Quote Originally Posted by Mark D View Post
Only the 3 digit display for the "month" on the C car were back lit gels, the other digits were 7 segment LED displays that could be programmed to any number using a special effects box off camera. The height of each alpha character for the gels was sized to match the numeric LED displays which have a character height of .60" tall. It's not a common size and the LED's are no longer in production. If you're shopping for LED's you can find some that are close, but be sure you're ordering to get the size of the character as close as possible to .60. Often times they are listed by the overall height of the case/digit height and not the character height. There are generally two types of 'font', those that have rounded corners and those that have pointed corners on the individual segments of the digits. For screen accurate characters the tips of the segments should all be pointed.

Not sure if I mentioned this in this thread yet but the A, B, and C cars all started out with 2 digit numeric month displays. The C car was used for all the close up shots of the time circuit display and it was modified to have a 3 digit alpha display for the months so it would be much easier to read on screen. The A and B cars retained their numeric 2 digit month displays throughout the trilogy and there are only a few brief moments where you can see them on screen in non-close up shots. Here's a photo from sometime in the late 80's showing the A car's TCD.



You can also see on the original A car displays the round 3mm LED's for AM/PM and the colon for the time are color matched to the displays (Amber, Green, Yellow) whereas on the modified C car display they were all yellow.
Good to know. Thanks for the great information, Mark!