After an unbelievable 32 years, I was forced by circumstances to buy a replacement for my radio alarm clock bought in 1999 from a Vietnamese stall. The old alarm clock could basically do only the basic things - wake up by (delayed) beeping or radio and play AM/FM stations (with automatic shutdown). All of this simplified with absolutely trivial control on one switch and two knobs.
The new alarm clock is packed with features (two independent alarms, choice of days to wake up (weekday/weekend/all), radio presets, screen off, temperature display, date, toggle information and maybe some others I haven't come across yet. In addition, "classics" such as delayed wake-up, delayed radio switch-off or wake-up by beeping or radio. But all of the above means, among other things, a lot of different settings, which at first (thanks to the not fully understandable instructions) seem terribly complicated. However, with practice, you will eventually find out that the engineers from Sencor came up with it quite cleverly, only sometimes the buttons behave according to the situation. Typically, the on/off button normally turns the radio on/off, but during wake-up it turns off the alarm clock (or rather prepares it for wake-up the next day). And so it is with most of the other buttons.
The controls are a bit unusual, but as I said, with practice you get the hang of it pretty quickly. And there are some things they will eventually appreciate, like two alarm clocks. One set permanently Mon-Fri for morning wake-up, the other used for exceptional occasions. Overall, you have to get used to it, as with any new thing. The clock can be set to turn off the display after a certain amount of time (not convenient for me) plus it has three levels of light intensity. Even on the lowest, by having the alarm clock at bed level, and the size of the digits, it disturbs me a bit in complete darkness, and the wake-up tone is equally unusual, where the slow beeping gradually becomes faster and faster until the alarm clock beeps at a fairly fast cadence.
So, in summary, the nostalgia for the old "stupid" radio alarm clock with small red digits, trivial controls and incredibly aggressive beeping when waking up is still there, but it's just a matter of habit, after all, it has been with me for many years. I certainly do not reject the new one, in time it will surely become a worthy successor and hopefully an equally faithful companion. I'm just a little worried that it won't last 32 years like its predecessor.