In a previous blog post, we discussed some famous clocks of yore. Clocks have a wonderful rich history. What was once powered by water and took up a huge amount of space can now fit on a wrist. Microchips, crystals, and atoms have taken the place of water buckets, huge gears, and monstrous mechanical contraptions. Modern famous clocks are very different from historic famous clocks.

The first modern famous clock that must be mentioned is the atomic clock. The road to the current atomic clock can be read in our previous post. The current relevant point is what the atomic clock did for all of “clockdom”. The time of a second is extrapolated from the amount of time in a minute. The length of a minute is rooted in the length of an hour. The span of an hour is based upon the length of a day. The amount of time in a day is based upon celestial bodies. A day is how long it takes the Earth to rotate on its axis. The atomic clock changed all of that.

The 13th conference of Weights and Measurements separated our timekeeping from the nuts and bolts of the solar system. They declared that a second was based upon the vibrations of a cesium atom. Atomic clocks use cesium atoms to keep time. Steve Jefferts and Dawn Meekof developed the atomic clock called NIST-F1. That is the current atomic clock responsible for world time. It’s located in Boulder, Colorado and is maintained by Steve Jefferts, Tom Heavner, and Elizabeth Donley. These diligent scientists have blended mechanical engineering, physics, and horology. Three cheers for them!

Our next modern clock is a metaphorical clock. The Doomsday Clock gives us a visual representation of how close we are to killing ourselves and destroying our world. It was started in 1947 by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. The clock was originally set for seven minutes to midnight. Midnight is the metaphorical time of the end of the world. This clock is the source of the idiom “a minute till midnight” as a way of saying impending doom. In 1953, the clock hit two minutes till midnight when the US and Soviet Union tested some nuclear weapons. In 1991, the clock was set at 17 minutes till midnight when the US and Soviet Union both signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Is worldwide doom not personal enough for you? How about some individual doom? The internet has given us a wide variety of things. Some items birthed on the internet are useful, some are entertaining, and some are things we wish were never there. The Death Clock might fight into all of those categories. The user inputs some basic information and the Death Clock uses statistics to guesstimate your day of death. How cheerful!

With all this worry about death, doom, and the future, we need to take a look at now—a nice long look at now. The Long Now clock reminds us to do that. It’s the slowest running clock in the world. Also called the Millennium Clock, it “ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium.” The Long Now Foundation seeks to fight our need for cheap instant thought and work with slower more thoughtful work. The clock is still in construction and is being designed to be accurate for 10,000 years and run off Bronze Age technology. The first prototype was completed in 1997 by Danny Hills and is currently housed in the Science Museum in London in the Making of the Modern World exhibit.

No modern famous clock discussion would be complete without talking about a clock that isn’t really a clock. The National Debt Clock located in Times Square is a counter that keeps track of the USA’s national debt. It was started by Seymour Durst in 1989. At that time the country had 2.7 trillion dollars of debt. In 2000, Douglas Durst, Seymour’s son, covered the clock with a red, white, and blue curtain. The US had balanced the budget and The National Debt Clock seemed to be, thankfully, obsolete. The clock came back two years later. It now reads over 10 trillion dollars.

Since we’re talking about clocks that aren’t clocks, we should mention one very famous “clock”: the launch pad timer at the Kennedy Space Station. It is an icon of NASA. It shows up in every movie that has ever involved launching a shuttle. During the space-craze, Americans everywhere kept their eyes glued on it before launches. It can be watched on the internet. I contacted NASA trying to find out more information about the clock. Who invented it? How long has it been there? How big are the numbers? Has it ever gone down? My e-mail was forwarded to a few different people and I never got my answers.

If I ever get a reply from the public relations department at NASA, I’ll report on it. We do not like it when people are so secretive about their clocks. Maybe it has been made with super-secret alien technology from Area-51. Maybe we’ve tapped into a great clock mystery. Could OnlineClock.net have stumbled upon a government secret? If I get kidnapped by men in black suits, I’ll try to post from my phone.

Hey, in this long, impressive list of modern clocks…could it be that we’ve forgotten one? Why, yes of course: the world’s first Online Alarm Clock Website.

We went live back in March of 2006 and will soon be celebrating our fourth year of being online.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for using our clocks, and for making the whole panoply of clock stuff that is our world here at OnlineClock.net simply a whole lot of FUN.

Thanks Online Clock Fans, you guys all rock!!!

Tags: atomic clocks, bulletin of atomic scientists, clocks, death clock, doomsday clock, famous clocks, famous modern clocks, launch pad timer, long now clock, millenium clock, National Debt Clock, nist-f1 atomic clock, online alarm clock

• The Automaton: The Clock’s Playful Relative
• Online Clock On Dreams
• The Battle For Your Wrist
• Famous Clocks You Should Know About
• Morning Sickness Poem

When a cuckoo clock strikes a small set of doors opens and a little bird comes out. The bird tweets in relation to the hour. With more elaborate clocks, the doors open and a pair of dancing figures come out and twirl. There’s a whole host of little mechanical additions to clocks. We might take note of them when we see them, but they’re so common that we no longer question them.

