Magazine Article

[Norma]

Oh, Im sorry I guess I have been a drag here answering these questions but I simply dont know what Archer Maclean is or what it is, thats why I asked. My questions have in no way been answered by your sending me to another forum.

As for Mr X and Mr Z, Ive always thought that Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit and thankyou for telling me that prototypes are made in a handful of pieces. Next time someone genuinely wants to know about your fascinating hobby I suggest you will be more friendly...

Thanks to Andrew and Abe for the kind help

N

[azimuth_pl]

I can't find any sarcasm in my reply. that's just being honest especially when you are given straight answers that are right in front of you.
individual collectors don't post updates on the forum that they just sold their treasures to somebody else so asking "who owns all this?" is not very precise because any answer might be outdated on the following day.
Archer is a collector so you have been given the vital source for further research.

I mentioned "handful" because earlier in this thread the nickel P1 has been considered a prototype which is not correct IMO.

please read in between the lines before you ask for more friendliness as I'm friendly all the way.
I guess you intend to write about LED watches only? it seems that you don't have any interest in LCD details and Mr. Zanoni giving you a briefing.
without the LCD your article will lack vital information.

[rewolf]

Oh, Im sorry I guess I have been a drag here answering these questions but I simply dont know what Archer Maclean is or what it is, thats why I asked. My questions have in no way been answered by your sending me to another forum.

Only because apparently you didn't try to contact the guy who posted the picture in the other forum (dwf.cc member Diginut, who is BTW AFAIK Archer MacLean). The mentioned link is an excellent entry point to a wealth of information about early LED and especially LCD watches. Do you expect me to contact the people for you? Write the poster a PM and see what he answers.

Hey, come on, you enter here and ask us for information for an article YOU want to write (for money, I expect). You got the information resp. the contact information, but you just keep asking for MORE. It's up to you to put the pieces together. We can't write your article.

Of course there is no 'owner list' for vintage digital watch items, as for any other collectible. All the important names have been mentioned. Some collectors are VERY secretive about their precious items.

And I'm sure if you ask you will even find someone to check a draft of the article for historical errors (though there are some points where history isn't absolutely clear).

Sorry for the rant - I just had to get rid of this
You're still welcome

[retroleds]

I think you guys are trying to be reasonable with Norma. Part of the problem is, she either has to write an article that just hits on the high points of the era and the unfolding technologies, or she would have to write a 30+ page article and try to really get into the different technologies. Which would bore many readers, unless it is a fairly technical journal. The lady who contacted me for the Antique Weekly article a few years back figured that out early on and went for pictures and the simplified timeline approach.

If we knew more about the intended audience and the anticipated length of the article, we [collectively] would be better able to gauge what would actually HELP Norma. No point in sending her 3000 words if she is limited to 1000 words and a few pictures. From Norma's lack of knowledge about this genre, I'm thinking a brief overview of the era and technologies would be best.

[azimuth_pl]

very true, however the title of the magazine and purpose of the article is kept secret.
limiting the details is more than appropriate however writing about Pulsar and Synchronar WITHOUT a word about Optel will be more than offensive.

[abem]

I agree with Ed entirely that the key to a successful article is going to be to simplify the story and that it would help out quite a lot to know more about the focus and intended audience of the article. There's quite a bit of information already available online. If we knew the focus of the article, we could likely dig up a mound of references to help with the details.

For example, the Smithsonian Institution web site has an overview of Pulsar and the inventors of the digital watch:
http://invention.smithsonian.org/center ... ulsar.html
http://invention.smithsonian.org/center ... ergey.html

They also have a synopsis of that period in history with the colorful title "Watch Wars":
http://invention.smithsonian.org/center ... index.html
http://invention.smithsonian.org/center ... tates.html

... along with these additional references:
http://invention.smithsonian.org/center ... index.html

Here are some fun vintage magazine articles from the 1970s that show how much of a phenomenon Pulsar and the new digital watches were:
Popular Science, Dec 1974:
http://books.google.com/books?id=N93SwX ... ch&f=false
Populsar Science, Dec 1976:
http://books.google.com/books?id=7wAAAA ... ch&f=false
Popular Mechanics, Jun 1977:
http://books.google.com/books?id=r-IDAA ... ch&f=false

Even Wikipedia has a very good synopsis of the so-called "quartz crisis":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_crisis

"When the first quartz watches were introduced in 1969, the United States promptly took a technological lead in part due to microelectronics research for military and space programs. It was American companies like Texas Instruments, Fairchild, and National Semiconductor, who started the mass production of digital quartz watches and made them affordable.[10] Though by 1978 Hong Kong exported the largest number of electronic watches worldwide. US semiconductor companies pulled out of the watch market entirely. With the sole exception of Timex, the remaining traditional American watch companies, including Hamilton, went out of business and sold their brand names to foreign competitors.[11]"

-abe.

