Recently I had an enquiry from [Frank], who had just begun a life-long love affair with scope clocks by purchasing one on eBay. The clock was great – but he felt that the two available screens (simple analogue and digital clock faces) lacked a certain oomph.
He then stumbled across Oscilloclock.com, and in his smitten state immediately reached out with his number one question: just what screens are available on an Oscilloclock?
Well, let me save Frank’s time trawling through years of blog posts. Right here in one place are most of the Oscilloclock screens and features created to date.
Enjoy the show!
Standard Time Screens
These stock-standard analogue and digital time screens may be quite simple, but they do evoke the ‘retro’ look that most people appreciate.
And you can flip a menu setting to display days, months, years in Japanese:
There are also some ‘random’ screens that add in a bit of dynamic visual entertainment:
- Random number screen
- Random letter sequence screen
- Random four letter word screen (clean words only, by default!)
- Random phrase screen (the phrase list is typically customized to a theme)
And of course the mesmerizing Timedrops screen:
Themed Screens and Features
… These themed features were developed more recently, and can be added for a small fee to help cover development costs!
Astroclock (Sidereal Time)
External XY input
OscilloTerm (serial terminal)
Oscilloblock (lego)
Metropolis
Aftershock Clock (Earthquake display)
Unbirthday Clock
War Games
Logo screens
Over the years many folks have requested that I render custom logos in Circle Graphics. Here are some examples:
“Seasonal Treats”
Up next are some fun, mildly interactive animation features. Not exactly screens per se, these animations pop up after a predefined period of inactivity – but only during certain months of the year. Can you guess which months?
Menu screens
There are far too many configuration menu and test screens to present here. Fiddle to your heart’s content!
Q. How are screens switched?
Screens are switched simply by rotating the control knob in one direction or other.
There is also a configurable auto-switch feature; the screen is changed every 90 seconds in a predefined order (with the exception of some animation screens). The display time is configurable, and the auto-switch feature can also be turned off for those who prefer to switch screens manually.
Q. How are screens selected & configured?
Customers can request screens to include and/or specify the switching order. The configuration is done here in the lab before clocks are delivered.
Oscilloclock also provides a firmware upgrade kit, which allows the customer to upload a revised version of the firmware into the clock themselves. Using this, updates to screens and other features can be uploaded without shipping the clock back to the lab.
Q. What is the process for rendering a custom screen or logo?
We typically prepare a mock-up based on the customer’s description, sketch, or image file. This is tweaked as needed until the screen looks just right to the customer.
