[Tom] needed 8 displays for a project. He wanted to to control them over I2C, and was trying to reduce cost. Some vendors make I2C controllable seven segment displays, but they cost about $10 each.

I don’t like HDMI. Despite it being a pretty popular interface, I find crucial parts of it to be alien to what hackers stand for. The way I see it, it manages to be proprietary while bringing a lot of ...