The year was 1972 in Wheeling WV. at Triadelphia High School. I salvaged a transformer out of an old tube tester that I stripped for parts and I had it in a bag on top of my locker. Some stupid teacher freaked out and called it in that there was a bomb in the building. The school was evacuated and the fire department determined it was not a bomb.

Unlike today I wasn’t arrested because the teacher had made a mistake. They only arrested people back then who made real bombs. And I’m not a Muslim just to make the point that this happens to white Jewish kids too. The problem is that often students that are much smarter than teachers struggle in school. So Ahmed Mohamed – I feel your pain for being arrested for building a clock.

If this happened today I probably would have been arrested too. School is all about what’s good for the teachers and students are just an prop to get more school funding. If you took a smart kid who wants to learn and gave him/her a computer and let them self educate watching YouTube they would get a far better education than they are getting in schools.

The above picture is me in 1973 winning a prize at a science fair. The device is a computer I designed made from pin ball machine relays that figured out the day of the week of any date. And I designed it from scratch with no education in electronics.



  1. Mike says:

    What is the statute of limitations on ‘movie bomb looking’ clocks?
    Don’t be so sure you won’t get a visit from Homeland Defense.

    • noname says:

      Once a radicalized terrorist always a radicalized terrorist!

      Shaving is just your cover!

      Homeland Security, Tesla and Apple have combined a Top Secrete Tesla Model S and Apple Watch technology to create a time machine, programing it to go back in time and stop Microsoft, 911, terrorist and bring back Steve Jobs!

      Elon Musk has created your clone Marc and next ride you take in a Tesla Motor car, your clone will replace and dispose of you and be a total raving Tesla Fan!

      Elon Musk didn’t like it when you complained about crashing their car!

      • NewFormatSux says:

        > your clone will replace and dispose of you and be a total raving Tesla Fan!

        How would we tell the difference?

  2. Thomas65c02 says:

    And, I assume you’ve suffered with PTSD ever since.

  3. spsffan says:

    Well, sure Marc, but your name wasn’t Mohammad!
    Or, since this was 1972, insert generic Russian surname.

  4. NewFormatSux says:

    And here I was praising this site for not falling for the media story. Marc he didn’t build a clock. He took the inside of a working clock and put in a suitcase looking pencil box to make it look like a bomb.

    • jpfitz says:

      NFS you hit the nail on the head. I thought we were all in agreement that Clockmed spoofed almost EVERYONE.

  5. NewFormatSux says:

    Cmon Marc, even Bobbo wouldn’t fall for that story.

  6. Blog Whisperer says:

    “So Ahmed Mohamed – I feel your pain for being arrested for building a clock.”

    HE DIDN’T BUILD A CLOCK.

  7. dave m brewer says:

    Bomb them… bomb them… bomb them!

    “We need to kill them and bomb them again.”

  8. jpfitz says:

    Marc, you were definitely a nerd. Not dissing you. I think those eyeglass frames would be stylish today, unfortunately. Some people wants to looks smarter with the retro big frames of today. Nice idea and project.

  9. jpfitz says:

    Now that Marc brought up tube testers, who here remembers opening the back of the tv and removing tubes? Then I’d ride my bike down to radio shack and check for the bad tube. Wow, I’m old.
    Well in I was only 11 or 12 and scared out of my wits of the power supply even when unplugged.

    • Lickety Spit says:

      Your father didn’t make you take the tubes to the store until he first LICKED the pins on each one and put them back in.

      … Just in case there was only a bad connection!

      • jpfitz says:

        I don’t remember the details about treating the prongs, but my Dad worked for Western Electric as a five man doing installations into The Telephone company’s buildings. Signal Corp Vet.

        My experience with learning included holding a 110v white live wire then flicking the top of my index finger on the black(death) wire. Instant respect for electricity and wiring.

        Tuning a 65 dodge station wagon and using a matchbook cover as the gap distance for the distributor contacts.