Automata are the cousins of the clock. They’re the playful side of workaholic clocks that diligently mark the hour, minute, and second of the day. When most people think of automata, they think of the devices that came out of the heyday of automaton gadgets. The devices that were made during the times between 1860 and 1920 are definitely not to be dismissed – these are truly wonderful creations! And we’re going to introduce you to some of the all-time classic automata in this blog post.

Some of these are very complex pieces of automata. One piece is held in high regard at the Franklin Institute. Henri Maillardet created a marvelous automaton. The device is called the “Draughtsman-Writer” and a little French “doll” operates a pen. The “doll” will draw one of four pictures or write one of three poems. To power it, there are three main springs. On one side the operator would use the key to wind two of the springs and on the other side the operator would wind another spring. The pictures the automaton draws aren’t simple stick figures. One picture is of a majestic ship with full sails, rough waters, and even tiny crewmen. This automaton was created in the early 1800’s and toured the world until 1833. Perhaps this wondrous device sparked the imaginations that created the heyday.

Automata aren’t modern machines. Homer described automata in his epic the Iliad. The great inventors of Alexandria created many amazing devices. Heron would create entire mechanical theaters. The miniature theater would roll out itself before an audience, raise its own curtain, and tiny mechanical actors would act out an entire play. One such play was the tragedy the Nauplius. The early automata used weights to power the mechanics. Grain or sand would move hidden levels and gears.

Come the third century A.D, Alexandria was in decline. At this time scientific and creative endeavors came to be dominated by the Arabs. In the realm of automata the Banu Musa brothers dominated the scene. They devised practical mechanical devices that would automatically raise a wick or refill lighting oil. They also produced novelty automata. One such automaton was of a pond of mercury that carried golden boats. Around this pond were mechanical beasts that would sound out, tweet, and roar. I can only imagine the beauty of a glistening fluid pool of silver supporting golden boats!

Another Iraqi genius followed upon the heels of the Banu Musa brothers. The horologist and automata inventor al-Jazari created clocks with various puppets that marked the passage time in a variety of ways. Some puppets would strike instruments and some clocks involved birds that would drops pebbles onto cymbals. The most famous of al-Jazari’s creations is known as the Elephant Clock. Standing 8.5 meters tall, the Elephant Clock or Elephant Water Clock.

The Elephant Clock is a highly elaborate and ingenious clock automaton consisting of a large elephant figure which a chair on its back. The chair then carries a citadel with a dome on top of it. Furthermore, there are mechanized, birds, snakes and a clerk figure (of a man) holding a pencil. All of these figures on top of the elephant move mechanically with the passage of time!

There are two pieces of automata that have a bit of mystery and scandal behind them. The oldest is “The South-Pointing Carriage“. This carriage has a base of two wheels and a figure on top that always points south. At first people thought “The South-Pointing Carriage” was created in the twenty-third century B.C., but it has been dated to third century A.D. The carriage was also believed to operate with magnetism to keep the figure pointing south like an inverse compass. That is not the case. This figure always points south due to the mechanical gears. The gears on the axel are probably one of the first uses of “differential gears”. The figure, the gears, and the wheels had to be crafted to exacting standards. The smallest error would have resulted in the pointing figure being off by a single degree; and thus, travelers would be off course in just a few miles.

The second automaton that has a bit of controversy is known by several names: The Turk, or The Mechanical Turk. However it is referred to, this automaton was a Turkish character who played chess! Constructed in the 18th century by Wolfgang von Kempelen, the Mechanical Turk is a mechanical illusion and automaton both. “The Turk” was presented to the world as a mechanical device that could play chess. Human challengers often fell to the genius of this mechanical device. It debuted in 1770 and in 1820 Robert Willis revealed that it was a hoax. There were complex mechanical gears and whatnot, but the chess winning prowess was actually “powered” by a human hidden the base. The original “The Turk” was destroyed in a fire in 1854, but there’s a highly detailed replica today. One interesting point to note is that Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Marketplace has obviously been named after this famous automaton device. And, if you’ve ever read about what Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service is and what it does, I think you’ll agree that they chose an excellent name for it!

What is this obsession we have anthropomorphizing machines?

Why do humans create dolls that look like us and then give them a mechanical means to move like us?

As our technology has advanced, we’ve moved from brass barrels to microchips.

We’re now no longer happy with simply mimicking our movements; instead, through advancements in Artificial Intelligence, we’re trying to mimic our own sentience.

