Electro-optical display device

A process for operating an electro-optical display device, said device comprising a front and rear plate spaced apart to form a cavity for receiving a switchable medium, said front plate on a surface facing the medium being provided with at least one segmented electrode having segments and the rear plate on a surface facing the front plate and the medium being provided with a rear electrode assembly for each segmented electrode, said segments of the segmented electrode being individually energized along with the rear electrode assembly to switch the optical properties of the medium lying therebetween, an additional front control electrode electrically connected with each of the endangered electrode segments of the segmented electrode, said endangered electrode segments being segments whose malfunction leads to a representation of another possible character from the originally intended character being applied to the segmented electrode and a back control electrode disposed on the rear plate overlying the control electrode, said process comprising energizing the electrodes with a multiplex operation with two steps, said operation including during the first step of the two steps energizing the selected segments of the segmented electrode and its associated rear electrode assembly to display the selected information and during the last step energizing the back and front control electrodes.