Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
29,097
27,406
So, I've recently become interested in Nixie clocks, although I've thought they were cool for a while. Fun fact, there is a Nixie clock on Wednesday Addams desk in the Netflix show.

Anyway, I was looking for something along the lines of Simple Floating Clock and found Nixie Clock 1.64.

This is an app that puts a small Nixie Clock on your desktop. Its also on Github, but the website below has direct download links. Linux, Windows, Mac. And guess what? There are PowerPC versions back to Panther.


You have a number of options as to how the clock is presented (right click on the clock) and you can place it anywhere on your desktop.

Two downsides, one of which I have mitigated. First, it's an app. But unlike Simple Floating Clock there is no option to remove it from your dock or the app switcher. You can use Dock Dodger (another app that is Intel/PowerPC) to remove it from the switcher and the dock if you like.

Second, the background is black. Better to show up the clock I know, but again, unlike Simple Floating Clock you cannot make the background transparent. So, if you have white or color in your desktop backgrounds you will see the black bar.

2022-12-17 13.46.00.jpg

Dock Dodger by the way, can only be found on the internet wayback machine. Fogginnoggin is no more. Surprisingly though, since the app is universal, it still works on Mojave on my 2009 Mini.
 
Last edited:

galgot

macrumors 6502
May 28, 2015
486
898
Thanks for this. had to check what is a Nixie Clock btw :)

I have GeekTool displaying time on some of my Macs Desktop, can display in any fonts.
Of course to imitate a Nixie clock one would have to make it display the numbers in color, maybe with a script that would display pngs ?...
 
  • Like
Reactions: eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
29,097
27,406
Thanks for this. had to check what is a Nixie Clock btw :)

I have GeekTool displaying time on some of my Macs Desktop, can display in any fonts.
Of course to imitate a Nixie clock one would have to make it display the numbers in color, maybe with a script that would display pngs ?...
Yeah, I'm sure that could be done with Geektool. What I usually do with that is do a search for a shell script and then modify it to what I need. Then you just tell Geektool to use the script.

I actually found a GT script years ago that does a word clock. So, totally possible. Simple Floating Clock was just easier because it has a GUI that allows you to change how it's displayed. But it never had a Nixie Clock option.

PS. I believe it's the rise in popularity of Steampunk that has made Nixie Clocks popular (again). At the very least that's where I am used to seeing them during Google searches for other things.
 
Last edited:

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
29,097
27,406
OK, so a Nixie clock on your desktop is one thing and it's cool. But I've also been searching for a screensaver…and I found one.


The link above is so you can see what the clock does. If you have a system on Yosemite, have at it. Otherwise, at least with Mojave, you can forget it. It doesn't work.

But, they do have a link to an older version: https://www.wurst-wasser.net/wiki/i..._Not_Longer_Supported#NixieClock_Screen_Saver

This one was designed for 10.7 Lion. But it does work in 10.6 Snow Leopard.

2022-12-30 19.08.40.jpg

It MIGHT work on 10.5. Maybe someone might want to try it.
 
  • Love
  • Like
Reactions: galgot and philgxxd

orionquest

Suspended
Mar 16, 2022
871
789
The Great White North
Interesting thread. But I don't like the look of the Nixie clock, or at least the version displayed here. I do like what @Ben J. has going on. This is more to my utilitary ways. I use something similar an old app called QuartzClock. Set it nice and large on one of my monitors so I can see it across the room if needed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
29,097
27,406
Interesting thread. But I don't like the look of the Nixie clock, or at least the version displayed here. I do like what @Ben J. has going on. This is more to my utilitary ways. I use something similar an old app called QuartzClock. Set it nice and large on one of my monitors so I can see it across the room if needed.
I use Fliqlo on all my Macs screensavers. Well, except for the one laptop above now.

In the short time I've been looking at Nixie clocks it's apparent that (like many things) there are good clocks and there are bad clocks. So far, much of what is available for the Mac itself seems to be of lesser quality. If I had choices I'd move on to something else.

It's surprising, considering the amount and types of physical Nixie clocks that not much is available for actual computers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: orionquest

galgot

macrumors 6502
May 28, 2015
486
898
Years ago I played with QuartzComposer to make my own clock screensaver. Started with modifying one existing .qtz screensaver called MinimalClock. Found some QuartzComposer plugins to display shell cmd lines results.
Pretty fun.
I still have the PPC version running on my MacMini G4 server, looks like this :
Capture d’écran 2022-12-31 à 22.01.03.png
Too bad they dropped QuartzComposer, could do lots of cool stuff with this .

My favorite Screensaver wasn't a clock though, was Joe Mackenzie's screensaver HAL9000, it was just so beautiful.
Still have the original Screensaver file, but was done in Flash, so don't work now :/
Though can find Hires recordings of the thing on YT :
So can be used fullscreen as Screensaver. But still would love to be able to use the original one...
Remember listening to the proper music while just watching the screensaver :

Happy New Year btw :)
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.