Patent US 4,901,065

A message is selectively presented in several different languages on an alpha-numeric visual display device. The display device has surface segments each of which can be selectively and individually switched, by connection to a power supply, between two operational states one of which corresponds to visual perceptibility of the segment itself. Selective interconnection of the segments and power supply is effected via connecting lines, the number of such lines being the same as the number of sub-sets of the complete set constituted by the languages in which the message is to be presented, whereby each of the lines corresponds uniquely to one of the sub-sets. Each of these lines is connected to all the segments that are only required to be switched to their states of perceptibility during the presentation of the message in each and every language contained in the corresponding sub-set. Selector means enable a language of message presentation to be selected, and serve to interconnect the power supply with all those, and only those, connecting lines which correspond to the sub-sets containing the selected language.