Ok, here are a few clock ideas:

* RGB 2 digits 7 segments clock like described at http://www.jave.de/blog2/?p=36

* Base 8 mode, both regular HH:MM:SS mode and counting the seconds since midnight, using "▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█" for the digits from 0 to 7

* Binary modes (decimal encoded, regular binary, unix time, graycode variatiations etc) using using these characters for each 4 bits: ╵ ╶ └ ╷ │ ┌ ├ ╴┘ ─ ┴ ┐┤┬ ┼ (that is 0001 to 1111 in regular binary, for 0000 use an empty space of the same width)

* Same as the previous, but using these characters instead: ▘ ▝ ▀ ▖ ▋ ▞ ▛ ▗ ▚ ▐ ▜ ▄ ▙ █ (same deal with 0000)

* Like the 2 before this, but for each 8 bits, using the characters from the braille pattern block of Unicode; but also with an option for using the dot order based on the braille dot order or the more intuitive left-to-right/top-to-bottom order, and an option for displaying the time as it would be written in braille.

* This one i'm not sure if it would work, binary encoded as sum of sines, displayed as a wavy (or flat for 00000....) horizontal line, when the first bit is 1 the line will contain the curve for sine(x*(PI*(2^(1-1))), if the second bit is 1 the line will contain the curve for sine(x*(PI*(2^(2-1))), with the third being 1 you add the curve for sine(x*(PI*(2^(3-1))) and so on, with x going from -1.0 to 1.0 with as many steps as there are pixels in the set width for the clock; basiclyeach bit is twice the frequency of the previous bit with the exception of the very first that has the frequency of once per cycle. With this one you can make regular binary seconds since midnight and perhaps unix time too if there are enough pixels, and gray code variations. Perhaps when needing more bits, you could go RGB, drawing the wavy .ines additivelly on a black background, aplitting the bits evenlly over the 3 color components, or 5 (24 is 11000) for red, 6 (60 is 111100) for green and 6 for blue for a decimal encoded mode.


edit: regarding the wavy line, after ploting each line you should "normalize" the Y axis otherwise the biggest peaks and valleys will go beyond the height avaiable.

For the binnary modes above, you can also offer an RGB copositing mode option as well, and for all the RGB modes (including the 7-elements clock one) you could also offer a reverse mode (works the same but you subtract R,G and B from a white background instead of adding to a black one)