What was the first package for typesetting commutative diagrams in Latex and when was it made available? 


Question: Around the Clock
Answer: I think that the main problem here is the characteristic deformations of the numbers  due to the square clock.

Here is my attempt to reproduce the shape of the "XI" in the first square clock !

First some initialisation :

num = Text[ Style["XI", FontFamily -&gt; "Times New Roman", FontWeight -&gt; Bold, FontSize -&gt; 120]];
gnum = Rasterize[num, RasterSize -&gt; 400];


then my interactive tool :

Manipulate[FindGeometricTransform[{{0, 0}, {1, 0}, {1, 1}, {0, 1}}, 
{{c1, 0}, {c2, 0}, {c3, h}, {c4, h}}, TransformationClass -&gt; "Perspective"] //
 ImageTransformation[gnum, #[[2]], 300, Padding -&gt; padcolor] &amp;,
 {{c1,0.346}, 0., 0.9}, {{c2, 0.882}, 0.50, 1}, {{c3, 0.75}, 0., 1}, {{c4, 0}, 0.0, 1}, 
{{h, 0.875}, -1, 2}, {padcolor, {0, 1}}]




You can play with the slider to change the shape.

You just need to modify the initialisation to try with some other number.