Posted 5 years ago
AnythingOb…
(1778 items)
This thing came to me in a small boxful of random circuit boards and orphaned electronic components bought for way-cheap on eBay (back in the day, when that was actually both a fun and affordable place to find such crap...?) years ago, simply because I actually wanted one or two other things included. When unpacking the box and finding it I thought to myself "OK, some sort of clock or timer, maybe a kit". Plugged it in and it promptly did nothing at all...so it got 'set aside'. ;-)
FFWD to today when I 'came across' it again. Fresh eyes newly noticed a little glass fuse on its backside which appeared suspiciously blackened inside...so I brought it downstairs to my workbench and went rummaging thru my little glass fuse drawer (after confirming the original was indeed totally toast) to find a close-enough replacement -- then after a little bit of creative re-mounting of said fuse I plugged it up again and the thing lit right up?!! <cheers><applause>
It took a good bit more fiddling around with its switches/buttons to eventually get it to show a 24hr (maybe 12hr too?) running clock showing hrs/mins/secs, it also seems to have at least one or two more timer-ish functions I haven't yet begun to figure out, including what the big black button on its top is supposed to do. (beyond toggling back and forth between 'clock' and 'unknown timer' displays?) Also still haven't completely figured out the little red set buttons, they don't seem to behave quite like typical hrs/mins buttons on any modern digital clock, though *almost* so...??
It consists of two circuit boards (roughly 3.5" x 5.5") plugged together by a pair of small Molex-ish connector pin sets at either end. The rear board looks mostly like "power supply", the front board holds its digital displays, their driver components, and the "microchip" that makes the clock functions work. When taking the two boards apart this afternoon (for the first time) I found a maker's mark on the back of the power board labeling it as a product of "DIGITAL CONCEPTS", whoever and wherever they were. Part #'s on the front side of each board label them as "EC 101A and B", respectively.
The actual display components themselves are intriguing -- they are *not* the now-typical (red colored) LED parts, instead being of a "fluorescent" (bright orange colored) variety of alphanumeric digital display, a type developed shortly before (then supplanted by) actual LED technology for the same purpose. This detail along with the style of most of the other components and their mounting methods *strongly* suggests to me that this assembly is a product of the late 1960's-early 70's.
Beyond all that, I remain with ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what kind of device this assembly was first mounted in and/or a part of. It seems too complicated (with the weird extra functions?) to have been simply the insides of a bedside clock, plus the big black 'snooze' button doesn't do anything close to that (and there are no 'alarm sounder' components either) so that seems unlikely. That it has a seemingly original typical power cord/plug would suggest (?) that it wasn't an inner sub-assembly to some or other actual industrial machine plus that there aren't any spurious 'terminals' that might have been hooked up to something else if it was in fact a 'control clock'. My only guesses at this point are something along the lines of a 'chess game' or 'photograph developing' timer...??
ANYBODY ELSE GOT A CLUE what it really is?? <beg>
My thinking at the moment is that it'll make a really fun 'see-thru' digital clock to sit on a shelf somewhere just like it is, with only a little further bit of creativity and maybe a couple pcs. of scrap acrylic sheet to mount it in...?? <LOL>
Maybe you could date it by getting info on the ic chip. Date manufacturered, etc. Could you post the writing on it? The other components are pretty common, they'd be about impossible to date. I was an electronics tech in the the late 70's and 80's. Quick guess would be 70's.
Come to think of it TR, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to look closer at the chip number...zooming in on the pic on my screen just now seems to show it labeled as:
MOSTEK
MK 501788
7321 C
Does any of that mean something to 'ya? I did look for (but did not find) any other assorted possible 'date stamps' or anything on it...?
I'll look around, not familiar with the number.
Mostek was founded in '69, so it can't be older than that. UTC bought Mostek on '79, I don't know if they still kept the Mostek name on their chips. Couldn't find the exact number, but a similar numbered chip was a clockset ic which would make sense that this is in the same family. There's a data sheet pdf for a MK 5017p chip on the net. I don't know how to give you a link to a PDF file. You can google it, it may have some operating instructions. I'm still guessing 70's.
TOYREBEL wins the prize for solving my mystery!!! <cheers><applause>
Finding this .pdf:
http://www.decodesystems.com/mk5017.html
prompted looking closer at the chip label itself with a good light, turns out I was misreading my own pic last nite -- the chip *is* in fact the MK5017BB which according to that document makes it a "calendar clock". Suddenly its 'unknown counter function' makes perfect sense (it's the month/day, dummy?!) as well as what the big black button does (brings that up instead of the clock) and one of the slide switches (make it show the clock, the date, or both alternating every once in awhile). I won't know until the morning for sure I guess, (unless I'm up 'til midnite tonite?) to see if the "date" changes itself to 9/13...??
THANKS SO MUCH, TOYREBEL!!!! Now, all I need to do is come up with a way to display the thing...? ;-) :-)
MORE thanks to bobby725, jscott0363, Vynil33rpm, fortapache, Newfld, iggy, yougottahavetuff, & Brunwick for sharing your <love it>s for it, no doubt my currently "most unique" digital clock even as it just sits bare and naked in front of my TV at the moment, silently tallying the seconds of my life ticking away... <wink><giggle>
nice job ...TOYREBEL
My kind thanks to Bruce99, ttomtucker, & Roycroftbookfromme1 for the further <love it>s!! :-) :-) :-)
While I continue daydreaming about ways to 'more properly' display this clock [likely to be mounted behind some slightly angled clear plastic panel affixed to a nice wood base?] for now, even though its still just sitting bare on a shelf, I'm finding myself just *loving* watching it run -- I've always wanted a NIXIE TUBE clock (google that if 'ya don't know what it is) but this thing is an excellent substitute meanwhiles... ;-) :-) :-)
And a visiting friend this afternoon finally *nailed it* as to why I guess I like watching this silly thing so much, with his comment that it "looks like a bomb timer" which indeed it does, except for counting up instead of down...?? <ROTFLMAO>
Thanks also to buckethead for being my lucky #13 <love it> -- this clock shows 13:13:13 once every day... ;-) ;-) ;-)
Here's today's useless trivia bit about this clock. ;-) Apparently quite a simple thing (in comparison to these days) in its electronic/microchip design, its DATE function seems nothing more than a 1 - 31 day counter no matter what the month digit is. Or in other words, until I happened to notice this afternoon, it was displaying today's actual 10/01 date as 09/31 instead...?
I guess they'd figured out how to make digital clocks, but not quite yet got 'em to compensate themselves for the varying days of each month...? <lol>
[and the more I still enjoy watching the thing, I *do* really wish there was a button to make it count *down* instead of *up*...?? <LOL>]