Sometimes this is a bit creepy and sometimes it’s completely fascinating.

But for us, the makers of the world’s first Online Alarm Clock website, the early, classic Automaton Gadgets will always hold a special place in our hearts and, we hope, in yours, too!

Tags: al-Jazari, artificial intelligence, automata, automaton, automaton gadgets, Banu Musa brothers, Chess Playing Turk, clocks, Draughtsman-Writer, Elephant Water Clock, Henri Maillardet, machines, The Mechanical Turk, The South-Pointing Carriage, The Turk, Wolfgang von Kempelen

• Famous Modern Clocks
• Online Clock On Dreams
• The Battle For Your Wrist
• Famous Clocks You Should Know About
• Clocks That Run Backwards

Fame is an aspiration for some and a terror for others.

Some people are famous due to their talents,  such as authors, actors, and artists. Some people become famous due to good works or scandals such as politicians and criminals. Objects can become famous. The Sistine Chapel is famous not only because of the type of building it is, but because of the stunning artwork on its ceiling. The Blarney Stone has become famous due to folklore.

And some clocks are famous, too…and rightfully so. In this, the first of a series of posts about Famous Clocks You Should Know About, Online Clock seeks to give you meaty, bite-sized nuggets of infotainment relating to some of the most important clocks in history. As the title of our blog post indicates, these are indeed clocks that we think you should know a little something about.

Unfortunately, no photos exist to do justice to the once-working clock elements of our first famous clock, which is known as the Tower of Winds.

One of the earliest famous clocks is the “Tower of Winds” in Athens. The “Tower of Winds” was built in the first century BC. It’s made of marble, stands about 40 feet tall, and is still standing today. The “Tower of Winds” is a weather vane and clepsydra or water-powered clock. (Besides sundials, most of the earliest clocks were powered by water). The Tower of Winds had sundials on the top, showed the time on a dial, and even had a rotating disk which indicated the position of the sun through the constellations. The “Tower of Winds” can be visited today and I scoured the internet looking for a picture that showed something resembling a clock face, but to no avail. Either that has been lost to time or no one ever takes a picture of the Tower of Winds from that angle.

Ancient Chinese Clepsydra Clocks all measured the amount of time based on how long it took water to flow from vessel to vessel.

Our next famous clock that you should know about is the Water-Driven Spherical Bird’s-Eye-View Map of the Heavens (what a name, huh?!). This clock is considered one of the top ten most prominent achievements of China. And it isn’t famous because of longevity. As a matter of fact, a few years after it was completed in 723 A.D., the internal bronze and iron mechanisms corroded and the clock stopped working. This clock is famous for being (probably) the first mechanical clock in the world. As its name indicates, it was water-driven, which kind of makes it a clepsydra, but its inner workings were mechanical. This stands as the direct predecessor of our next famous clock.

Su Sung’s Cosmic Engine Clock was a large and elaborate affair, though it was still basically a water clock combined with mechanical parts.

Su Sung’s Cosmic Engine Clock was completed in 1094 A.D. Standing at around 30 feet tall (not counting the 10 foot observation platform) this clock was an engineering marvel. It was still powered by water, but inside it held a myriad of mechanical workings. A celestial sphere inside the tower was linked to a bronze globe on the top. These two devices could be used for monitoring and observing the stars which was something critically important in medieval China. The shaft of the tower contained five floors. The floors had doors that would open and mechanical puppets would come out and display tablets that indicated the time. The puppets would also play drums and stringed instruments as well as ring gongs and bells. It ran until 1126 when it was dismantled and moved to Peking. It only ran for a few more years after that. The clock was eventually destroyed which is, in the humble opinion of this writer, a horrible tragedy.

The Prague Astronomical Clock is one of our favorite clocks. Take note of detailed figures standing on both side of this impressive clock - they're animated!

Our next famous clock is still in operation. The Prague Astronomical Clock (located in Prague…gee…who would have guessed, with a name like that?) is a beautiful and stunning speciment of a clock. Its first phase of construction began in 1410. The second stage commenced in 1490. It underwent major repair work and a few changes in 1865 and after WWII the pieces of the clock were carefully repaired and reconstructed. The clock face is a 24-hour face that also gives “Old Bohemian Time” (the time since sunset) and Babylonian “unequal hours” (the time between sunrise and sunset as measured in 12 hour long increments). The lower portion of the clock even contains a calendar.

No, please don't call it Big Ben. This famous clock's actual name is the Great Clock of Westminster...

No famous clock discussion would be complete without mentioning “Big Ben”. Located in England, “Big Ben” is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. Construction began around 1834 and “Big Ben” rang for the first time on May 31st, 1849. It stands 316 feet high. The clock faces are 23 feet square and the numbers on the clock are 4 feet tall. “Big Ben” is not technically the name of the clock tower. “Big Ben” is actually the name of the largest bell inside the Great Clock of Westminster.

