How does the "Debt Clock" get the proper debt to display? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Beamin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 10:04:16 pm
content: Have you ever seen these things its a big bill board installed by some right wing person to scare people into thinking US fed debt is bad. There is one in NYC and another on your way into Boston. Maybe more. I was wondering how it actually works, do they just put in a starting number and have it increase by so much per day or is it remotely programmable, where it is told periodically so it can sync it self up. They were built before the time of wide spread cell phones, they had car and analog bag phones (3 watt cell phone would rule running 800MHz think of the range)

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2021, 10:59:31 pm
content: I think that they would be more worried about political impact than accuracy... I would bet it is just an rough approximation based on trend.Maybe a 'pager' message every now and then to sync?Do people know what pagers are/were any more?

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 12:00:50 am
content: I would bet serious money that they are just extrapolations based on the previous years data. The real data takes a long time to come out. I would also bet that the extrapolation is done locally, is a simple constant times time and the display is rarely updated.The political content of the message does not require even single digit precision, no matter which side of the debate you are on.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 12:12:39 am
content: It's an approximation, but the order of magnitude and rate of change are accurate enough to get the point across.There are also "world population clock" sites... which are much the same.Then there's the scam sites with "X people have bought this product" counters that are clearly just randomly generated and incremented entirely by client-side JavaScript...

author: ledtester
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 12:16:53 am
content: Wikipedia says this about the first billboard:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Debt_Clock#First_clockQuote

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 03:30:10 pm
content: Quote from: Beamin on April 28, 2021, 10:04:16 pmWell, a good old phone line and a modem will do just fine to update a number in a clock. You don't need wireless communication for that. After all the clock needs power so it takes very little effort to run a phone line in parallel.

author: joseph nicholas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2021, 11:35:38 am
content: The debt clock can still be seen and works. It was moved to a dark passage around mid town NYC fromits prominent location across from Bryant Park, presumably for political reasons since NY is a solidly blue state.

author: mikerj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2021, 07:04:01 am
content: Quote from: Beamin on April 28, 2021, 10:04:16 pmBecause everyone on the left thinks that the more debt a country has the better, right? Or is that another stupid generalisation?

author: W-B_LiteBrite
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 07, 2023, 01:08:37 am
content: The original debt clock's 5 x 7 dot matrix numbering appeared to have come from Time-O-Matic (known today as Watchfire Signs LLC). They and American Sign & Indicator both lay claim to inventing the alternating time and temperature display - but that would be for another thread in this department.