Geochron (original) (raw)
Geochron, Inc. is an American company founded in 1965 by James Kilburg, an inventor from Luxembourg. It is also the name of their flagship product, the Geochron Global Time Indicator. The Geochron was the first world clock to display day and night on a world map, showing the familiar "bell curve" of light and darkness. The Geochron employs an intricate analog clockwork mechanism for its display, that shows the month, date, day of the week, hours and minutes, the areas of the world currently experiencing day and night, and the meridian passage of the sun. The main display is dominated by a world map, with time zones prominently indicated. At the top of the map are arrows corresponding to each time zone. As each day progresses, the map is scrolled from left to right by gear mechanisms, and t
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| dbo:abstract | Geochron, Inc. is an American company founded in 1965 by James Kilburg, an inventor from Luxembourg. It is also the name of their flagship product, the Geochron Global Time Indicator. The Geochron was the first world clock to display day and night on a world map, showing the familiar "bell curve" of light and darkness. The Geochron employs an intricate analog clockwork mechanism for its display, that shows the month, date, day of the week, hours and minutes, the areas of the world currently experiencing day and night, and the meridian passage of the sun. The main display is dominated by a world map, with time zones prominently indicated. At the top of the map are arrows corresponding to each time zone. As each day progresses, the map is scrolled from left to right by gear mechanisms, and the arrows for each time zone shift their positions relative to a stationary band fixed at the top that has a horizontal series of numbers representing hours. The viewer may read the time by seeing what number his time zone's arrow is currently pointing to. The map is backlit, and a mechanism behind the map defines well-lit and shaded areas that are also stationary relative to the movement of the map. In this way, as time progresses, different areas are shown to be experiencing daytime and night. The center of the lit area lines up with the 12 noon on the stationary time strip. There is also a day-and-month readout below the map, and a minutes readout above. Each Geochron is assembled upon demand, with prices starting at above $1,500. President Ronald Reagan presented a Geochron to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 as an "example of American ingenuity." In the mid-1980s, the company was selling about 75 clocks per month, increasing to around 200 per month during the holiday season. It had 16 employees in 1987. The Hubble Space Telescope control center at Goddard Space Flight Center uses a Geochron in its day-to-day operations. The European Space Agency displays a Geochron in their command center. The Smithsonian Institution has called the Geochron the "last significant contribution in timekeeping." The world clock was featured in motion pictures such as Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and Three Days of the Condor. Founder James Kilburg died in 1985. His son, James M. Kilburg, had purchased one-third of the company from his father a short time earlier. Bob Williamson acquired the other two-thirds of the company, and he and the younger Kilburg became partners in managing the business. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, in 2007 Geochron Enterprises was sold and moved to Oregon City, Oregon, and became Geochron, Inc. It was sold again in 2015, to Patrick Bolan. The Geochron World Clock has been updated under new management to include new mapsets, lighting options, and new magnetic stepper motors. Geochron World Clocks are still built and restored by hand and manufactured at a small machine shop in Oregon City. In September 2019, the company announced that it was preparing to move from Oregon City to Estacada, Oregon. In 2018, Geochron released an electronic version of its mechanical clock, optimized for 4K resolution displays. It includes many features that were unavailable prior to the internet, including satellite tracking, and demographic layers above different mapsets. All Geochron mapsets are in a Mercator Projection. As of October 2019, the company continues to sell the mechanical version, in addition to the digital version. (en) |
| dbo:foundingYear | 1965-01-01 (xsd:gYear) |
| dbo:headquarter | dbr:Estacada,_Oregon |
| dbo:thumbnail | wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Geochron_20180207_at_office.jpg?width=300 |
| dbo:wikiPageExternalLink | http://www.geochron.com |
| dbo:wikiPageID | 2187854 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageLength | 5680 (xsd:nonNegativeInteger) |
| dbo:wikiPageRevisionID | 1006295009 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageWikiLink | dbr:Ronald_Reagan dbc:Clocks dbr:Patriot_Games_(film) dbr:Day dbr:Internet dbr:Night dbr:Christmas_and_holiday_season dbr:Clear_and_Present_Danger_(film) dbr:Luxembourg dbr:Smithsonian_Institution dbr:Stepper_motor dbr:Time_zone dbc:American_companies_established_in_1965 dbc:Manufacturing_companies_established_in_1965 dbr:Three_Days_of_the_Condor dbc:Manufacturing_companies_based_in_Oregon dbr:Estacada,_Oregon dbr:Noon dbc:Clock_brands dbr:The_Hunt_for_Red_October_(film) dbr:Sun dbr:Mercator_projection dbr:Mikhail_Gorbachev dbr:Oregon_City,_Oregon dbr:Map dbr:World_clock dbr:File:Geochron_20180207_at_office.jpg |
| dbp:founded | 1965 (xsd:integer) |
| dbp:founder | James Kilburg (en) |
| dbp:hqLocation | dbr:Estacada,_Oregon |
| dbp:hqLocationCountry | U.S. (en) |
| dbp:name | Geochron (en) |
| dbp:products | Geochron Global Time Indicator (en) |
| dbp:wikiPageUsesTemplate | dbt:Cite_web dbt:Infobox_company dbt:More_references dbt:Reflist |
| dct:subject | dbc:Clocks dbc:American_companies_established_in_1965 dbc:Manufacturing_companies_established_in_1965 dbc:Manufacturing_companies_based_in_Oregon dbc:Clock_brands |
| rdf:type | owl:Thing dbo:Company schema:Organization dul:Agent dul:SocialPerson dbo:Agent wikidata:Q24229398 wikidata:Q43229 wikidata:Q4830453 yago:WikicatClocks yago:Artifact100021939 yago:Clock103046257 yago:Device103183080 yago:Instrument103574816 yago:Instrumentality103575240 yago:MeasuringInstrument103733925 yago:Object100002684 yago:PhysicalEntity100001930 dbo:Organisation yago:Timepiece104437953 yago:Whole100003553 |
| rdfs:comment | Geochron, Inc. is an American company founded in 1965 by James Kilburg, an inventor from Luxembourg. It is also the name of their flagship product, the Geochron Global Time Indicator. The Geochron was the first world clock to display day and night on a world map, showing the familiar "bell curve" of light and darkness. The Geochron employs an intricate analog clockwork mechanism for its display, that shows the month, date, day of the week, hours and minutes, the areas of the world currently experiencing day and night, and the meridian passage of the sun. The main display is dominated by a world map, with time zones prominently indicated. At the top of the map are arrows corresponding to each time zone. As each day progresses, the map is scrolled from left to right by gear mechanisms, and t (en) |
| rdfs:label | Geochron (en) |
| owl:sameAs | freebase:Geochron yago-res:Geochron wikidata:Geochron https://global.dbpedia.org/id/4kvhR |
| prov:wasDerivedFrom | wikipedia-en:Geochron?oldid=1006295009&ns=0 |
| foaf:depiction | wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Geochron_20180207_at_office.jpg |
| foaf:homepage | http://www.geochron.com |
| foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf | wikipedia-en:Geochron |
| foaf:name | Geochron (en) |
| is dbo:wikiPageWikiLink of | dbr:San_Carlos,_California dbr:Newark_Academy dbr:World_clock |
| is foaf:primaryTopic of | wikipedia-en:Geochron |