These are just a few examples of historically famous clocks in the world. They’re traditional and steadfast clocks. If you take a moment to ponder the engineering and horology behind such clocks, you’ll hopefully find them as mesmerizing and beautiful as we do.

It’s even more astounding that what began with the “Tower of Winds” eventually lead up to what we now wear on our wrists or use online.

In part two of our series on famous clocks, we’ll talk about famous modern clocks.

Until then, you can impress all your friends by knowing that “Big Ben” is actually a bell.

But for now, our time is up…and we hope to see you again soon when we return again with more Famous Clocks You Should Know About.

Tags: alarm clock blog, big ben, clepsydra, clock, clocks, cosmic engine clock, famous clocks, Great Clock of Westminster, Prague Astronomical Clock, su sung, Su Sung’s Cosmic Engine Clock, Tower of the Winds Clock

• Famous Modern Clocks
• The Automaton: The Clock’s Playful Relative
• The Dark Is Your Friend
• Online Clock On Dreams
• The Battle For Your Wrist

Online Clock loves atomic clocks - and you should too!

The phrase “Atomic Clock” conjures images of a massive machine of destruction that’s counting down the time to the apocalypse, existing in a movie set in some gritty cyberpunk world with a dark hero named with a single syllable name like “Edge” or “Spike”. During the movie, Edge is racing against the Atomic Clock of World Destruction ™ and turns into some unwitting Robin Hood.

Or…maybe…it’s just me.

Maybe some of you actually think of something that has hands, numbers, and a biohazard sticker when you hear the phrase “Atomic Clock“.

Just me again? OK…moving on.

Many people also mistakenly refer to radio-controlled clocks as atomic clocks. Clocks and watches you buy that update themselves with the correct time automatically do show, on the average, much more accurate time than your normal clocks and watches. However, they are themselves not atomic clocks. (Though the time servers sending out radio signals to these clocks and watches might indeed update their own clocks with the help from time servers that are helped along by atomic clocks.)

We wanted to sum up what atomic clocks are and to explain to you why Online Clock currently has a love affair with them (ulp).

A photo for the history books: the world's first atomic clock, taken in 1949.

The atomic clock was originally the brainchild of Lord Kelvin in 1879. He was a dude who thought, “Mmm…wouldn’t it be freaking awesome to build a clock that uses atomic vibrations to keep time instead of that lame mechanical crap?”

The rest of the world said, “Yeah, whatever, man. Build it or shut up and pass the wine.”

In the 1930s, Isidor Rabi thought that the key to creating an atomic clock might reside in magnetic resonance. But it wasn’t until much later, in 1949, that the first actual atomic clock was created using his technique. It was considered an “ammonia maser” based device. Note: maser does not stand for “man laser” no matter how cool it would be if it did.

If you look at the Wikipedia article for “maser” you’ll be hit with a wall of large complicated words. Let me spare you that. Maser is an acronym for Microwave Amplification by Stimulation Emission of Radiation. Those of us who are inclined toward the geeky side of life will recall that laser is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulation Emission of Radiation. Masers are lasers that use microwaves, but still don’t pop your popcorn. (Hmmm…,maybe it will pop popcorn. Ask a physicist, for crying out loud. This is a clock site and we are not scientists, though we play one on TV.)

Candid photo of a Maser in its natural habitat (a science lab).

The 1949 Atomic Clock was less accurate than the commonly used quartz clocks. At which point the world said, “OK. That’s pretty cool, but make it better or shut up and pass the wine.” Much to the joy of clock lovers everywhere, 1949 was just before 1950. And, 1950 a booming time for all things atomic. Work on the “atomic clock” exploded. All sorts of clocks were created right next to prototypes of flying cars and “space age polymers”. In 1952, a clock based upon the vibrations of the cesium atom was created and named NBS-1. By then end of the 1950s, “atomic clocks” cost around $20,000. Not exactly a “family friendly” price. (And you get our awesome online service for free. Who came up with that business model?)

The atomic clock endured a few more incarnations in the 1960s. The clock became more accurate and in 1967 the 13th Conference of Weights and Measurements threw the sun out the window. They declared that one second was to be measured by the vibrations of an cesium atom. Time was no longer based on the revolutions of astrological bodies!

Fast forward through a few more incarnations and in 1975 the atomic clock NBS-6 was the most accurate clock in the world. It wouldn’t lose or gain a second in 300,000 years. But this was still not accurate enough for the public. Seriously, Lord Kelvin didn’t stand a chance.

In 1999, the scientific community finally developed the NIST-F1. This clock is currently the most accurate clock ever invented, since it will won’t gain or lose a second in 20 million years. (Now that, is cool!) The NIST-F1 doesn’t need a biohazard sticker, either.

