17 Jan 2017, 01:11
Nothing in my experience as a collector (16 years and counting) suggests this is true. On the contrary, I have lost a few "bar-segment" displays (on P4 and Ladies models), but only one "dot-segment" one (on a P3). Actually, the P4 and Calculator displays are still essentially dot-segment construction. The difference is, while the P2/3 displays had 5 dots in each segment, the P4s and Calculators had 12 or 13 dots per segment; they are then so close together, and so small, that the eye cannot resolve the individual dots, and they blend into a continuous line (a very rare version of the Calculator display has segments composed of just 6 dots each). I assume this change reflects the rapidly-escalating state-of-the-art in micro photolithography (as the Ladies models represented the next stage in miniaturization of the electronics). In almost any branch of electronics, or mechanics, increasing complexity carries the price of being more failure-prone.
Last edited by
bruce wegmann on 17 Jan 2017, 03:32, edited 1 time in total.