The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented as either "1" or "0", but other representations such as true/false, yes/no, on/off, or +/− are also widely used.
In mathematics and computing, the hexadecimal numeral system is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of sixteen. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using ten symbols, hexadecimal uses sixteen distinct symbols, most often the symbols "0"–"9" to represent values 0 to 9, and "A"–"F" to represent values from ten to fifteen.
A Nixie tube, or cold cathode display, is an electronic device used for displaying numerals or other information using glow discharge.
Although people in many parts of the world share common alphabets and numeral systems, styles of handwritten letterforms vary between individuals, and sometimes also vary systematically between regions.
A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form. Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The choice of symbol also affects the choice of symbol for the thousands separator used in digit grouping.
Positional notation usually denotes the extension to any base of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. More generally, a positional system is a numeral system in which the contribution of a digit to the value of a number is the value of the digit multiplied by a factor determined by the position of the digit. In early numeral systems, such as Roman numerals, a digit has only one value: I means one, X means ten and C a hundred. In modern positional systems, such as the decimal system, the position of the digit means that its value must be multiplied by some value: in 555, the three identical symbols represent five hundreds, five tens, and five units, respectively, due to their different positions in the digit string.
A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form. When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal the display is called an electronic 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 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.
A fourteen-segment display (FSD) is a type of display based on 14 segments that can be turned on or off to produce letters and numerals. It is an expansion of the more common seven-segment display, having an additional four diagonal and two vertical segments with the middle horizontal segment broken in half. A seven-segment display suffices for numerals and certain letters, but unambiguously rendering the ISO basic Latin alphabet requires more detail. A slight variation is the sixteen-segment display which allows additional legibility in displaying letters or other symbols.
The dotted or slashed zero 0̷ is a representation of the Arabic digit "0" (zero) with a slash through it. The slashed zero glyph is often used to distinguish the digit "zero" ("0") from the Latin script letter "O" anywhere that the distinction needs emphasis, particularly in encoding systems, scientific and engineering applications, computer programming, and telecommunications. It thus helps to differentiate characters that would otherwise be homoglyphs. It was commonly used during the punch card era, when programs were typically written out by hand, to avoid ambiguity when the character was later typed on a card punch.
A dot-matrix display is a low-cost electronic digital display device that displays information on machines such as clocks, watches, calculators, and many other devices requiring a simple alphanumeric display device of limited resolution.
Multiplexed displays are electronic display devices where the entire display is not driven at one time.
In Unicode and the UCS, a compatibility character is a character that is encoded solely to maintain round-trip convertibility with other, often older, standards. As the Unicode Glossary says:
A character that would not have been encoded except for compatibility and round-trip convertibility with other standards
A numeral is a character that denotes a number. The decimal number digits 0–9 are used widely in various writing systems throughout the world, however the graphemes representing the decimal digits differ widely. Therefore Unicode includes 22 different sets of graphemes for the decimal digits, and also various decimal points, thousands separators, negative signs, etc. Unicode also includes several non-decimal numerals such as Aegean numerals, Roman numerals, counting rod numerals, Mayan numerals, Cuneiform numerals and ancient Greek numerals. There is also a large number of typographical variations of the Western Arabic numerals provided for specialized mathematical use and for compatibility with earlier character sets, such as ² or ②, and composite characters such as ½.
A nine-segment display is a type of display based on nine segments that can be turned on or off according to the graphic pattern to be produced. It is an extension of the more common seven-segment display, having an additional two diagonal or vertical segments. It provides an efficient method of displaying alphanumeric characters.
The various shapes of numerical digits, letters, and punctuation on seven-segment displays is not standardized by any relevant entity. Unicode provides encoding codepoint for segmented digits in Unicode 13.0 in Symbols for Legacy Computing block.
A text display is an electronic alphanumeric display device that is mainly or only capable of showing text, or extremely limited graphic characters. This includes electromechanical split-flap displays, vane displays, and flip-disc displays; all-electronic liquid-crystal displays, incandescent eggcrate displays, LED displays, and vacuum fluorescent displays; and even electric nixie tubes.
Tally marks, also called hash marks, are a form of numeral used for counting. They can be thought of as a unary numeral system.
An eight-segment display is a type of display based on eight segments that can be turned on or off according to the font pattern to be produced.
