> He mentions LED in the original post but you said LCD in your reply.  %-)

Ah, yes he did. That would make optical reading fairly easy, although
perhaps more cumbersome (depending on the size of the segments and
the sensors) than if the information can be got from the wire. It should
be possible to use a scanner array rather than individual photo sensors,
although they could be made into a wand. Components vs software I
guess it comes down to

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