        Time flies, so, advise that was wise and I didn’t hear was…get going if you’re young.

      • jpfitz says:

        Apologies, Marc. Off topic. Old Men with fond memories, maybe some not so fond of being the wiz at fixing stuff. Here’s some pics of the tv sets from our youth.

        http://boxcarcabin.com/vintagetvs.htm

    • McCullough says:

      Then you just might be old enough to remember removing the flyback transformer on a CRT.

      They named that part aptly.

      • Mr Diesel - No more bush in the White House, Hillary's or Jeb says:

        If I could only remember how times I was shocked by the high voltage on TV sets back when I worked in a TV repair shop back in the 60s as my first real job.

        I designed my first transmitter using a 6L6.

        • McCullough says:

          Replaced quite a few CRT’s in Macs, I hated them then as I do now.

          We gave the newbies the job of disconnecting and discharging the flyback transformer. 10 kV volts of good times.

      • jpfitz says:

        Flyback is right, injury was from uncontrollable flails of the body.

        I was too young and had the fear of God/death drummed into me that the high-voltage transformer was the grim reaper. I was amazed that the transformer and other components could still have voltage.

        I’ve been zapped by 110v about seven time, and twice on 220v, 220v crawled down the wire to my hand, tingling makes you move your hand real quick. I’m not bragging, I was to blame most of the zaps.

      • jpfitz says:

        Yea, yea, wait…I do remember removing the shield with the dreaded 10kv transformer. I was a kid. I had to tell my sisters and Mom to all be quiet, any loud noise might make me slip and zaparoo.

    • Marc Perkel says:

      A tube tester transformer was quite a find at the time. It had about 30 taps for different voltages used by all kinds of tubes.

      • Child of a lesser god says:

        New new threat…”Children from three years up were playing on the street, protected by the computer surveillance system and prevented by barriers from descending to the automotive level. Bullying and teasing of younger and weaker children was still somewhat of a problem. Most stores were open 24 hours unmanned and had converted to the customer identification system. Customers would take objects from the counters and shelves right out of the store. As a customer left the store, he or she would hear, “Thank you Ms. Jones. That was $152.31 charged to your Bank of America account.” The few customers whose principles made them refuse identification would be recognized as such and receive remote human attention, not necessarily instantly.

        People on the street quickly noticed R781 carrying Travis and were startled. Robots were programmed to have nothing to do with babies, and R781’s abnormal appearance was disturbing.

        “That really weird robot has kidnapped a baby. Call the police.””

        http://formal.stanford.edu/jmc/robotandbaby.pdf

  10. pedro says:

    Why am I not surprised about the fact that you feel identified with a phony?

    • NewFormatSux says:

      Clock gutting Muslim, Hillary Clinton, Felon Musk, it all makes sense.

      • jpfitz says:

        Marc’s one of them Californiaee pinko liberals. Maybe he’s a commie.

        MAYbe, Marc was upset at being told his project was a b0mb, at around the age of fifteen. Top the day off with, the fire department on scene, and an evacuation of your school, all because of YOU.

        Being arrested for what Clockmed “invented” is stupid, especially since our LEO people are trained to prevent any future terrorist attack, and to not drag a brown kid to jail with cameras rolling.

        Oy, the shitty propaganda spewed in all directions is so transparent.

        • NewFormatSux says:

          Marc probably enjoyed having the school evacuated because of him.

  11. Lemming Number 20592467 says:

    There’s a very BIG difference between building a clock and just stuffing parts of a clock into a box. The difference is education and creativity — the very things today’s kids will never have, thanks to “progressive” values.

    And if you want to talk about school terror, please note the race of nearly all the kids who’ve wigged out at school where it ended in a blood bath — they’re almost ALL white! Which has me wondering what race the teacher was.

    All in all, this is just so stupid on so many levels. Racism may have had a roll but then, WHO’S responsible for this mind poisoning? Think about it! Do YOU change where you walk when you see someone of a different race walking down the street towards you? How about if there are two or three adolescent kids of your own race walking towards you? I’m pretty sure you’d at least think about it. See the Point?!

