I have an Abacus controller, made in New England somewhere, I don't think they are being made anymore, so I won't bore you with the details, but it works great, has been for 20 years.
An aside story, I do my own maintenance on the system except the blow out in the fall. Well this year I go to start up and half the sprinklers don't work. Yellow light on the controller for half the stations. So I go and start trouble shooting, find the neutral wire pulled out of the wire nut and bent back in one of the boxes. Hooked it back up and ready for any 20 years of trouble free operation (I hope). Makes me wonder about the sprinkler company that does the fall blow out.