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ofalkaedyesterday at 6:13 AM3 repliesview on HN

The article bringing up flip-flop clocks reminded me of another mechanical digital clock that I can not quite remember the name of. It was from roughly the same time period as the flip-flop alarm/radio clocks but the numbers were wire grids or cutouts in wire grids and as the numbers changed they sort of faded from one digit to the next. I can't quite remember how the mechanism worked and the only clock of this sort I have ever seen was the one I bought ~20 years ago just to take apart and see how it worked. Anyone know what I am talking about?

The mechanism was surprisingly simple once I got it opened and saw how it worked but from the outside made no sense, I probably stared at that clock for an hour trying to figure out how it worked before I finally opened it up to see what was inside. I might still have the clock mechanism in a box out in the garage.

Edit: I suspect these clocks were actually from the time period at the end of flip-flops, showed up too late to become common, LEDs/LCDs killed them. The digits were on the dim side, perfectly fine for a bedside alarm clock and quite good for that situation but you had to be fairly close to clock to read it in a well lit room. Better than a flip-flop in a dark room but worse than an LCD in the light.


Replies

ofalkaedyesterday at 11:57 AM

Went out into the garage and dug it out, it is a Telechron Mechanical Occlusion Display, here are a couple videos. First does a good job of showing how it looks when time changes, second is a 12 hour stream for the diehard.

https://youtu.be/r9VA15DzX9k

https://youtu.be/NLuRMLqI6C8

asdefghykyesterday at 9:11 AM

Maybe Vacuum Fluorescent Displays?

as mentioned on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH6LzV8FaEw and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display

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kallebooyesterday at 8:31 AM

Nixie tubes worked as you describe but with the glowing elements inside a gas-filled glass bulb