Magazine Article

[Norma]

Hello everyone, Ive been hanging out here for a while and trying to learn before jumping in and posting, hopefully I wont be offending anyone here, so pleeease be gentle with me!

I work on the editorial team of a magazine and Ive been tasked to produce an article telling the fascinating tale of the race to produce the first digital watch. I am hoping it will be one of our most popular of all time because its such a great tale.

What really surprises me is how much history is lost or open to debate, since this was all occurring merely 40 years ago and its amazing that there is so much left to conjuncture and speculation after such a small period in time.

Ive decided that I am definitely NOT going ignite any Pulsar/Synchronar debates, but rather present the two technologies in their own right, with a timeline, in order to be as informative as possible to the reader. If two camps were working on opposite sides of the country in a race to invent, at the same time the this is great information and will make the article much hotter to read.

Did both inventors know of each others work? How did they both manage to use such an obscure item as a reed switch if there wasnt some interaction? Did the prototypes have reed switches? I wonder.

Anyway - Heres where I need some help! I am looking for owners of the earliest watch prototypes, first ever circuits, experimental items etc to provide pictures and information for me. How did they come by these items, is there any more exciting tales to be told about how they discovered these items? I don't need production items, so really it would seem that 1971 or earlier has to be my goal. This forum is now so large that I cannot even begin to figure who has what to offer me so please could you good folk help out!

By the way, all of the owners will get a credit in the article and payment of any expenses incurred by helping me.

Thankyou!

[f.e.a.r]

hi.

sounds great, you definately have come to the right place for the info you need.

what magazine will it feature in?

regards.

[Norma]

I will let you know the magazine shortly before it hits the newsstands, thats all I can say at the moment as I have not even begun the aticle yet, but you wont be disappointed. !! Now all I need is some info, please!

[retroleds]

What really surprises me is how much history is lost or open to debate, since this was all occurring merely 40 years ago and its amazing that there is so much left to conjuncture and speculation after such a small period in time.

Ive decided that I am definitely NOT going ignite any Pulsar/Synchronar debates, but rather present the two technologies in their own right, with a timeline, in order to be as informative as possible to the reader. If two camps were working on opposite sides of the country in a race to invent, at the same time the this is great information and will make the article much hotter to read.

Did both inventors know of each others work? How did they both manage to use such an obscure item as a reed switch if there wasnt some interaction? Did the prototypes have reed switches? I wonder.

Anyway - Heres where I need some help! I am looking for owners of the earliest watch prototypes, first ever circuits, experimental items etc to provide pictures and information for me. How did they come by these items, is there any more exciting tales to be told about how they discovered these items? I don't need production items, so really it would seem that 1971 or earlier has to be my goal. This forum is now so large that I cannot even begin to figure who has what to offer me so please could you good folk help out!

By the way, all of the owners will get a credit in the article and payment of any expenses incurred by helping me.

Thankyou!

Norma:
Not to be a drag, but the technologies in the Pulsars and the Synchronars are very similar. Several companies were working on digital watches at the same time. HAmilton was a team of people, Synchronar was pretty much one lone inventor. Most of the actual "technology" was made by a host of other companies.

Reed switches are not an obscure item - they had been used for decades before digital watches and really have nothing to do with the technology - they are merely a switch that is activated by magnetism, which means the cases could be sealed more thoroughly. Many other successful brands did fine without them.

Locate an April 2, 2007 copy of Antique Weekly and you will find a good introductory article.

[Norma]

Oh, I see, well sorry about that and I shouldnt get into the technical side of things, I guess. What Im really interested in is tracking down the earliest items for photographs and information. Best wishes N.

[abem]

Norma,

I can help out a bit with photos. Others on the forum are more knowledgeable about the history.

A few months ago, I happened upon an early model Pulsar P1 as discussed here:
http://www.dwf.nu/viewtopic.php?t=3818
http://www.dwf.nu/viewtopic.php?t=3828

Here's a nicer image:
Enlarge (1800x1200): http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/3137 ... 0x1200.jpg


The date on the clasp is 7/71, which is the earliest that I've seen thus far:


Perhaps you'll see more of a response when people return from the holiday weekend. You can probably get some nice Synchronar and 18KT gold P1 photos. Perhaps if you can clarify what models you're specifically looking for and what you're looking for in terms of photos, then people will be more able to help out.

It would be fun to see some pretty eye candy photos appear in this thread.

Cheers,

-abe.

[charger105]

Images of Synchronar prototypes can be seen here:

http://www.dwf.nu/Gallery/thumbnails.php?album=23

There are also some invoices for parts from June 1971.

