Comment by hannibalhorn

I wasn't sure what you were talking about, with respect to the other side of the story, but after searching ran across this article:

http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engin...

Not sure how I missed it, but if anyone else did as well, it really looks like he just moved the guts of an old clock into a new casing. He didn't really design any circuitry at all.