[sdiy] VCR display pinout?

[med]

Okay, moderately off-topic. But if I can figure this out it might
*eventually* have some form of synth application. Maybe blinkenlights
as one plays :)
I have two or so VCRs sittin' around gathering dust, and so i opened
one up. It's mainly a bust (cept for the power supply, which I'm just
barely too-squeamish-to-try) but there's a few things of moderate
value in there. There's one of those old-school (like mid-80s) display
screens, which appears to be made of many many tiny little LEDs. From
what I can see (still haven't fully unsoldered it -- it's 32-ish pins,
spaced two on the left -thirty-odd - two on the right) it's marked
"P/N 1AV4T41B00900" and has a logo that appears to say Futaba. I
opened up the other one just enough to be able to see the pins for its
screen (which looks darned near *identical*, 'cept different pins
connect all the way through) and stuck a scope on it. At first it
looked like a sine wave with many varied "things" happening to it,
like marching ants. Then, (taking the ground from the case of the VCR)
it settled down into what looked almost like a pulse train. So my
question is, how on earth *do* you drive these? Is it more trouble
than it's worth?