The 10,000 Year Clock Design Principals

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In the new year edition of the Clearleft newsletter, Jeremy Keith linked to the design principals Danny Hillis thought about while considering a clock that would work for 10,000 years.

Here’s part of that page, satisfyingly displayed as a <dl>:

Longevity:
Go slow
Avoid sliding friction (gears)
Avoid ticking
Stay clean
Stay dry
Expect bad weather
Expect earthquakes
Expect non-malicious human interaction
Dont tempt thieves
Maintainability and transparency:
Use familiar materials
Allow inspection
Rehearse motions
Make it easy to build spare parts
Expect restarts
Include the manual
Scalability and Evolvabilty:
Make all parts similar size
Separate functions
Provide simple interfaces

How… good.

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