This build from [mircemk] is of the latter variety, repurposing a VFD display to do the job ... With some minor tweaks, the character set can be modified to allow the display to become a ...

It was decided that a specialized VFD driver chip was the easiest way to make the thing work, so a MAX6934 was ordered. To give the clock some brains, an ATmega328 was recruited and to keep time ...