Digital display verification

Apparatus comprising:

• a. display means including one or more indicators;
• each indicator including seven light emitting diode segments arranged for displaying information;
• said display achieved by energization of a configuration of said diodes;
• b. drive means coupled to the display means for controlling activation of said indicators;
• said drive means including means for storing binary coded data corresponding to the information;
• c. control means coupled to the drive means for receiving and storing said binary coded data and for presenting said data for storage in the drive means;
• said control means further including storage registers containing a unique sequence of stored bits for each possible indicator energization configuration;
• and
• d. segment status determining circuitry coupled to the display for determining the status of the segments included in each indicator as those segments are energized by the drive means and further coupled to the control means for transmission of a sequence of status signals indicative of each indicator configuration for verification that the sequence generated by the segment status determining circuitry equals the unique sequence stored in the control means corresponding to the data presented to the drive means.

Apparatus comprising:

• a. display means including one or more indicators;
• each indicator including a plurality of segments for displaying information through energization of the segments in different combinations;
• b. drive means coupled to the display means for controlling energization of said indicator segments to display said information;
• said drive means including means for storing data corresponding to the information;
• c. control means coupled to the drive means for receiving and storing said data and for presenting said data for storage in the drive means;
• and
• d. segment status determining circuitry coupled to the display means for determining the status of the segments included in each indicator as those segments are energized by the drive means and further coupled to the control means for transmission of a series of indicator status signals for comparison with a series of data bits corresponding to the data stored by the control means.

A display verification method comprising:

• a. generating data to be displayed;
• b. storing the data in a control unit;
• c. displaying data stored in the control unit by activating selected display segments in a display unit;
• d. generating segment status signals in response to activation of selected display segments comprising:
• i. sequentially detecting the activation status of display segments;
• and
• ii. sequentially producing segment status signals indicative of the detected display segment activation status;
• and
• e. comparing the data stored in said control unit with the segment status signals to verify proper functioning of the display.