Old seven segment displays definitely have a cool factor. These TIL302 displays from Texas Instruments are no exception.

Five of these displays were picked up cheap on eBay recently. I plan to use them in an upcoming project that requires a display that is a little more special than a standard seven segment display.

These chips were manufactured in 1988 and feature gold flashed pins too. The whole device is just bigger than a 14 pin DIP.

Each segment and the decimal point can be individually controlled. However, there are three pins for the anode connection.

By modern standards these displays show their age. Each segment of the display is tiny and produces only 275 micro (read micro not milli) candela whilst consuming 20 mA. As such the whole display produces a measly 1.9 milli candela of light when displaying the figure 8. The TIL302 datasheet describes this device as having “High Luminous Intensity” as one of its headline features.

Despite its modern shortcomings, this TIL302 seven segment display is very cool.