When I was a kid I was fascinated by VFDs. They were so bright compared to the LEDs of the time, or backlit LCDs. And if I looked closely I could see all of the display elements, sort of like the wiring of a nixie tube. That lovely glow will always feel high-tech to me.
The time on the external clock face isn’t tied to the Mac’s clock. There is a separate app that lets you set the time using a button that increments the hours and one that does the minutes. For some inexplicable reason, the external clock’s time runs fast or slow by some random amount.
Better than the new Microsoft Surface Glow where the VFD requires an active Microsoft Time Dynamics 365 for Business account which also requires Recall and Windows 11 Pro, though it only ships with Home.
And it must be the add-on Microsoft Time Dynamics 365 for Business P2, rather than the lower-tier P1 that's included with a Microsoft 365 E5 subscription.
Also, the clock will need to be reactivated if it's offline for more than three hours, but it can only be activated once every 90 days without calling into Microsoft.
Actually Apple marketing did solve the issue for the engineers: they just required that the processor be ramp down to 25% speed at all times to cut the heat.
You could in theory make a clock that counts seconds by charging a capacitor until it hits a certain voltage, it would be easily affected by the temperature of the resistor feeding it. That could be a fun electronics project.
Comments
Electronics is weird and you absolutely could end up making a clock that runs differently based on ambient temperature \o/
That would be hella useful if it could plug into a timer app. xD