#2109: Animatime

Even the few people left in the world who can hand-make a watch tend to use some kind of a CAD system to design the works.

Today’s invention offers a new way to tell the time, based on this fact.

Consider watches with reasonably large processors and nice screens on board (such as those based on the iPod nano).

Each of these could run a cut down CAD model of a particular classic mechanical watch movement (see the drawing here).

This might not include the dynamics but would just show all the components articulating in the correct ways and driving simulated hands to indicate the time (with electronic, rather than mechanical precision).

The various parts in the model could also be made to display with varying translucency, so that the interactions within the watch would all be visible.

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