 volts of electron energy, compared to several thousand volts in
2695-404: The shape of phosphor on the anode(s). The first VFD was the single indication DM160 by Philips in 1959. The first multi-segment VFD was a 1967 Japanese single-digit, seven-segment device made by Ise Electronics Corporation. The displays became common on calculators and other consumer electronics devices. In the late 1980s hundreds of millions of units were made yearly. The device consists of
2750-639: The shapes of LED segments tend to be simple rectangles , because they have to be physically moulded to shape, which makes it difficult to form more complex shapes than the segments of seven-segment displays. However, the easy recognition of seven-segment displays, and the comparatively high visual contrast obtained by such displays relative to dot-matrix digits, makes seven-segment multiple-digit LCD screens very common on basic calculators . The seven-segment display has inspired type designers to produce typefaces reminiscent of that display (but more legible), such as New Alphabet , "DB LCD Temp", "ION B", etc. Using
2805-769: The transition from manual to automatic telephone dialing. They did not achieve widespread use until the advent of LEDs in the 1970s. Some early seven-segment displays used incandescent filaments in an evacuated bulb; they are also known as numitrons. A variation (minitrons) made use of an evacuated potted box. Minitrons are filament segment displays that are housed in DIP ( dual in-line package ) packages like modern LED segment displays. They may have up to 16 segments . There were also segment displays that used small incandescent light bulbs instead of LEDs or incandescent filaments. These worked similarly to modern LED segment displays. Vacuum fluorescent display versions were also used in
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#17327755665532860-517: The usual blue/green as well as deep blue, red and yellow/orange. This technology was also used from 1979 to the mid-1980s in portable electronic game units. These games featured bright, clear displays but the size of the largest vacuum tubes that could be manufactured inexpensively kept the size of the displays quite small, often requiring the use of magnifying Fresnel lenses . While later games had sophisticated multi-color displays, early games achieved color effects using transparent filters to change
2915-416: Was chosen by Nobuyuki Idei , who headed Sony's Audio Division. "101" represents the number 5 in binary notation and was chosen because Idei considered the model to be of "medium class". Because of the high cost of digital-to-analogue converters ("DACs") at the time, the CDP-101 has only one DAC for both the left and right audio channels. There is no sample-and-hold circuitry to delay the first channel until
2970-553: Was the single indication DM160 by Philips in 1959. It could easily be driven by transistors, so was aimed at computer applications as it was easier to drive than a neon and had longer life than a light bulb. The 1967 Japanese single digit seven segment display in terms of anode was more like the Philips DM70 / DM71 Magic Eye as the DM160 has a spiral wire anode. The Japanese seven segment VFD meant that no patent royalties needed to be paid on desk calculator displays as would have been
3025-412: Was well established, it displaced LED displays and VFDs in handheld calculators, offering lower power requirements at lower cost. More recently, outside the education sector, calculator applications on mobile phones have for many replaced the pocket calculator, and there is progression from LED backlit LCDs back to full LED displays in the form of Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) displays. The first VFD
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