> such as small LED displays

The highest DPI screen is 127,000 PPI. You could fit over 14,000 lines of 8x8 text in a single inch tall screen.

For reference, a decent monitor is 140 PPI.

I'm pretty sure we don't need to go below 8x8 if physical size is the issue.

Pad grid controllers like the Novation Launchpad, and its indie, open-source counterpart, Mystrix Pro, have an 8x8 grid. At first this style of controller didn't use any lights, but as the manufacturing and features progressed, they went towards one RGB LED per pad. So, of course, you end up doing some text and graphics on the resulting grid. Mystrix uses a scrolling marquee which isn't ideal, but does get the job done.

And yeah, you could throw on more hardware to have a display nearby and use that for text. That is not the problem being solved though.

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scottyeager 3 days ago | parent [-]

I just did some code to display digits on my APC Mini's 8x8 light grid: https://github.com/scottyeager/pressed/blob/main/controllers...

By using the three available colors on my older model, I was able to render numbers up to 199 in a readable way. Two digits on the right are 8x3 and one on the left is 8x2. I quickly abandoned two pixels of width as impossible for making legible text for all digits, so seeing a full font at two pixels wide is a fun surprise.

Thanks for the tip on Mystrix—looks neat.

	▲	dr_kiszonka a day ago \| parent [-]
		What do you use a foot pedal for? Sustain?

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bongodongobob 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

No, small LED displays with like 25 ppi. Think arduino/embedded.