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This is something that actually happened to me. In my city we have countdown timers on our crosswalk lights that let you know how many seconds you have to finish crossing the road, like this


(source: wordpress.com)

As I was walking home from work about to cross the street I glanced at the timer, it showed I had 5 seconds remaining. "Ok," I thought to myself, "that's enough time", but to my surprise as I stepped onto the street the timer switched to a 6!

I was briefly confused about the timer counting up, rather than down, but after another second when the timer switched again everything made sense. The timer wasn't counting up, do you know what was wrong with it and what I saw after the 6?

This is my first question here, hopefully it's a fun little puzzle, not sure what tags would be most appropriate though!

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What you saw next was

the top segment of the 7-segment display and the bottom-right segment

As it turned out:

The top-right segment was burnt out. The first number you saw was actually 9, the second, 8.

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    $\begingroup$ I figured this wouldn't take long, too many clever people in this community. You got it exactly right, will accept when it unlocks! :) $\endgroup$
    – Mike Ball
    Dec 21, 2016 at 22:19
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    $\begingroup$ Good first puzzle! Welcome! $\endgroup$
    – ColdFrog
    Dec 21, 2016 at 22:23

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