I am coding this clock just out of fun. The clock face design is
fictitious as I do not plan to copy an existing clock. However, I was
well inspired by some famous aircraft clock models mostly from the
(pre-) Second World War. The following list does not claim to be
exhaustive, but is intended to provide interested readers with
information on historical aircraft dashboard clocks.
Allon a Versailles (model unknown)
Borletti 2354
Breguet Type 11
Breitling Wakmann 618 12-24, 640-24-10, 118-12-24 and the later
651-12, A-13
Carley & Clemence MK IIIA
Dodane Type 11
Elgin AC-34898, AN-5743-1
Hamilton-Elgin E-37500, CDIA and A-13A
Jaeger LeCoultre A-10 Chronoflite
Junghans FL. 22600, FL. 23885
Kienzle FL 23886
Leonidas 429 and 1-665
Lip Typ 14
Longines Wittnauer AN5743-L2
Mathey Tissot Type 12
Molnija AChS1 and 81322
Nero Lemania 7518
Omega (Askania) Fl.22601
Revue Thommen Type A-11 and B-13
Smith and Jaeger Lecoultre Mk II and Mk IIIA
Seikosa Type 92
Sonja 1-1947
Waltham XA, AN 5743 and Type A 13A MIL-C-6499
Zenith EFAP and Type 20
and many more
This clocks are masterpieces in engineering and design on its own.
The readability of the clocks with the deep black dial is unsurpassed.
All of them are labeled 8 DAYS, indicating that they could run
for 8 days after winding it fully up. Please don’t get me wrong: I’m not
a fan of war at all – I just like the aircraft clocks from that
time.
Description
Measured on several platforms, the CPU-Load of Borduhr should remain
below 2% – but mostly even below 1%. Another goal is to keep it scalable
(resizing the window). This gave me a big headache but the result was
worth it in my opinion. Why did I titled this clock «Borduhr – 8 DAYS»?
Because I just could not think of a better, short name yet.
Borduhr is the german term for aircraft dashboard
clock.
Note that the label «SWISS MADE» of my «Borduhr» is correct
indeed – I am living in the «clock-country» Switzerland and try to
continue the art of designing clocks. It is just that this one is made
out of pure software instead of gear wheels.
Installation
Pre-Requirements
Kindly note that there is no installation as such needed of running
“Borduhr”. As it is coded in Tcl/Tk, of course one has to install the
interpreter first.
Linux: For most distributions, it is a matter of:
sudo apt install tcl && sudo apt install tk
Windows: go to www.irontcl.com
and follow the installation instructions.
Sourcecode: Or get the sourcecode of Tcl/Tk and compile on your own. This is no big
deal and should be straight forward under Linux.
Unzip Borduhr
Then unzip borduhr into your chosen destination and execute it.
Linux: run ./borduhr.tcl in a terminal shell or make a
desktop launcher
Windows: double-click on borduhr and chose wish.exe as
the program, that could run this code.
Functions
The red pushbutton (red pusher) on bottom right is used for the
chronograph and works as follows:
first click: start the chronograph
second click: stop the chronograph and show the estimated time
third click: clear the chronograph and set back the hands to
zero
The black pushbutton button on bottom left is used as follows:
single click to open the popup menu:
Night mode: This mode switches the clock to fluorescent colors.
This was realized with a UV lamp (black-light headlamp), that
illuminates the cockpit instruments from behind. This caused a reaction
within the radium dials and as a result the dials and gauges lit up.
This would not to give away the position of the fighters in night
operations.
Day mode: This mode switches the clock to daylight condition
again.
Help: That’s the one you are currently reading
About: self explaining dialog
Quit: Close this clock. You do not need it :)
Features
Platform independant. I test it regularly with:
Linux (Debian Bookworm) on x86
Windows 11 on x86
Linux Wine emulator (emulating Windows 10)
others platforms (such as MACOSX) may be supported in future.
works at least with TCL/TK 8.5.6 and 9.0
Library independent. No other dependencies to e.g. tcllib or other
(binary) libraries (*.dll, *.so) are required.
High readability with red second hand and green minute- and hours
hand.
hours subdial: So called complication located on top below
number 12. Can time periods of up to 12 hours.
minutes subdial: Complication located next to number
9. Can time periods of up to 60 minutes.
seconds subdial: Complication located next to number
3. Can time periods of up to 60 seconds.
Day name indicator: Weekday complication located above number
7.
Calendar subdial: integrated analog day/date complication located on
bottom above number 6.
long orange arrow-hand is for the day
short blue arrow-hand is for the month
AM / PM complication located below number 1
AM: from Latin ante meridiem, translating to “before
midday”
PM: from Latin post meridiem, translating to “after
midday”
Annual complication: Full year display located above number
5
Colors and fonts are highly configurable over
settings.conf. However, the design itself cannot be
configured unless the sourcecode is altered.
Window-position of the clock is configurable:
either leave that task to the windowmanager itself or
set a fix window-position
Resizable! No fixee window sizes – this makes it even more
flexible.
Day/night mode. After switching, the clock face is glowing as if
lighted with a ultraviolet lamp.
Specialties
I have never liked the fact that the big second hand is part of the
chronograph function instead of the smaller one (on my wristwatch) – so
please forgive me but I’ve exchanged those functions. In my opinion,
this design makes it easy to distinguish the main watch from the
stopwatch.
I thought that it would be a cool function to add not only a long
day-hand but also a smaller month hand. You will get used to it soon.
Still, I don’t know how to display the year in a cooler analog
way. Maybe I can find a solution while having a look at the perpetual
watches that are around.
Note that the numbers containing a 1 on the
clockface is in fact a (sans-serif) I as lots of clock
of that time. Due to the fact that I could not find such a font and
fonts in general cannot be loaded into Tcl/Tk without installing it, I
decided to handle it in this way. Hope that this is pleasing you
anyways.
Precision
Please note that this application is as precise as your system is.
Under Linux, as long as NTP synchronisation is activated, the precision
is in other words as accurate as it could be with this technology. See
also: timesyncd
service
Limitations and trade-offs
The drawings are built on the native and powerful canvas widget.
Unfortunately, it does not do antialiasing to smoothen the drawings
(except for fonts). On my 4K display, this is not a big issue but on
displays with lower resolutions, it can be disturbing. Hopefully, the
Tcl/Tk coredevelopers are going to change that soon.
No measuring of fractional seconds for the chronometer. As far as I
tested, this would be noticeable in a much higher CPU load.
Just one tick per second, no smooth movement of the second hand.
(compare to the mechanical masterpieces that move the second hand eight
or even ten times a second!)
Bold fonts are not supported yet (do we need this?)
Themes with custom clockfaces are not supported.
Round window without borders and titlebar is not supported as Tcl/Tk
does not support transparent windows yet.
Thanks
My thanks goes to:
John Ousterhout et all for the invention and the development of Tcl/Tk
John Gruber, the inventor of markdown. His syntax
definitions made this document possible.
John MacFarlane, the developer of Pandoc to convert the README into
html.
the developers of wkhtml2pdf,
so the Html-file can be converted to a PDF
Feature requests?
For any kind of feature you would like to see or bug reporting or
thank you’s: