José Luis Monteiro and his father built a working Snake game on a salvaged seven-segment LED display from a dead DVD player, driven by an Arduino and the SM1628 LED controller chip.
The geometry almost works. Individual segments map to snake body pieces, and the rectangular digit grid provides a natural movement plane. The failure point is visual: the food pixel is indistinguishable from the snake's own body segments, so the game collapses into confusion within seconds of play.
The real value here is not the game. The GitHub repo includes full source code and documentation on reverse-engineering seven-segment displays from consumer hardware, covering the SM1628 protocol and Arduino integration. If you have ever pulled a display from a junked appliance and wondered what to do with it, this is the practical walkthrough you need.
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