Stiletto |
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They're always after me Lucky ROMS!
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Reged: 03/07/04
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Posts: 6472
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For reasons I can't explain, I love this thread. *nt*
07/02/12 05:51 PM
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> I needed a clock for my apartment.
>
> My requirements:
> 1) 24-hour format. (I truly do not grok how "3:00" can stand for a time in the
> afternoon, nor how "12:30" can stand for half an hour past midnight.)
> 2) Must be correctly readable from across the room, without my eyeglasses. (This is a
> real problem with 7-segment displays: the digits are usually smashed too close
> together, making it hard to tell which digit a given segment belongs to.)
> 3) Must indicate the date. (I don't have to read the date from across the room, just
> the time.)
> 4) Must keep good time. (It is lame to have to qualify "It's 11:28" with "by my
> clock".)
> 5) Must not be ridiculously expensive. (Nixie clocks, for example, are ridiculously
> expensive.)
>
> You don't know how hard it is to find a clock that fits all these requirements unless
> you've looked. (It is hard.)
>
> What I ended up doing was giving up and buying a kit, instead.
>
> Alpha Clock Five (kit)
> http://evilmadscience.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/447-alphaclock
>
> It was on sale for US$120 or so. And I had to buy solder and borrow a soldering iron
> just so I could get the bloody thing together and working.
>
> For a number of reasons, including that the clock was not built to show the date, I
> knew I would need to modify the firmware. The firmware? Hoooo boy. Why don't you take
> a look?
> http://evilmadscientist.s3.amazonaws.com/source/alphafive/alphaclock_18_Rev1_0.pde
>
> It took me at least 16 hours of labor to get the thing working, correctly counting
> days as well as hours, minutes, and seconds, and correctly interfacing with the
> battery backup. And even now I'm not 100% sure I have it working properly.
>
> Why, oh why, can't the %&$# free market even provide a decent clock for a decent
> price?
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For reasons I can't explain, I love this thread. *nt*
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Xtal compensation theory 101: Part 1
