Holy moly! I just got off the phone with the GE customer support. One of the ladies in BA CHEF gave me a GE VCR, works great but no remote and I can't set it to record without the remote! But the remote costs a whopping 30 bucks including shipping!
I have a universal remote that can play, FF, Reverse and record...but it can't set the internal clock or set the timer and such...do they make universal remotes that will set the clock and timers?
I actually have two VCRs with the same problem...plays great...no remote. One is a GE, the other is a Panasonic.
You could try a pawn shop :~D
Check eBay to see if someone is selling a remote to your machine. One never knows, does one?
I'd go with the eBay suggestion. I don't know if a universal remote can be made to do anything but the basic operations.
Or, just set all the other clocks to blink [12:00] and then it won't look out of place. :-)