Here's a photo of the NIST-F1 Atomic Clock located in Boulder, Colorado. Sexy little beast, isn't it? (We think so...)

When the The NIST-F1 was released, the time-loving public rejoiced and drank some wine in celebration.

And hey, did you know that you can also use Online Clock to show amazingly accurate time on your computer?

We use your computer’s own time settings to display the time on all of our online alarm clocks, so all you have to do, in order to show extremely accurate time using OnlineClock.net, is to set your computer’s clock to automatically update itself once in awhile using an internet time server. (No, this isn’t as accurate as the time shown by the NIST-F1, but we’re getting there.) See our full blog post entitled “Time Server Sync Your Computer” for detailed information on how to do this!

Find out more about atomic clocks on the Time & Frequency Division website from the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST).

If you have a question about atomic clocks, these are the dudes to talk to.

Hey, we’ve surely oversimplified the subject of atomic clocks in this blog article, and we’ve kind of had to in order to cover all the ground that we’ve discussed in such a short amount of time. If you’re interested in the subject of how time is most accurately measured, we can’t encourage you enough to visit the NIST website, as well as the website from the United States Naval Observatory’s Time Service Department for more information.

If the sometimes very flippant tone of our blog post here has managed to pique a serious interest in this subject for a few of you, then we’re happy.

But for now – we’re outta time!

Tags: alarm clock blog, atomic clock, atomic clocks, cesium atom, clocks, Crazy Clocks, Isidor Rabi, Lord Kelvin, maser, NBS-6, nist, NIST-F1, onlineclock

• Famous Modern Clocks
• The Automaton: The Clock’s Playful Relative
• The Dark Is Your Friend
• Online Clock On Dreams
• The Battle For Your Wrist

Clocks are amazing tools with a long, rich history dating back to the ancient world.

The Sundial: The Earliest Form of Clock?

Many people think that the sundial is the eldest ancestor of the clock. The ancient Egyptians had time pieces that predated the Roman sundial. Approximately 4,000 years ago the Egyptians used clocks based upon star charts to measure time at night. During daylight hours they used something akin to the sundial. These “shadow clocks” used the shadow of a cross to mark the passage of time. Archeologists recovered instructions for making such a clock in the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I. He was in power around 1300 B.C.

In the 1500’s BC, Clepsyda came into use. Clepsyda are also called water clocks. A vessel with markings on it held water that slowly drained out of it. The relationship between the water level and the markings indicated the time. These water clocks were originally used at night and were particularly useful for priests who needed to conduct special rituals at certain times.

The use of Clepsyda spread across the world. Plato referenced a water clock in a writing dated at circa 360 BC. The Greeks and Chinese used Clepsyda. Around 270 BC, the Greeks built an elaborate Clepsyda that would announce the time with bells, puppets, and mechanical birds. The first Roman emperor was given a Clepsyda by Islamic engineers as a gift. This clock was so accurate that it ran for more than a century without requiring any adjustments (!). The Chinese refined the water clock and developed clocks that ran off mercury and even created the world’s first stopwatches.

The Mechanical Clock is often attributed with originating in Western Europe in the early 1300’s. Several centuries earlier, the Chinese had developed clocks that are now considered mechanical. The “Water-Driven Spherical Bird’s-Eye-View Map of the Heavens” was water powered, but it operated via mechanical means. This was developed in 723 AD.

After Mechanical Clocks another great advancement in clock technology came with the invention of the Online Alarm Clock. OnlineClock.net went online as the world’s first entire website devoted to being an internet-based clock that you can use in your web browser back in March 24th, 2006. Since this time literally dozens of copycat websites have gone online, trying to copy our original idea…but we remain more successful than all of them.

Most of us think of clocks as thoroughly modern devices.

But we hope we’ve shown, in this blog post, that this is not true.

Even when you look at our Online Clock, please note that what you’re looking at derives from basic ideas that stretch well back into ancient history.

We at OnlineClock.net are proud to be at the forefront of this unique combination of old and new.

Tags: clepsyda, clock, clock history, clocks, history of clocks, mechanical clocks, online alarm clock, online clock, online clock history, onlineclock.net, water clocks

• Famous Modern Clocks
• The Automaton: The Clock’s Playful Relative
• Online Clock On Dreams
• The Battle For Your Wrist
• Famous Clocks You Should Know About

Cuckoo Clocks as we know them started being made in the Black Forest region of southwest Germany sometime around the mid 18th century.

Early Cuckoo Clocks Using the Shield Design

Early Shield-Design Cuckoo Clock

Early Cuckoo Clocks were primitive clocks in which the clock gears were actually constructed out of wood. (C’mon – how accurate can a clock with wood gears be?)

