With multi-segment displays, what you see available online is pretty much what you get. LEDs, LCDs, VFDs; if you want to keep your BOM at a reasonable price, you’ve pretty much got to settle for ...

The above illustration highlights one segment of the liquid crystal layer in a monochrome twisted nematic (TN) seven-segment display (Image courtesy of LXD, Inc.) In their natural state ...

What do you do with 144 7-segment displays ... [Frugha] picked a nice font and hand-coded lookup tables for each digit. The lookup tables are stored in ROM, saving precious RAM on the Arduino.