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.
as mentioned on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH6LzV8FaEw and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display
Might have to go dig into that box in the garage and see if I still have it. I had intended on making a stand alone clock from it; the radio is not very good and the case has seen better days, so I was going to make a case for just the clock mechanism, perhaps its time.
I find that in my own writing I no longer strive for perfect grammar and polish since nowadays it actually cheapens the end result, everybody has perfect grammar today.
On the other hand, the only saving grace about my bright green and blue LED router is that someone whose hand should be shaken thought to allow software disabling or even a scheduled disabling of the LEDs.
Just last week I had to open first time alarm clock with green 7-segment display. Because I accidentally dropped it while vacuuming and antenna cord broke as it was so firmly under picture frame holding nail. And while open cleaned interior from dust, used greasy PRF to lubricate pots, switches and tuning wheel. If I recall correctly it did have that LM8560 chip in int and with display looked almost exactly what was in subject article inside.
Label on bottom claims: -----------------------------
Luxor CR 9016
NOKIA Consumer Electronics
International S.A
(FI)(N)(S)[x] 230V ~ 50Hz
Battery 9 V
MADE FOR NOKIA IN CHINA
-----------------------------
SERIAL NO.
9302-00106
Q: But why the device is branded Luxor and it's made for NOKIA? A: Because NOKIA bought bit earlier that year (1985) Swedish Luxor consumer electronics. And I guess they did not had yet time redo chassis with NOKIA printed on and this was a still products transition period.
NOKIA was still at that time making also TV sets and was about to bring two years later its first completely new way of implementing analog TV using digital processing chips, which allowed quite nice fieatures like PIP which was great help making VHS recording without ads. I had one of those TV-sets (M-model) and used it about 10 years.
But that alarmclock radio from -85 is still going strong, good shape and it definitely was good purchase about 40 years ago.
e: Sorry about formatting, I tried to find how to format literally, but couldn't find. OK, good enough now.
If they weren’t improvised, they’d be factory explosives devices (FEDs) after all?
With no internet, often you were in $REMOTE_FORGOTTEN_RURAL_VILLAGE and the TV antenna didn't have tons of nearly TV repeaters/relays, you would love some FM/AM radio with cool stations reaching over 100 and 200 kms in case of AM ( I remember to listen heavy metal/gothic metal stations from Portugal in Spain within 100 kms from the border ). In Spain, either boring national and international pop radioformula, or soccer past dinner everywhere.
Oh, btw, one thing I hated from these clocks it's having to reset the time because it was misconfigured on a power cut. Nowadays they could just put some firmware and flash it for 0.0001 euros per device, if not less.
rzzzwilson•5h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC
iberator•3h ago
geomark•1h ago