Of course, what makes the Cuckoo Clock so distinctive is that, when the hour strikes, a small figure of a cuckoo bird usually comes out of a small wooden door in the clock, moves its body or wings and then makes a “cuckoo-like” sound.  This is a feature which could be found even in the earliest Cuckoo Clocks…and for obvious reasons: if it doesn’t have a cuckoo, it can’t be a Cuckoo Clock.

Cuckoo Clocks are kind of fascinating, at least the first few times you see them, but we can imagine that having this blasted little mechanical bird create a repeating cuckoo sound every hour, on the hour could drive you nuts over time!  (Most modern Cuckoo Clocks in fact offer an option to turn off the hourly cuckoo chime, which is a good thing…a very good thing.)

The first Cuckoo Clocks were, however, much less decorative than the Cuckoo Clocks we’re familiar with today. So much so, in fact, that, taking a look a these early Cuckoo Clocks today, the uninitiated would likely not even recognize them as Cuckoo Clocks at all.

Later Cuckoo Clocks were usually constructed with a highly decorative forest scene or hunting scene depicting life in the woods of Germany, or some kind of rustic outdoors scene.

But all of this was pretty much missing in the earliest versions of Cuckoo Clocks, which were simple painted wooden shields (“Schilduhren” in German, meaning Shield Clocks) with the clock face appearing on a painted shield or round clock face, and with the clock parts all located behind this “shield”.

Typically, there was a small wooden door above the shield out of which the bird would spring when it was time to chime at the top of the hour.

Bahnhäusle or Railroad House Cuckoo Clocks

Bahnhäusle or Railroad House Cuckoo Clock

In about 1850 Cuckoo Clocks changed dramatically from the Shield-type Clocks that preceded them.

“Bahnhäusle” means something like “railroad house” in German, and these new kind of Cuckoo Clocks had a much more detailed and elaborate frame around the clockwork and clock face.

The idea is that the more elaborate frame around the clock face was supposed to resemble the small sheltering structures in which railroad guards would stand. The frame of the small house surrounding such newer Cuckoo Clocks was usually decorated with some kind of plant or forest decoration (such as vines), and such clocks are instantly recognizable as typical “Cuckoo Clocks” today.

At this time, detailed scenes in decorative woodwork began to be depicted on Cuckoo Clocks. Such scenes usually showed forest, hunting or even religious imagery. Examples of the decorative woodwork found on Bahnhäusle Cuckoo Clocks might be the carved head of a deer at the top of the clock, or even small figures of forest workers surrounding the clock face.

Swiss Chalet Cuckoo Clocks

Swiss Chalet Style Cuckoo Clock

Also very familiar for Americans are the “chalet style” cuckoo clocks which came even later.

Swiss Chalet Cuckoo Clocks simply replace the design of the small “railroad house” frame around the clock with a house resembling a Swiss or Bavarian chalet. These kind of Cuckoo Clocks usually have “A Frame” style roofs.

Chalet Cuckoo Clocks come originally from Switzerland, and, because they are so familiar, many Americans mistakenly think that Cuckoo Clocks originated in Switzerland instead of Germany…which is not the case. Don’t be mistaken: Cuckoo Clocks, as we know them, come from the Black Forest of Germany and not from Switzerland!

Cuckoo Clock Summary

So that was, extremely simplified, a basic introduction to the subject of Cuckoo Clocks:

1. They began as simple panel or Shield Clocks with little decoration.
2. Cuckoo Clocks were then further developed into the  “railroad houses” with lots of wood carvings that we’re familiar with today.
3. They were then even further adapted into Swiss or Bavarian Chalet style clocks.

But the cuckoo bird has always been the most important element of such clocks, belting out the cuckoo sound at the top of the hour.

The vast majority of Cuckoo Clocks have always been wall clocks, but there are also mantel clock versions of Cuckoo Clocks which are designed to rest on shelves or mantels instead of being hung on walls.

These days Cuckoo Clocks are still extremely popular.

All you have to do is to take a vacation in the Black Forest region of Germany to discover that selling Cuckoo Clocks to American tourists remains a big part of the local tourist trade in the region!

Modern clock makers also continue to be inspired by Cuckoo Clocks, offering new designs of Cuckoo Clocks that incorporate the original designs with far more modern elements.

So, we hope we didn’t drive you, uhhh, Cuckoo with our little foray into Cuckoo Clocks here.

And we hope most of you still prefer online clocks to the cuckoo variety.

Tags: alarm clock blog, Bahnhäusle clocks, chalet clocks, chalet cuckoo clocks, cuckoo clock, cuckoo clock history, cuckoo clocks, railroad house clocks, Schilduhren, shield clocks

• The Dark Is Your Friend
• The Battle For Your Wrist
• The Answer To Why We Sleep
• Famous Clocks You Should Know About
• Online Pomodoro Timers And How To Use Them

We recently wrote about how Digg gave Online Clock our first big break.

