Watchismo Times: 1930s

Showing posts with label 1930s. Show all posts

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Use Your Phonograph as an Alarm Clock - Popular Science 1932

USE PHONOGRAPH AS AN ALARM CLOCK

"A novel attachment for the phonograph by which a heavy sleeper may be aroused at any hour he wishes by soft music, was recently shown in London, England. The alarm-clock device is set at the desired hour, and wound. A brake on the turntable of the phonograph is released at the set hour by a slight pull from the alarm key of the clock."

1932 Issue of Popular Science

Friday, November 2, 2007

15,000 Pound Belt Driven Digital Clock from 1931

Moving numerals, three feet high, will tell (told) Londoners the time when a monster clock now under construction in one of this British city’s railroad stations is completed. The big timepiece is believed the largest without hands ever built. Three endless belts of steel slats, driven by an electric motor, carry the numbers past a rectangular window high on the station wall where they are made visible. Each numeral is outlined by silvered disks of reflecting material, and floodlights play upon the figures to make them show up clearly at a distance. The movement of the belts is governed automatically from a control panel with an extremely accurate master clock, which in turn is constantly regulated from the observatory at Greenwich. The steel roller on which the hour numerals are shown is thirty-seven feet long and the blinds weigh about 15,000 pounds.

And Tag Heuer thought their V4 Monaco was the first belt-driven timepiece?? Ha!