WORLDTECHA 7-Segment Clock Built With No Digital Electronics
Single source: this development was reported by Hackaday. What WORLDTECH can establish is that the report was made, and by whom. It has not been matched against a second independent organisation and has not been officially confirmed by the organisations involved.
What happened
The geared mechanism and switch contacts are visible; they switch the neons of the various segments on and off at the correct times. Credit: YouTube video [Mark Furneaux] set about tearing down a Lumitime clock, built by the Japanese company Tamura.
From the outside, it appears to be a rather stylish digital clock, with a bold red 7-segment display lit with neons. Only, the secret of this clock is that it doesnβt use digital electronics to do the job.
There are no counters inside, no real-time clock module, no transistor-based logic chips doing the counting with the output of a 32.768 KHz crystal. Instead, a motor drives a series of gears that turn metal plates that move under sliding finger contacts.
Sources & evidence
- Hackaday Reporting source
A 7-Segment Clock Built With No Digital Electronics β
https://hackaday.com/2026/09/24/a-7-segment-clock-built-with-no-digital-electronics/