Years ago, my mother gave me a gift of a simple battery-powered alarm clock that was designed like a Rubik's Cube. Only the top layer would twist, and it was used as a knob to set the mode of time, alarm, temperature.
I used it daily for many, many years, but it was inherently infuriating and shameful, as are all gifts from my mother. The Cube design it carried was permanently jumbled. There were stickers all over it, in standard Cube colors, representing its jumbled state, and of course, since it was a clock and not configurable, there was no way to match the colors and "solve" it.
I was forced, every day, to stare at a permanently unsolved, unsolvable Cube, after I had mastered it so many years ago, algorithmically, and I was able to solve a standard Cube in 63 seconds, but I could do nothing about this infernal clock.
Well, I wasn't forced. Sure, I could just stop using it. I could purchase another clock that wasn't shameful. But you know how mother-son relationships can be. Anyway, I finally destroyed it with great satisfaction, and the Unsolvable Cube troubles me no more.
Of all the cubes in the world, there will always be one, his mothers gift, that is forbidden for him to solve.
This is a great mystery. It’s a Rubik’s complex.
The stickers were not individual, separate colors, they were large panels made up of the already-jumbled colors. In fact, I'm not even sure they were stickers, or if they would come off easily.
Regarding your questioning of why I smashed the clock, it was not merely because I couldn't "solve" it that I smashed it.
> Were there 9 of each color on the visible faces at least?
I never checked that closely. It is apparently still available (see link above) so you may be able to find enough images to piece it together.
However, two areas lack color: the display, which is 3 horizontal tiles in the center of the "front" face, and the bottom, where the battery compartment opens, which is unpainted black plastic.
So no, even if you could move the stickers around, there aren't enough for coverage, and why would you cover the display face? I mean, do you want a Rubik's Cube or an alarm clock in this bargain?
I wouldn't have a problem with the scrambled state of the clock, so I might be less neuro atypical than OP, but that it is unsolvable at a glance (two reds on the same block) even if it could be manipulated like a real cube and that there are no black bars between the colored blocks of the top row would drive me equally mad.
I used it daily for many, many years, but it was inherently infuriating and shameful, as are all gifts from my mother. The Cube design it carried was permanently jumbled. There were stickers all over it, in standard Cube colors, representing its jumbled state, and of course, since it was a clock and not configurable, there was no way to match the colors and "solve" it.
I was forced, every day, to stare at a permanently unsolved, unsolvable Cube, after I had mastered it so many years ago, algorithmically, and I was able to solve a standard Cube in 63 seconds, but I could do nothing about this infernal clock.
Well, I wasn't forced. Sure, I could just stop using it. I could purchase another clock that wasn't shameful. But you know how mother-son relationships can be. Anyway, I finally destroyed it with great satisfaction, and the Unsolvable Cube troubles me no more.