[sdiy] VCR display pinout?

[Theo]

80's display made out of many many tiny leds you say,
are you sure it isn't a fluorescent tube?

Theo


From: med <teenagewasteland at prodigy.net>

> Okay, moderately off-topic. But if I can figure this out it might
> *eventually* have some form of synth application. Maybe blinkenlights
> as one plays :)
> I have two or so VCRs sittin' around gathering dust, and so i opened
> one up. It's mainly a bust (cept for the power supply, which I'm just
> barely too-squeamish-to-try) but there's a few things of moderate
> value in there. There's one of those old-school (like mid-80s) display
> screens, which appears to be made of many many tiny little LEDs. From
> what I can see (still haven't fully unsoldered it -- it's 32-ish pins,
> spaced two on the left -thirty-odd - two on the right) it's marked
> "P/N 1AV4T41B00900" and has a logo that appears to say Futaba. I
> opened up the other one just enough to be able to see the pins for its
> screen (which looks darned near *identical*, 'cept different pins
> connect all the way through) and stuck a scope on it. At first it
> looked like a sine wave with many varied "things" happening to it,
> like marching ants. Then, (taking the ground from the case of the VCR)
> it settled down into what looked almost like a pulse train. So my
> question is, how on earth *do* you drive these? Is it more trouble
> than it's worth?
>