[LEDluvr]

"When the first quartz watches were introduced in 1969, the United States promptly took a technological lead in part due to microelectronics research for military and space programs. It was American companies like Texas Instruments, Fairchild, and National Semiconductor, who started the mass production of digital quartz watches and made them affordable.[10] Though by 1978 Hong Kong exported the largest number of electronic watches worldwide. US semiconductor companies pulled out of the watch market entirely. With the sole exception of Timex, the remaining traditional American watch companies, including Hamilton, went out of business and sold their brand names to foreign competitors.[11]"

Let's not forget Hughes!

[azimuth_pl]

Nortec, Litronix, RCA, Optel, .................
the list is vast and most of the companies are not even known by name.
Wiki is never a good source for indepth details.

IMO, to make the article easy to digest the digital watch story might easily be written with the two main players:
Pulsar/ED and Optel and focus on the LED vs LCD battle. If you mention Synchronar then you should also mention Uranus and X and Z and the list goes on and on.

[LEDluvr]

Yes, I hear you Piyotr. Yes, the list can go on for a long, long time.
I just wanted to put in a "plug" for the Hughes module, since I'm a big fan, it was used in a good deal of different brands, and it wasn't mentioned.....

[azimuth_pl]

I just keep repeating Optel because Norma has very likely lost interest in writing a neutral article.
so as you can see it will be better to stick to two technologies only because missing anybody from the list will not give a full picture.
Pulsar and all the rest would not succeed in any way if not for the great work of component suppliers/inventors.

[charger105]

Howard has emailed me and asked me to put his thoughts down. I don't necessarily or disagree with the below info.

Hello Andrew.

I noticed some posts at DWF about a Magazine article from Norma.I never received an email from her as claimed at the forum for photo rights.Must have the wrong email address for me.Sounds like that person would have to do some journalism and come visit me to see what i have and get better prototype photos..
Anyway here is my take on the subject

1,The IEEtimes article is one sided as Mr, John Bergey is a IEE member and obviously it is all a plug for the Pulsar and his(former team) improperly taking credit for an invention when in fact it was Willy Crabtree's work at Electro Data who gave them 3-6? high drain jerry rigged prototypes in 1970, 2 years before Hamilton/Pulsar could get a salable watch completed using their own technology.

2.The link for the Smithsonian take on the whole thing is also outdated because the author had not yet come to visit me when it was written and learn about the Synchronar and see all my records.She (Carlene E. Stephens) also had already had written a book with the title{(On Time) How America has learned to live by the clock}.Copyright 2002 by Smithsonian Institution.She even gave me a free copy and commented that she would have written the Section on Quartz Watches and the Pulsar being the first LED watch entirely different had she witnessed what she saw at my office.Stephens is a curator in the History of Technology Division of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History,Behring Center.Stephens is responsible for the museum's time collections.For some reason she and her bosses have not edited their take on the breakthrough technology.She also told me with a wink that John Bergey never donated anything to the museum like the character at old Pulsars.com once bragged about.However i did donate early drawings and part order receipts as well as an original never opened working MK I.It was not a bright display and required charging quite often as the cells were over 33 years old.However i refused to donate my fathers book binder full of contacts and parts for production plans on a Solid state LED watch.I refused to donate it because i told her it must accompany the early prototypes as a set which I also was not anxious to donate just for a tax write off.

3,Optel was originally only a maker of LCD displays for digital counters,test instruments,,calculators,clocks,panel meters and other indicators.This is what is written on their preliminary Bulletin of 3/71 sent to my father,as for a brief moment he considered LCD for his invention.In short Optel was originally not a watchmaker or watch circuits and simply jumped on the wagon like others to go ahead and make one with their name on it as did for a short while Motorola and several silicon valley semiconductor outfits.As for RCA they did enable the prototype watches of high drain both with the Electro Data/Willy Crabtree ones and with my fathers early prototypes.But after mid 1971 RCA had nothing to do with the technology in the watches that went to market.Maybe they could have made one if they put their engineers to it but did not.They were however still making some of the best TVs of that era.