But in addition to Digg, we have to be thankful to the large legion of bloggers who have written about OnlineClock.net over the years.

To the best of our knowledge the first blog to write about Online Clock was the Spanish-language technology blog GenBeta:

GenBeta Logo - The First Blog to Write About Online Clock!

And, regarding the first version of Online Clock that they wrote about, it was a lot different from the clock that we all know and love today!

Back when we first launched we played around with the idea of creating an all-Flash Online Alarm Clock. However, once we decided on a Freemium business model (a free, advertising-supported service), we realized that online ad delivery was extremely important. Suffice it to say that if you have an all Flash site, or a site that’s mostly built in Flash, it’s more difficult to incorporate advertising into your content.

We knew from the beginning that, if we didn’t generate ad revenue, we couldn’t afford the powerful servers that host Online Clock, and couldn’t afford to pay any further marketing costs…all of which are necessary evils.

So, take a gander at the earliest version of the Online Alarm Clock on record in this screenshot of the original GenBeta post entitled, “Online clock, tu reloj online con alarma“:

What’s amazing to us, looking back at this blog entry, is that it’s dated March 28th, 2006. As you can tell by our domain’s WhoIs information, we actually registered our domain first on March 26th, 2006…just four days before this blog post was published! Those guys at GenBeta found us in a hurry, and we’re thankful for that. In case you’re wondering, on the same day the domain was registered, the first version of Online Clock actually went live.

We know what you’re thinking, “What kind of a crazy, cigar-shaped Online Alarm Clock was that?!”.

And you’re right…it was kind of goofy, as you’ll note from the screenshot of the blog post above. Thank god we soon ditched this early version and latched onto the lean, mean, black clock machine everyone now knows and loves!

If you’re interested in taking a closer look at this earlier version of our Online Alarm, the original blog post is still online…or you can read it translated into English here. (Yes, it’s short, but as with many things in life, it’s not the size that matters!)

We hope some of you have enjoyed this little trip down Online Clock Memory Lane.

We love OnlineClock.net and we love reminiscing about how we got started!

And to all our friends at GenBeta, we say: Gracias!

Tags: alarma, clock history, online alarm clock history, online clock, online clock blog, online clock history, onlineclock, onlineclock.net, reloj, reloj con alarma

• Reasons To Use An Online Stopwatch
• Video Clock Demonstration
• Clocks That Run Backwards
• What is Horology?
• The World’s Funniest Snoring Videos

Hey Clock Fans, it's time for a little alarm clock history lesson!

Alarm clocks are something we all take for granted, but who invented the alarm clock?

The best knowledge we have on this subject indicates that alarm clocks were invented at around 250 BC in ancient Greece.

In ancient Greece there were of course no alarm clocks as we know them. Instead they had created a kind of water clock. Water clocks used a regularly dripping stream of water to measure time. The alarm function was set off when a lever triggered a kind of whistling sound.

Besides water clocks, the other earliest kind of clocks on record were sundials.

The sundial: looks kinda nice, but don't depend on it to wake you up in time for work. (Then again, it has some disadvantages, too...)

Everyone knows that sundials measure the time based on the position of the sun; many of us still have sundials in our gardens to this day, simply because they look neat and are useful as well as decorative. Sundials, however, had no alarm mechanisms. “So if they had no alarm function, what the heck are sundials doing appearing in this post?”, you might ask. To that I would reply, “Hey buddy, go write your own blog!,” simply because I’m unable to think of anything wittier at the moment. Ok, I digress…

So when we refer to alarm clocks, actually we have in mind the first mechanical alarm clocks, and the first of these were invented probably sometime in the 14th century. The first mechanical alarm clocks were not for home use, however. Instead, these were striking clock towers on public display.

Towers with clocks on them sometimes had devices which would strike off the hours so that everyone in a town or village would know what time it was. Many of us have clock towers near where we live that still strike off the hours each day.

The Clock Tower Alarm Clock: how'd you like to get a wake up call from one of these babies next to your pillow?

Regarding the first small mechanical alarm clocks, many attribute the first alarm clock of this kind to inventor Taqi al-Din in the Turkish empire. He wrote a book back in 1559 describing how he’d built a kind of mechanical alarm clock.

Another early mechanical alarm clock was invented by Levi Hutchins from New Hampshire, USA. Mr. Hutchins created an alarm clock that always went off at 4:00 a.m., since he wanted to wake up at this time each and every day; but his alarm clock was not available for sale.

Which brings us to the subject of commercial alarm clocks: when were the first alarm clocks manufactured for sale?