You'll probably need to get permission from Howard Riehl to use the images though.
Rgds,
Andrew.

[Norma]

Thanks so much for the help! Im amazed at how easy that was, Ive emailed Howard for permission to use the Synchronar prototype, except that the pictures arent of the quality that I require, however its a different story with the Pulsar prototype, the pictures are a joy, many thanks Abe for your help. Please would you tell us how you came by such a rare item, is there an interesting tale to be told? Did you get it from one of the original engineers at Pulsar? It looks like a finished product, is there an earlier prototype that you have or is this the earliest?

Kind regards - N

[abem]

Norma,

This watch is known as a "saleman's sample" model, which was made after the prototype. There were 65 of these watches made. These salesman's models were used to "sell" the digital watch idea to retailers who would actually sell the watches to the public (for an astounding $2100 in 1972). The 400 production P1s that were made (some say 450) were eventually sold mainly by Tiffany and a few others such as Abercrombie and Fitch:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1972-Pulsar-LED-dig ... 56399774de

I was told by the webmaster at www.oldpulsars.com that there was just one prototype P1 and that it was made of stainless steel instead of nickel silver. I've never seen any photos of it. Here are a set of sketches (from Archer MacClean) of the various designs that were being considered for the P1 (I'm glad that they chose the one that they did!):
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d183/ ... posite.jpg

The earlier models are all prototypes, never intended for general use ( http://www.oldpulsars.com/memodin.htm ). The very earliest one is generally regarded as the Hamilton/ElectroData prototype that was first shown to the public in a press conference on May 6th, 1970:
http://www.oldpulsars.com/ElectroData.htm
http://www.xs4all.nl/~doensen/k1.html

The story of that press conference is rather amusing and shows how competitive the race to be first was:
From: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/ ... atch1.html:
"The prototype Pulsar watches were unveiled at a press conference on May 6th 1970. The story is they only had three working models at the time, and they only worked for a short time. So they kept rotating the three behind a curtain so the press would always see a working model."

The story of how I found it is pretty standard - it came up on eBay in April of this year listed as "Original Pulsar" (no mention of LED or P1) along with a few somewhat fuzzy images, which showed clearly that it had the form of a P1. I emailed the seller as soon as I saw it and told him that it was probably worth more than I could ever afford, but if he wanted, I could offer him $500 for it and he jumped at it. If you read the thread that I posted here after buying it, you can get a little bit of the excitement and feeling of "discovery" as well as some of the confusion since almost nobody has seen one of these models for 40 years:
http://www.dwf.nu/viewtopic.php?t=3818

The more interesting story is where the watch came from. The seller's father worked for a company called "American Time and Temp" selling those digital signs that you see on banks that show the time and temperature. I was told that he was given two of these watches - mine plus one of solid gold, for selling signs. I was pretty skeptical of the claim until I found that this company was a subsidiary of Electro/Data, the company that developed the module that is at the heart of the watch working in partnership with Hamilton. The relationship between Hamilton and Electro/Data went south soon after the watches were released in April of '72 and Electro/Data ended up going bankrupt in 1973. So, it's not hard to imagine Electro/Data giving away whatever was not nailed down to their salespeople in a desperate attempt to keep the ship afloat. Here's the story of that partnership:
http://www.oldpulsars.com/ElectroData-2.htm

Incidentally, I was told by the seller that the other P1, the solid gold one, was stolen and later was sold to a local pawn shop for $15. The guy who sold me the silver P1 is trying to track it down. That watch is worth approximately 1000 times what it was pawned for!

I wonder what happened to the rest of those 65 watches like mine. I've been told that there are three others known. Also, I think there are now 6 other 25 chip Electro/Data modules known.

I think the very most interesting part of the story is how fast and how brightly these companies burned and then burned out within the span of under 7 years. Maybe "Pulsar" should have been named "Nova" or "Supernova" instead! They had a product that was desired by almost everyone, flaunted by movie stars, heads of state, and even coveted by the President of the United States (Gerald Ford - http://www.oldpulsars.com/Ford.htm). They were like Apple Computer, Rolex, and Tiffany all rolled into one - technology, luxury, and style. Still, they were unable to survive, ultimately killed by the race to the bottom. From a business perspective, there's a lesson to be learned. It's all about price - witness the success of Walmart etc. Developing breakthrough technology and creating beautiful things as Pulsar did is a very worthwhile thing to do. You could argue that it's what makes us uniquely human. Unfortunately, it's a lousy business model.

