Abstract: A prismatic glass or transparent synthetic resin case for a clockwork on a base of an anniversary clock is provided on at least some of its planar facets with a decor whose resistance to peeling is ensured by the planarity of the facets to which the decor is applied. All surfaces of the case are planar and adjoin other surface elements at obtuse angles.

Abstract: A timepiece, with a clockwork driven by a stepping motor, has a clockwork-supporting structure with front and rear uprights, generally of hourglass shape, each constituted by a pair of mirror-symmetrical coplanar strips defining its contour, the front upright being framed by an annular dial swept by the minute and hour hands; the gears of the clockwork are visible from all sides. The supporting structure with the dial is mounted on a platform carried by two columns above a base which contains the motor, its power supply and a tone generator controlled by the clockwork to emit acoustic time signals on the hour and possibly also on the half and quarter hours; a torsion pendulum without time-keeping function is suspended between the columns. Most of the shafts of the clockwork lie in a vertical plane of symmetry also containing the axis of the nested hour, minute and seconds shafts disposed at the center of the dial ring.

Abstract: An alarm clock has a cambered leaf spring traversed by a nest of clock-hand shafts projecting from a mounting plate designed as a printed-circuit board. The leaf spring is supported at opposite ends by posts rising from the mounting plate and is limitedly swingable about a centerline parallel to that plate and perpendicular to the axis of the nested shafts. A toothed control disk centered on the same axis, with a hub carrying an alarm hand, is axially shiftable under pressure of the cambered leaf spring upon alignment of a tooth on that disk with a notch in an adjoining hour wheel; two diametrically opposite metallic contacts formed by lateral tongues on that spring then engage respective countercontacts on the mounting plate to close a circuit for the emission of an acoustic alarm signal.

Abstract: A battery-operated watch or clock has a knob which is axially shiftable been a first terminal position recessed in a rear housing wall and a second terminal position projecting therefrom. In the recessed position, in which the knob is manually rotatable upon removal of a battery cover surrounding same, its rotation resets both the minute and hour hands of the timepiece to enable its adjustment, especially upon a replacement of a spent battery. In the projecting position, such rotation only displaces the hour hand to facilitate a changeover between standard and daylight-saving time or an adjustment to a different time zone.

Abstract: A device for setting the time of actuation of a buzzer or other signal generator in an alarm clock comprises a flexible stem of a manually operable knob, rotatably journaled in two mounting plates, which carries a pinion normally engaging gear teeth of a disk freely rotatable about the hour shaft of the clockwork, the disk being under axial spring pressure urging it against an adjacent hour wheel which has one or more cutouts adapted to receive respective sawtooth-shaped cams on a confronting disk face when the wheel reaches the selected angular position. The user may turn the knob in either direction to advance or delay the selected time setting, except that any delay of 12 hours or more from the time of resetting is prevented by the interengagement of a steep cam flank with an edge of the associated cutout. If the user neverless turns the knob beyond that limit, the stem yields laterally and disengages its pinion from the disk teeth to obviate any damage to the mechanism.

Abstract: An electronic clock emitting half-hourly time signals corresponding to sh' bells comprises an electromagnetic striker driven by a crystal-controlled oscillator via a multistage binary frequency divider whose last several stages, with the exception of the penultimate stage, have outputs interconnected by a logical coincidence gate to generate a succession of output pulses occurring in pairs during the first half of every cycle of a square wave emitted by the final stage. This square wave steps a motor which drives an associated clockwork entraining a multibank rotary switch and alternately closing, for short periods on the full hour and on the half hour, respective contacts which transmit the square wave to a control circuit including an electronic pulse counter.

Abstract: A rotary pendulum without time-keeping function, comprising an inertial body suspended from a clockwork housing of a preferably electronically driven timepiece through the intermediary of an elongate torsion spring, is periodically accelerated by the impact between a vane on the spring and radial camming teeth of an impeller wheel frictionally entrained on a horizontal seconds shaft of the timepiece via a spiral spring anchored to that shaft. The vane, near the upper end of the torsion spring, oscillates only through a half-cycle limited on the return swing by an abutment on the clockwork housing. The inertial body is secured to a latch member at the lower end of the torsion with the aid of a coupling ring on which a drag ring is rotatably mounted, the latter carrying a radial fin engageable with a fixed stop pin as well as with a peripheral lug on the coupling ring whereby the body can turn through almost two full revolutions before being positively arrested.

Abstract: An electronic clock emitting half-hourly time signals corresponding to the strokes of ships' bells comprises an electromagnetic striker driven by a normally blocked astable multivibrator whenever the closure of contacts operated by an associated clockwork, stepped by a crystal-controlled square-wave generator, coincides with a half-circle of predetermined polarity of the generated square wave. The multivibrator has a period of approximately 3/4 the duration of a half-circle of the square wave whereby not more than two pulses energizing the striker mechanism can be emitted by it during an unblocking half-circle so that strokes occurring at the ends of a second, third and fourth hour of a four-hour watch will appear in distinct pairs while those on the preceding half-hours will form one or more pairs followed by a single stroke after a larger time interval.