The first patent for an alarm clock dates back to 1847 and was awarded to French inventor Antoine Redier. The Seth Thomas Clock Company was awarded a different patent in 1876 for its small bedside alarm clocks, and these probably became the first smaller alarm clocks for home use that were actually manufactured.

So, by the late 1870s, alarm clocks for the home had become popular and were being sold in larger quantities. One of the first alarm clock manufacturers in the entire world was the company Westclox.

This brings us, more or less, to the present day and age.

The most significant recent innovation regarding alarm clocks happened of course in early 2006, when the online alarm clock was invented, thus beginning a new chapter in alarm clock history!

To that we can only say: hey Alarm Clocks, you rock !

Main Sources:

Wikipedia
ClockHistory.com

Tags: Alarm Clock History, alarm clock invention, alarm clocks, clock fans, clock history, clock towers, history of alarm clocks, online clock history, sundials, water clocks

• Thermal Nuclear Alarm Clock
• The Time For An Alarm Is Now
• Soundless Alarm Clocks
• Clocks In Ancient History
• Doggone Alarm Clocks

But frankly…what’s up with that?

Why don’t clocks run from right to left instead?

Why do we simply take this for granted? I mean, what if we all just decided to wake up one day and have our clocks run counter-clockwise, from right to left, instead?

Well, just hold on a second, Junior – let me take a short break, and I’ll get right back to you with the answers.

There. I’m back.

The deal with clockwise is, you have to remember that our first clocks were the direct descendents of sundials. Sundials were of course used to measure time by tracking the movement of the sun in the sky.

Also, the first clocks were created in the northern hemisphere, where the sun indeed traveled from the left to the right in the sky.

The earliest clocks attempted to copy the movement of the sun and were thought of as being mechanical versions of sundials. Since the sun moved from left to right for the first clock inventors, it just made sense to make clocks move in this direction too.

Did you know that Online Clock also has an analog alarm clock?

Now then…clock’s ticking…time for me to run (clockwise, of course).

The Red Dots Appear to Move Counter-Clockwise. The Yellow Dots Appear to Move Clockwise. But Which Direction Will You Lose Your Lunch In While Staring At This?

Tags: alarm clock blog, analog alarm clock, Analog Clock, clock history, clocks, clocks run clockwise, clockwise, history of clocks, online clock, sundials, why clockwise

• Famous Modern Clocks
• The Automaton: The Clock’s Playful Relative
• The Dark Is Your Friend
• Online Clock On Dreams
• The Battle For Your Wrist

Ever wondered how we got to the point of being able to measure time accurately using clocks?

One of the huge discoveries for the development of accurate clocks was the invention of Pendulum Clocks by Galileo in the second half of the 17th century¹.

Until the invention of Pendulum Clocks, minutes couldn’t be measured accurately using the primitive clocks that were in existence.

Doing research on the subjects of time and the history of clocks, I unearthed a fascinating story about how Galileo came upon the idea of using pendulums in clocks to more accurately measure time.

He got the idea while sitting in church.

It was the Pisa Cathedral, to be exact.

Galileo was sitting in the cathedral and was fascinated by the swinging movements of the chandeliers hanging high overhead from the cathedral’s ceiling.

While observing the back and forth motions of these swinging chandeliers, Galileo noticed that, although the angle of the swinging movements changed over time, the amount of time required for the pendulum to swing in one direction and then return to its original starting point (known as the period of a pendulum) appeared to remain constant.

Et Voilà!

A light bulb went off in Galileo’s head and he began working on all kinds of possible applications of pendulums, including the idea of using pendulum clocks to accurately measure time.

Long Before the Invention of the Online Clock, People Stared at This

Some of the first useful applications of the idea of pendulum clocks included the invention of the metronome and the use of a device to measure the human pulse in medicine (a pulsometer).

Although Galileo worked extensively on pendulums during his life time and did indeed design the world’s first pendulum clock, it was not until 1656, many years after Galileo’s death, that Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch mathematician, actually created the first working pendulum clocks.

Today we know that pendulums are not as accurate at measuring time as Galileo had originally thought.

But the invention of pendulum clocks was a huge step forward in the development of accurate clocks.

This is a process which continues to this day, as we continue to fine-tune atomic clocks into devices capable of measuring time with an accuracy of up to 10^-9 seconds per day.

Now that’s accurate!

But don’t forget how we got here:

It’s all because Galileo got bored one day in church.

Tags: alarm clock blog, Alarm Clock History, Christiaan Huygens, clock history, galileo, galileo pendulum, galileo pendulum clocks, pendulum clock, pendulum clocks, pendulums, Pisa Cathedral, Time

• The Dark Is Your Friend
• The Battle For Your Wrist
• The Answer To Why We Sleep
• Famous Clocks You Should Know About
• Online Pomodoro Timers And How To Use Them