    Don’t judge anyone here too harshly here — they’re only the players/victims in a much bigger, more ugly game that would prefer to have us all looking the same and walk in lock-step lemming-like precision. (I call these lemmings “party mongers” since they ALL believe in one and only one political party.)

  12. fishguy says:

    My son would not STAY in school. Ran away, stole shit, broke into cars and homes. Totally out of control. Spent a year in “juvie”. Drugs, girls, cops, holy shit!

    He is now a Blacksmith. He can fix anything and has a very low tolerance level for BS. Understands machinery on a very intuitive level and is a natural genius.

    I love him and think I did a good job.

    • jpfitz says:

      Good on you and your son. Working with a raw piece of metal and transforming it into something substantial and useful takes a mechanical genius that people are born with, this type of intellect can’t be taught successfully.

      Ya know, some are all thumbs.

  13. ± says:

    Marc, you’re obviously too smart and informed to be positing that he built a clock re this way-past-breaking-story. Yet you do. i.e. “So Ahmed Mohamed – I feel your pain for being arrested for building a clock.”

    Without him having built a clock from scratch, the narrative collapses. So why did you post your trash?

    1) You missed the story and have no clue that he really didn’t ‘build a clock’.

    2) You really do believe he built a clock in spite of information to the contrary.

    3) You posted a lie troll to puff up dvorak.org

    4) This is purely a self-aggrandizing post (a chance to parade your accomplishments), with the truth as a victim.

    5) another option I missed

    Which is it?

    • pedro says:

      3 and 4

    • Marc Perkel says:

      The point is that teachers are cops are often just stupid people and it has nothing to do with his religion.

      • Ah_Yea says:

        Not at all. If my kid was sitting next to him, and it turned out to be a bomb…

        It was irresponsible for the school to NOT pull him aside when he was acting suspiciously much sooner.

        For more on this:
        http://youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=aGit-XltUB4
        and listen to mark cuban. It becomes obvious what really was going on.

      • jpfitz says:

        It’s all about the stereotype, the racial profiling and preconceived notions. If this was performed in Riyadh city the issue would be the poor project. This was in Texas, hence automatically it’s a b0mb.

  14. NewFormatSux says:

    ‘Accused of bringing a bomb to school’

    That girl looks fine. She should have been the one accused.

  15. Child of a lesser god says:

    “That’s Oliver Crangle, a dealer in petulance and poison. He’s rather arbitrarily chosen four o’clock as his personal Götterdämmerung, and we are about to watch the metamorphosis of a twisted fanatic, poisoned by the gangrene of prejudice, to the status of an avenging angel, upright and omniscient, dedicated and fearsome. Whatever your clocks say, it’s four o’clock, and wherever you are it happens to be the Twilight Zone.”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_O'Clock

  16. Rejected By Aliens says:

    Dear Ahmed Mohamed,

    Post 9/11, I feel your pain just for being named “Ahmed Mohamed” in the U.S.A…. 😉

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_(name)

  17. ken p says:

    Or maybe you were not looking for a scene and answered their questions properly and without an attitude so it gave them no reason to call the cops.

  18. NewFormatSux says:

    Hey Marc, rather than publicizing the lies told by a Muslim who wants to whine, how about focusing on your guy Lessig’s complaint that the Dems won’t let him into the debates?

  19. Perry says:

    My sister was going to school that year a few miles down the road at Mt De Chanel.

  20. LibertyLover says:

    I built a clock (really built) when I was in 9th grade out of 555 timers and stepper ICs from a design found in the old TTL Cookbook. Got an A. No one called the cops. Didn’t win the science fair though because I wasn’t as well versed on the terminology as the judges would have liked.

    I’ll admit I was taken in with the story too, and then really pissed off when I found out the truth. Little fucker made me feel sorry for him.


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