Abstract: A signal-generating system for a striker clock comprises a clockwork-driven hour disk (12) having conductor tracks which coact with respective contact springs of an hour switch (13) whose pattern of energization changes from one quarter hour to the next, thereby calling forth different numerical values which are stored in a first read-only memory (18) and determine the number of strikes to be emitted in any 15-minute interval when a switch (8) coupled with the minute shaft of the clock is briefly closed. A flip-flop (23) set upon such closure starts a periodically pulsed binary counter (25) which works into a comparator (20) also receiving the numerical value read out from the first memory (18); when the count matches that value, the comparator resets the flip-flop and the counter. The reading of the counter is further transmitted to a decoder (30) addressing a second read-only memory (31) which actuates selected sound emitters (37a-37f) the requisite number of times.

Abstract: An alarm clock has a clockwork which drives a 12-hour display and a waking contact which is settable over a 12-hour range. The contact works into a mono-flop or flip-flop to generate a signal in each successive 12-hour cycle at the time set by the contact and this signal is applied to a flip-flop which can energize a signal generator via circuitry ensuring the application of only one signal from the timing flip-flop during each 24-hour period.

Abstract: A programmer for a household appliance, such as a washing machine or a dishwasher, comprises a disk-shaped carrier 41 and a position indicator 43 synchronized therewith, the indicator working into a comparator 36 also receiving a signal pattern from a read-only memory 35 addressed by a counter 30 which advances under the control of a timing circuit. The latter comprises a frequency divider 20, driven by alternating current from a utility network, certain of whose stages work into a set of AND gates 22-24 that are unblocked by signals read out from the memory in various program phases. The incrementation of the program may be temporarily inhibited by additional logical circuitry 80-83 responsive to external parametric conditions, such as the temperature of the liquid level in the controlled appliance. Unwanted phases of a maximum program recorded on the program carrier 41 may be skipped under the control of a plug-in key card 64 or a selector switch 95.

Abstract: A first contact arm on the minute shaft of a clockwork switches, once every 0 minutes, the mode of energization of an electronic gating circuit with two sections in the inputs of an inverting anticoincidence (NOXOR) gate working into a setting input of a flip-flop which controls the driving circuit of a striking mechanism, each section having two parallel branches of relatively inverting character and with a relative phase delay whereby any switchover results in a brief de-energization of that setting input and thus in a setting of the flip-flop. A pulse generator, included in or energized by the driving circuit, works into a stepping input of a binary pulse counter provided with four output leads whose pattern of energization represents the numerical values from 1 through 12.

Abstract: An electric clock having clockwork is provided with a signaling arrangement hich automatically resets for operation of an alarm or waking signal and does not require resetting each day by the user. Resetting is accomplished by a contact device which switches on once during each twenty four hour period at a preselected hour corresponding to the hour at which the alarm is to begin. A second contact device switches on for a brief period during each hour and triggers a bistable multivibrator which is automatically reset each hour. The output of the bistable device is applied to a logic circuit whose other input derives from a third contact device setting the minute at which the alarm is to be initiated.

Abstract: A timepiece with an electrodynamically controlled clockwork has a torsion ndulum intermittently coupled through a gear train with the clockwork for the maintenance of its oscillations. The gear train includes a first pinion mounted on a weighted rocker tending to hold it in mesh with a driving gear actuated by the clockwork; the torsion spring of the pendulum carries near its suspension point a horizontal spur receivable in a slot of a stationary mounting member so as to come periodically to rest on a slot edge, this spur being engageable in its arrested position by a hump on a cam disk entrained by a second pinion which meshes with the first pinion and decouples the latter from the associated gear against the countervailing force of the rocker weight as long as the spur is immobilized. When the spur-biasing force of the torsion spring changes direction, the gear train is re-established and the spur receives an impetus from the engaging hump as it moves away from the arresting slot edge.

Abstract: A timepiece with an electrodynamically controlled clockwork has a torsion ndulum intermittently coupled through a gear train with the clockwork for the maintenance of its oscillations. The gear train includes a first pinion mounted on a weighted rocker tending to hold it in mesh with a driving gear actuated by the clockwork; the torsion spring of the pendulum carries near its suspension point a horizontal spur receivable in a slot of a stationary mounting member so as to come periodically to rest on a slot edge, this spur being engageable in its arrested position by a hump on a cam disk entrained by a second pinion which meshes with the first pinion and decouples the latter from the associated gear against the countervailing force of the rocker weight as long as the spur is immobilized. When the spur-biasing force of the torsion spring changes direction, the gear train is re-established and the spur receives an impetus from the engaging hump as it moves away from the arresting slot edge.