Probably better to use a mux/demux system rather than 1 transistor per segment. You can build a system to control a large binary system with simple relays and

Probably better to use a mux/demux system rather than 1 transistor per segment. You can build a system to control a large binary system with simple relays and gates and a comparatively few transistors. Given that they did much more work with relays back then, in absence of a better idea I would pin my bets on that.