I want to use some HP 5082 displays in the front panel of my media PC for showing the HH.MM clock (with a blinking comma) when idle and HH.MM.SS (with fixed comma) when playing media. The 24h clock must be centered and preferrably be able to dim or turn off at night.
I will donate 20 display chips to the person who helps me with this, I also have some 5082-7304 displays with the +/- that I can donate.
These are generally no longer available. I doubt somebody will be writing code. Consider something more modern that will work for you.
Well, of course they're not available anymore - that's why I'm donating 20 pieces to anyone who helps me! 
I'd like to help - but would you want to throw in some more displays?
I have only 28 of these, so I can not donate more than 20...
I do have 2 green displays (HP HDSP-0960) that I can give away though as a bonus 
Ok, that'll be fine 
( I have an old Braun calculator with these green ones )
I've tried KODI in the past, usually on RPi, but I'm not very experienced with it.
How do you plan to get KODI to send the media play time to the Arduino?
How will the Arduino know when KODI is idle?
Will the Arduino be expected to maintain the time of day, or will KODI provide that also?
Turning off should be easy. Dimming could be tricky, since the version of the display with a decimal point has no blanking pin, so the only way to dimm it may be to rapidly (50Hz+) switch between displaying a digit and displaying blank.
I really don't know the answers to these questions - my programming skills are really bad. I am very handy with a soldering iron and building electronics though...
Even with good programming skills, it may not be possible, if KODI does not have the features needed, leaving your project dead in the water. More research into KODI required. Ideally, KODI would send the time data out on a UART (COM) port.
You can query KODI for it's status with JSON-RPC over the network and get all sorts of info, so that part should not be a problem.
Here's a somewhat relevant link
Yeah, I've seen that. Amazing project!
But it is so much more than I want - just the 6 HP displays for me, thanks 
Most arduino don't have the ability to connect to a network.
What device will KODI be running on?
This may be relevant
I'm running KODI on a Windows 11 PC.
Ah, so that last link may not be very relevant. I think it assumes that KODI is running on an RPi or similar with GPIO pins that can be used to communicate with certain front panel display modules.
Koid on RPi would use LCDproc and some "glue" code on a arduino. Kodi on M$ ... different game completely.
Have you done this yourself? Maybe just using a browser or something?
If so, an Arduino with a network connection may be a possible solution.
My favourite is Wemos D1 mini. It has only a limited number of pins, which could be a problem. Another problem could be that it won't be able to connect to WiFi from inside a metal case.
For your displays, I think 4 pins will be needed for data, plus 6 pins for the LATCH ENABLE pins of each digit, plus maybe another 2 pins to control the decimal points. That's already more than the Wemos has, so some additional chip(s) may be required.
You mean you are handy at building electronics designed by someone else, or are you also develop circuits of your own. If so, what are your thoughts on controlling the 6 digits of the display?
Mostly building , but I have designed a few circuits from wiring diagrams.
I don't know the best approach in controlling the displays, bad at programming as I said before...
Here's a different approach which might be simpler.
Create a KODI Python script which opens a COM port and sends the required data to the Arduino that way. Now, a common Arduino like classic Nano can be used, which has enough pins to drive your displays. The script then grabs the media play time and sends it to the Arduino over the COM port.
That sounds promising!
Can you write such a script and arduino program so that I can try?