So last night at about 3AM I had a stroke of brilliance exhausted delirium and I made a funny little clock. Well, I shouldn’t say “little” because it’s 1200 pixels wide, so don’t download it if you don’t have a high res screen. It simulates a 7-bar LED with hours, minutes, and seconds, but instead of turning LED lights on and off, it makes the numbers out of scrollbars, and jiggles the “on” scrollbars aggressively. It’s rather difficult to read, but sort of funny. If you’d like, click the picture to download the program.
Anyway, I’m really enjoying doing some more programming lately, and I thought it would be fun to write a nice alarm clock application with various IRL and online friends. So on that note, I’m seeking clock designs! It could be anything from a concept, to a handdrawn clock, to something like the TokyoFlash watches, or anything else, and anything from simple time-keeper to full alarm clock with any implementation that strikes your fancy. If you’re interested, email me your idea and any artwork it needs (unless you need me to draw it), and if you want me to include a credit page in the program, your picture, name, blog link, or whatever. Might be a fun project if anyone has fun ideas…
15 Comments
that’s pretty neat. I was writing a program last night and this reminds me how ‘dumb’ I really am.
I wish I could put ‘writing’ in italics…..
Shannon,
You know that when you mention clocks or timepieces, I’ll be all ears :P
I still have the old blueprints from a book for a tower clock :) They may be the old version of prints, but they are a start :)
I cannot wait to hear more about this :)
:)
Catch ya later
Ed
Shannon,
Here is a thought: make a virtual clock – you’d see all the gears moving on the screen, and how they affect the change of the hands of time.
Catch ya later,
Ed
Saw a similar one on Neatorama a month or so ago…
https://www.neatorama.com/2009/11/23/scroll-bar-clock/
I don’t know quite how it behaves in windows, but in WINE (on ubuntu) moving your mouse over the window speeds up the scroll bars. Very interesting piece of software :)
As a Mac user, I feel criminally left out. :)
Missjanet, I can sympathize. I’m stuck on a mb pro
Not sure how this would works a computer program, but for an IRL clock, the chronophage (time eater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Clock) has to be one of the coolest clocks i’ve ever seen.
Skoddie,
It speeds up for me too, and I’m running WinXP
Ed, I like your idea of doing a physical simulation of a clock… Instead of actually running clock software, I could create a physical simulation of gears and so on that just happens to be a clock!
Shannon,
I do not know if it will help, but I do have a book on how to build a tower clock. It gives the information about the gears and whatnot. Either that, or I could check around my apartment and see if I still have the Asimov paper clock book.
If I can be of help, let me know: I’ll do my best to help :)
Ed
12:59:08?
er 04
So if you’re simulating a mechanical clock, would that be a physics engine simulating a perfect balance spring/drive spring/escapement assembly, or simply an animation tuned to time? Simulations of historic clocks (Harrison, Breguet etc.) would definitely have an audience, though I’ve no idea how they may be integrated to the desktop or how much processing power they’d absorb just simulating a mainspring…
Incorporate that Arduino of yours. That should make things interesting.
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