Back in Time

When I was a kid, I had a clock that kept time by moving chrome ball bearings along various tracks. I've tried explaining it to people, but to no avail. I found it recently in a box in the garage. The plastic cover cracked years ago (it somehow fell off of my dresser), and many of the ball bearings were lost over the years.

Basically, the thing worked by picking up a ball bearing every minute and dropping it on the top of a track. The balls would fill up slots and by adding them up you could tell the time. I loved this thing when I was a kid, but the last time I saw one of these "new" was when I got mine some 22 years ago.

Today I was cleaning out my physical inbox, when I saw a catalog which billed itself as "fun gifts for computer enthusiasts." I don't really consider myself enthusiastic about computers, but it was a welcome change from the normal mail I get at the office.

So I leafed through the thing, saw a couple of interesting things, when all of the sudden... yes, yes, you knew it, didn't you?

The "Kinetic Motion Clock".

$40?? I guarantee you mine didn't cost that much, plus mine was operated off of A/C, not batteries. And they've added the nifty "seconds" meter at the top. You can tell the time by looking at the hours (bottom row) and adding the minute rows together (top two).

Other than the batteries and the seconds counter, it looks precisely the same as the one I had/have. Now they make it in neon, too. Such heresy.

I'm convinced my kids need one of these.