how and on what is a physical alarm clock programmed

Question

i do hope this question fits here, otherwise sorry.

I have a physical alarm clock (5$) which has been programmed for snooze, light effects, etc.

Generally, all these devices like calculator, hi-fi-system (with display), etc. How and in which language did they programm them?

Do all of them require a small processor? ...or is there even a small brother of a processor which is so damn cheap and fast to do the easy job?

Can/Could these devices been reprogrammed by us for customization? Which programming language?

it really makes me wonder.

thanks for your time

Answer 1

They're not programmed in C#, that's for sure :) There's always an assembly language, of course. For higher-level language support, C is quite popular. The larger and more complex the chip, the more different compilers will be available for it.

Here is a link to a simple tutorial on how to program one of the many, many kinds of available small microprocessors. Larger cousins of these tiny Atmel processors form the heart of the Arduino, a very easy-to-use prototyping board that you can program in a simple Java-like language that's compiled down to Atmel assembler.

We all have to start someplace.