A tiny CLOCK WITH A retro display

After having ported Contiki to his TI Launchpad platform, [Marcus] was eager to do something with it. He as a result built a basic clock with a vintage HPDL-1414 “smart four-character 16-segment alphanumeric display” and a msp430g2553.

The result that you can see above is powered over USB, includes a 3.3V LDO linear voltage regulator as well as a button, a LED, a crystal, and several passive components. luckily enough, the 5V-powered HPDL-1414 display accepts 3.3V logic at its inputs, avoiding the need for level translators.

The clock program is running on the ported Contiki 2.6 that you can find on his Github repository. [Marcus] is considering using a vibration motor to buzz every 20 minutes during work hours as a tip for the 20-20-20 policy to battle eye fatigue: every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. A video of the system in action is embedded after the break.