Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: New clock

This is topic New clock in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=003242

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-23-2004, 05:14 AM:

I've always liked clocks. I found this one in the Alice shop in Oxford yesterday, I'm a bit old, but I couldn't resist it; it's just weird.

When you think about it, the only thing actually wrong with this clock is that the numerals, and the text at the bottom, are priinted reversed; there's no real reason why a clock has to run clockwise.

It has what seems to be a standard quartz movement, and I can't believe that it would be economic to make a special movement just for the very small number of these things that are made. Can a standard movement be easily reversed? Are anti-clockwise movements made as a standard item for some purpose? Is there some application where a clock would be vewed in a mirror? Is there anywhere in the world where clocks normally go that way? When the first mechanical clocks with hands were produced did they all go clockwise, or was this a standard that developed later?

There's an interesting clock in Bristol; it has two minute hands set, I think, twelve minutes apart. One shows local time, and the other London time. It was only with the coming of the Railways that people could travel fast enough for these small time differences from place to place to be significant, and soon afterwards Greenwich time was standardiised across the whole country.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-23-2004, 08:41 AM:

Steven,
Nothing wrong with collecting clocks!! I had amased a large clock collection quite a few years back of close to 150 clocks!! Almost all of them were of the electromechanical type and were either self winding, or inpulse operated. Had I saved all of them today I could easily have retired off selling them as the value and scarcity of electromechanical clocks has skyrocketed. Some that I owned are clocks that you are undoubtedly familiar with such as Reifler, Synchronome, Gents Pulsnetic, Self Winding, Standard Electric, and many others. Although I don't have anywhere near 150 clocks today I have held on to quite a few of the rarer clocks, including one that I bought from Gord, and am still a member of the NAWCC.

Mark

Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 05-23-2004, 08:43 AM:

On "Antiques Roadshow" I saw a clock with two faces, housed in an ornate wooden cabinet, that showed both railroad and local time in a city from the US midwest, from a period in the 19th C when time zones were not standardized.

Your "Wonderland" clock suggests time running backwards, so that instead of

"Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be..." (Robert Browning)

You have
"Ah, but I was so much older then--
I'm younger than that now." (Bob Dylan)

"And may you stay--
Forever Young" (B.D.)
--Gerard

Posted by Daniel Alt (Member # 2303) on 05-23-2004, 08:48 AM:

quote: Stephen Furley
It has what seems to be a standard quartz movement, and I can't believe that it would be economic to make a special movement just for the very small number of these things that are made. Can a standard movement be easily reversed? Are anti-clockwise movements made as a standard item for some purpose? Is there some application where a clock would be vewed in a mirror? Is there anywhere in the world where clocks normally go that way? When the first mechanical clocks with hands were produced did they all go clockwise, or was this a standard that developed later?

Not to seem dense, but couldn't you just take a standard movement and put it in backwards?

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 05-23-2004, 09:13 AM:

Apparently, they used to put a lot of "backwards" clocks in barber shops so that as a patron was getting a haircut he could look into the mirror and see himself plus see a normal-looking clock. I've seen several novelty clocks using a "backwards" movement just to be weird. And you can buy a replacement, quartz movement for such a clock at www.klockit.com out of Wisconsin. I'm not sure about a U.K. supplier.

Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 05-23-2004, 09:33 AM:

Great link, Greg! I see they even offer inexpensive mechanisms that synchronize to the Fort Collins, CO, atomic clock signal (WWVB) to maintain perfect time.

Now if you could get a reverse mechanism with atomic sychronization, that would be something! [Big Grin]

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 05-23-2004, 10:34 AM:

A friend of mine is big into Glo-dial, makers of neon lit clocks. Larger ones were used in movie theaters during the 1940's to 60's,.
http://www.neonclock.org/pages/Manufacturer/ManGloDial.htm

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 05-23-2004, 04:56 PM:

I saw a backwards running clock just the other day at Jokes 'R' Wild (a local costume/novelty shop).

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 05-24-2004, 06:42 AM:

People who collect clocks have way too much time on their hands. HAHAHAHA!!! Okay, maybe it wasnt that funny. Bad timing I guess. [Big Grin]

Posted by Robert E. Allen (Member # 1351) on 05-24-2004, 11:36 AM:

Does that clock have anything to do with reversing the aging process?

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 05-24-2004, 01:04 PM:

The thing about the Alice clock is that it's not going backwards. It's going anti-clockwise, but that's still forwards. When the photograph was taken it was showing about 10:27. An hour later it was showing 11:27, not 9:27. A map drawn with South at the top is not upside-down, it's just that we don't often see maps drawn that way.

We don't normally see clocks that go anti-clockwise, but there's no reason why they shouldn't; it's just that, by convention, they don't. The numerals on this clock have been printed reversed, but they could have been printed normally, and as long as they are arranged around the face in the same direction that the hands turn, it's a perfectly reasonable clock, and it tells the correct time.

Sometimes when you can't see the solution to a problem you need to look at the problem in another way; maybe this clock reminds us of that.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 05-24-2004, 04:41 PM:

If clocks turned the other way, wouldn't they still turn clockwise?

Posted by Rob Butler (Member # 2274) on 05-24-2004, 04:51 PM:

Maybe that clock was actually made in the southern hemisphere, I know the toilets flush backwards down there, maybe the clocks run backwards too.

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 05-24-2004, 08:32 PM:

Yes, clocks do run backwards down here, also we all walk upside down. Some of our more affluent sosiety members have a device that attaches to their toilet to force the water to drain the correct way.

Posted by Ron Keillor (Member # 1790) on 05-24-2004, 08:44 PM:

Maybe it's to be read in Arabic (right to left)?

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 05-25-2004, 01:47 AM:

Why is David Favel mashing a block of tofu into his ear?

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 05-25-2004, 09:21 AM:

Here's a binary clock for geeks.

Think Geek

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 05-25-2004, 12:36 PM:

I got into "atomic clocks" about 8 or 9 years ago. I started buying radio controlled movements from Klockit shortly after that and, using basic model-building skills, I converted dozens of analog, quartz clocks for myself, for family members and friends. They have a great variety of hand styles and sizes, so the conversions went really well. (I have a large collection of my own clocks and now most of them are "atomic.")

Of course, these days it's relatively cheap to just buy "atomic" clocks instead of converting your old clocks. Sam's Club, for example, has a large, analog "atomic" clock for $15. I donated clocks like that to my local church, where there's always a clock on the back wall of the chapel which is about 12 feet above the floor... and it always used to take a few weeks for someone to get around to adjusting the clock for Daylight Saving Time. Not anymore!

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 05-25-2004, 04:36 PM:

that "binary" geek clock isn't very well thought out. all it does is take the decimal digits and express them in binary. so it's binary piggybacking on decimal (piggybacking on base-60). it's hard enough sometimes to figure out a normal digital clock first thing in the morning.

carl