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. :-)
It took me a while, but I got it all figured out. Ugh, I do feel dense though!
See, for the longest time, I had three freestanding VCRs with remotes. Two recorded the jedis curriculum from the dish. Joshua used the other to do his schoolwork and Matthew had a TV/VCR combo.
Then, Matthew's TV/VCR combo quit working...the VCR part. So I asked on the egroup if any of the ladies had a VCR I could borrow till the end of the school year and two of the ladies just gave me these two VCRs with no remotes.
So after I posted my frustration with GE, it dawned on me I could use the three VCRs with remotes to record and the jedis could use the two without remotes for their daily work (I could even get them universal remotes for convenience!)
So I set to the task of wiring in another VCR into my receiver...took me forever and dang near gave me a aneurism, but I did it!
This will make my life infinitely easier come schooltime...instead of recording 10 classes on 2 VCRs, I now can spread them out over three.