h a l f b a k e r yQuis custodiet the custard?
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backward alarm clocks
when you set your clock and/or alarm - its never easy to stop at the precise moment | |
It must be possible to make an alarm clock that you can set in backwards as well as forward mode
all the alarm clocks I have come across you have to put one finger on set and the other on slow or fast
you then whizz through the 24 hour day and straight past the 7a.m. that you wanted ending
up with 7.15 a.m.
It then refuses to go back just 15 minutes.
come to think of it = same with petrol pumps - could they not go backwards and suck up the £1.00 worth of petrol that you didn't intend buying over your limit.
Sony Alarm Clock
http://www.sony.com...95&ProdCod=ICFC470B
Our (rather sexy) Sony Alarm clock, which does this. [mino, Sep 09 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]
[link]
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Why not get a digital alarm clock, they can go back as well as forward when setting the time? |
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Not all of them can. In fact, most of them can't, or at least the vast majority of the ones I've seen... |
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Why not a binary system for setting alarum and time? When (-) is pressed, display time becomes upper bound and average of display time and lower bound becomes display time. When (+) is pressed, display time becomes lower bound and average of display time and upper bound becomes display time. When upper bound and lower bound differ by less than one minute or second or whatever time or alarum setting is dun. The clock assumes you are setting the alarum if you press (+) first (because the alarum is supposed to go off at a future time) and that you are setting time if (-) is the first button pressed. |
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Thanks for clearing everything up, LoriZ |
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baked. We've got a Sony alarm clock (see link) which has a time set, and alarm set, and a sort of "rocker switch" which is + and -. + advances (quicker the longer you hold it down). So to set alarm - hold down "alarm" - hold down "+" till you get to 7:00 AM or so... release "+" and press it fifteen times in rapid succsession.. oops, too far... press "-" a few times. Surprisingly simple. |
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Years and years ago, my brother had one (also Sony, I believe) which had a big dial on the top. Spin dial clockwise => increase; spin dial counter-clockwise => decrease. Press dial to switch between hours and minutes. Great interface, never seen one since though. |
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What mino said. (I've got an old-school Sony that does just that.) |
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Mine's an Oregon Scientific, and not only can it go backwards and forwards, it picks up signals from your nearest atomic clock so you don't even have to set it. |
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[And yes it does change automatically when the clocks go back/forward an hour] |
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I like LoriZ's idea, although I suspect it wouldn't find widespread acceptance. :-) |
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I've owned several clocks over the years that could be set going backwards as well as forwards. I expect that the reason that more clocks don't have this feature is that switches are one of the more expensive parts of any small consumer device. If you can get away with one fewer switch, you save a bundle in manufacturing/testing, and almost nobody checks for this feature before buying so you don't lose many sales. It's the same reason VCR clocks are notoriously hard to set. |
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shall I do the petrol pump thing as a separate idea? or forget it? |
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<Life is Like That> Your clock won't turn back because some clockmaker• put that feature into play.
You shouldn't turn the hands on a clock backwards, for the safety of the mechanism. </Life is Like That> |
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po; I doubt they would do the fuel-pump thing, as you could suck in damaging chemicals to the fuel tank at the station. The gas station may end up responsible for destroying the engines in 50 cars that refilled after the malicious user. |
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Anyway, just for the record, in Norway there are certain gas-stations that only consists of a set of pumps. You pay beforehand using credit card or bills, and you only get the exact amount of fuel you pay for. No idea if this is common in other countries as well, but it's indeed quite handy. |
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Reensure: I think, from reading the description, Po has a digital alarm clock, so being unable to go backwards is an annoyance due to the length of time it takes to scroll round a full hour again.
I have an clockwork alarm clock (two large bells hit with a hammer are the only thing that will wake me up), and the alarm time can only be set backwards not forwards (as you say, it's for the safety of the mechanism). It's pretty fast to scroll round another 12 hours though, so it doesn't matter much. |
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Po: Forget about the petrol pump, please? |
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lazerlore, in my part of the US, unattended gas stations usually use a credit or debit card. You pump however much gas you will, and then it debits that amount. |
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Some gas stations require you to pre-pay (after dark, e.g.). At those, you can pay an exact amount of cash to the attendant and the pump will shut off after that amount has been pumped. |
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I haven't seen any stations that combine the two features. |
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My clock has 2 separate alarms which I can sleep through. Both can go forward or backward, by the way. |
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My digital clock has a slide switche to set the time. It's hour - run - minutes. To stop the time, you have to move the switch to the center position, which doesn't have much of a detent, so you generally end up shoving it over to the other side and munging up that time as well. As a kid, my mother had a digital clock I liked, huge blue glowing LED display, with seperate buttons for hour and minute, and fast or slow. MUCH easier to set. |
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The Sony one with the dial sounds like a good thing, though...Would like to have one. |
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Backwards clock:All the clock/watches I've had have only gone forwards(digital) my clockwork 1 only goes backwards but I've had electronic organisers that you type in the alarm time. how about that just typing in the time (but like wiml says nobody probably will do it coz of the cost) |
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petrol pump: no comment (but it could b cool to suck sumthing strange into the pump) |
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oh and I'm voteing + on this idea |
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My 2002 Volvo V-70's clock can only be set in a forward direction and it's really hard to turn the tiny knob, so I never bother to turn it ahead in the springtime, because it's too much trouble to advance it by so many hours in the fall in order to have it be one hour behind. I guess Volvo doesn't get that people in the US have daylight savings time. Either that or they don't care. So in the summer, when I look at the car's clock, I have to remember to add an hour to the time. (In my head.) |
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No, no, no. What's needed is an alarm clock that you can literally set backwards. That is, on Thursday 14th October 2004 I really wish I'd woken up about 45 mins earlier than I did. |
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If I had an alarm clock that could be set *backwards*... Hey presto! |
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I once got a small travel clock as a promotional product. It
folded up to fit in a pocket, and it had an LCD display.
However, it was an analog clock—the LCD was square and
displayed hour, minute, and second hands. It had exactly one
button to set the time and one to set the alarm. Each button
advanced the corresponding setting by one second. Holding the
button down didn't work to repeat the action. Therefore,
setting the time back one hour in the fall, or making the alarm
an hour earlier, would have taken 82,800 presses of the button.
I never actually set the clock to the correct time. |
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I take it they were promoting aspirin? |
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