On Sun, 21 May 2006 17:43:36 -0400, (Arch) wrote:

Hi Jesse,

I'll butt in til Bill reports. First off, I'm surprised to hear that
synchronous household alarm clocks are becoming rare. I thought they'd
be easy to find in thrift shops. I don't think there are any dc analog
clocks extant, but I may be wrong.

Henry Warren in Ashland, Mass. (my wife's hometown) invented the Warren
Telechron, an analog clock mechanism that depended on 60 cps house
current. The Telechron Co. made zillions of 110 V. alarm clocks.

I think the Co. was bought out by G.E. and they may not make Telechron
alarm clocks anymore, although they do make timers, etc. at the old
factory at the end of Central Street where this Southern Redneck did
some tricky but highly successful (for him) courting a long time ago.

Well, it's a good lead, Arch- Thanks! I DAGS on Telechron with a
couple different strings, and it looks like they were bought out by GE
in 1951, then were revived from time to time, up until 1992 when the
market for them dried up. (My guess is that it was because they were
really, really ugly) Found one on Ebay for $4.99, but the bidding was
over.

I hadn't thought of checking thrift shops, so I'll check that out the
next time I go into town- but a good search of the local retailers
came up with no new products. Could be just me, but even though
digital technology is great for a lot of things, I still find the
mechanical ingenuity of clockwork fascinating and it seems a shame
that it has been so lightly abandoned. I *like* my clocks to tick,
even if it's just a little bit- and the old ringing bell is so much
nicer than the hateful electronic air-raid siren I have on my current
alarm... kind of like the old ring of a telephone, before everyone had
to have a low-quality midi version of a classical tune to let them
know they have a call.

But that's progress, I suppose. Fix it whether it's broke or not, and
the to the devil with the old standbys. I couldn't believe it was so
hard to find such a simple thing either, but it seems that's the case-
at least in my area. I guess the powers that be figure that anyone
still wanting an analog clock was such a knuckle-dragger that they
would insist on winding it up as well...

*sigh* And I'm not even an old guy. Just really, really, tired of
shoddy plastic and space-age gimmicks.