[ericbarrett]

My mid-1980s digital alarm clock came with a full schematic. Can you imagine that today?

[zozbot234]

Actually, yes I could imagine that quite easily. Just buy "hackable" products which do that as a matter of course. A digital multi-purpose device with an alarm-clock form factor would not even be especially complicated to make.

[ericbarrett]

That stuff is really cool, but this was a bottom-of-the-shelf model from K-Mart.

Of course nowadays something that simple could be a chip the size of a rice grain, power included. So that's something :)