4,Here is a quote from Roger W.Riehl to a Monsanto representative in the early 70's.I have a carbon copy of it.
"We touched on the subject of Hamilton Watch Co.It is my opinion from reading their issued patents,that 99% of the awarded claims will not hold up against Riehl Electronics for one or more of the following three reasons: (1) It was invented by me prior to them and i can proove it.(2)The claim is obvious aplication of common knowlege that the patent office was not properly informed of at the time.(3) The claim was previously disclosed in Public Publications more than one year before they filed,the proof of which I have on file,which voids patent ability" end quote.

In my opinion as understadably biased as it may seem to others the evolution of the digital watch should all start with two Pioneers, Roger W. Riehl and Willy Crabtree for their work in the late 60's.All others came a few years later.If my father wanted to make a gadget watch he probably could have desighned a simpler circuit and beat Hamilton Pulsar to market but he had the vision of the Battery eating,poor visibility in daylight problem and wanted to make something better like the more technically advanced Solar powered programed calendar Synchronar.Who by the way was an American company still making it's own IC running a semiconductor plant into early 1984 at RTC *Riehl Time Corp.They also made their own case and wire bonded displays in house under the same roof but in different bays.This is 8 years after all the other American companies bailed with one exception of Timex.

Maybe you could let Norma know my correct email address.
Regards from Florida,
Howard Riehl

Rgds,
Andrew.

[azimuth_pl]

Great to read for ethusiasts or technical nerds but I doubt that a magazine article will ever focus on forgotten history that is hard to sell.
History is always written by winners... those who are big and powerful with plenty of money to keep others quiet. That's life.

The difference between Riehl/Crabtree and Hamilton is technical enthusiasm of a creator vs. business oriented pragmatism of a large money-making company focused on profit. Simple yet advanced products always sell better and give better ROI than meticulously prepared rocket-science devices. Business-wise Hamilton/Pulsar was more clever and made a good balance between advanced technology, schedule, mass-production costs and market demand.
The sad result = history and common knowledge refers to Pulsar as being the first / one and only. Let's face it folks unless you can afford intensive lobbying and years of efforts that would have to be required to change this "fact".

[charger105]

Interesting that Roger Riehl toyed with the idea of an LCD display. Imagine a Synchronar with a DSM LCD display !

Rgds.

[retroleds]

The difference between Riehl/Crabtree and Hamilton is technical enthusiasm of a creator vs. business oriented pragmatism of a large money-making company focused on profit.

I think Roger Riehl's efforts are a bit romanticized to sound like, "poor small inventor vs. terribly large company". Roger Riehl had already made hundreds of thousands of dollars for other electronics products he designed and sold the rights to. Particularly in the area of electronic scales - his scale circuit was sold(to Hobart Scale Company, I believe), and he received royalties off hundreds of thousands of their scales. He had other ventures too - he had a business that specialized in relining the brake drums off some '60s Pontiac, that had a bi-metal brake drum. He built special machinery to grind out the inner metal and then press in new liners. The Riehl brothers were trying to sell that business a few years ago. He also dabbled in automatic transmission conversions and had done customization of the valve bodies(shift kit) to the transmissions on a number of his personal automobiles. This information was relayed to me by Barry Riehl and Roger Jr. in a telephone conversation a few years ago.

[azimuth_pl]

being an enthusiastic inventor does not always have to go in line with being poor and small.
it's rather a difference in attitude towards the project.
hands-on inventors create things in terms of a personal challenge and if it proves to be a success then why not make some money.
big companies invest in R&D to make money, only money, prestige and history is an additional premium but only if it gives money.

[charger105]

A couple of interesting Time magazine articles from the 70's that describe the digital watch battle (courtesy of Howard):

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 87,00.html
This one's 2 pages

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 11,00.html

Rgds,
Andrew

[azimuth_pl]

what would life be like without the WWW :)

there is also a second article about plastic throw-away digitals on page 78 of Popular Mechanics that Abe found:
http://books.google.com/books?id=r-IDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA78&dq=digital+watch&hl=en&ei=Irk8TOKhD439nAfiqeGWCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=true

for some reason ;) all images are enhanced showing huge easy to read digits at least twice as big as the original.

is there a way to print them? or is print screen the inly option?