-abe.

p.s. If you're looking for more photos, here is a set of photos of the inside of this watch showing the original ElectroData module:
http://www.dwf.nu/viewtopic.php?t=3863

[Norma]

Abe, thankyou so much for all of this information, infact its really making my head spin because there is so much to take in, I am getting a little confused regarding what is 'production' and what is 'prototype'. My first article is going to be regarding the race to produce the first digital watch and it is that which requires the prototype pictures. Do I take it that there are earlier watches in existance than the one that you have?
Would you please read my initial request for information? Im so very very grateful to you for this wonderful help but Im feeling like Im a little underqualified to take all of this in and need some more guidance here, Im such a newbie and its embarrasing!
Best wishes N.

[abem]

Norma,

I'll do my best to clarify...

I would consider the watch that I have as a pre-production version of the Pulsar P1, which is widely recognized as the first "production" digital watch, although that's stretching the term since only 400 were made and they were all made by hand.

Yes, most definitely there are earlier digital watches than the P1, although they were all prototypes and were never intended for sale or practical to use. There are at least 3 prototypes that predate the P1:
1) The Hamilton Electro/Data prototype
2) The Pulsar WP-01 prototype
3) The Pulsar WP-02 prototype

See http://www.oldpulsars.com/memodin.htm for more information. Perhaps you can find out more information than is listed here, but I wouldn't count on it. At this level of collecting, people tend to be very, very secretive. There were originally 6 of the Hamilton E/D prototypes made, but only 3 worked. I don't know how many are accounted for today. The Pulsar prototypes were made by hand and I think there was just one of each made.

Here is an exceptionally good article about the very early development at Hamilton and Electro/Data:
http://www.eetimes.com/anniversary/desi ... /time.html

If you want to go back about as far as you can go, there was also a breadboard version of the first Electro/Data prototype, which wasn't actually a wearable sized device, but was a board about 6x4 inches in size containing the electronic circuit that would later be used in the E/D prototype. That sold on eBay a few years back for $12,000:
http://www.dwf.cc/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=356
http://www.dwf.nu/viewtopic.php?t=2989& ... lectrodata

I love the description in the post: "Wow - this IS the holy grail, a working Pulsar Prototype board up for grabs on eBay item: 190266280874 Sell the wife & kids.. sell everything!!!"

-abe.

[abem]

Norma,

One other thing - if you're writing about the race to produce the first digital watch, make sure not to forget about the first LCD (liquid crystal display) watch, the BWC:
http://www.ledwatches.net/photo-pages/bwc.htm
http://www.retrothing.com/2009/10/first-lcd-watch.html
http://www.dwf.cc/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=142

History rarely remembers who came in second. Due to technical delays the BWC lost out the the Pulsar P1 in the race to be first. History has a perverse sense of humor, though, and though the LCD display lost the race, it won the battle and is ubiquitous today.

-abe.

[Norma]

Hi Abe, as always you deliver but as always it raises more questions than it answers for me, sorry to be a dummy! The ebay prototype looks like an washing machine part lol but I do recognise the watch in the top right and also the circuitry that is in your watch but how does this all fit together and who owns all of this? The pictures are good but I could do with better and the ebay says that the item is no longer available so I cannot send a question for seller or buyer.

A 1969 item is the earliest that I can see mentioned anywhere.

Once again thankyou for your patience and for taking the time to help me here.

[Norma]

By the way, some of you good people might be able to identify with this but last night I had trouble sleeping because red lights infront of my eyes kept flashing on and off and disturbing me - true story!

N

[azimuth_pl]

Welcome to the Digital Watch world :)

this forum is very much focused on the extinct LED watches because LCDs are something very common nowadays. however LCD technology was on the drawing boards at the same time as Pulsar, Synchronar, etc. thus please do not forget that LEDs are not the only inventions of the early 1970's.
the "BWC Swiss" LCD watch with the first generation "Dynamic Scattering Mode" display is considered as the first production LCD ever but I would not quote the BWC model as the one and only because the very same watch was sold also as Lucien Piccard and very likely other obscure brands. Everything was made by Optel to be sold under private watch labels.
The technology behind the first LCDs was created by RCA and the (somewhat) spin-off Optel company founded by the inventors including Louis Zanoni. I have the email address to Mr. Zanoni which I can forward if requested. He sold his company decades ago and has invested in a TV station :) His son Greg is more active in the digital watch community and he tends to visit this forum now and then (email also available).

the most detailed pictures of early LCDs can be found on Peter Wenzig's website:
http://www.digitalwatches.de/ENGLISH_INDEX.HTM

[abem]

Norma,

The story is complicated and messy, as history has a tendency to be. Once we understand a bit better the focus of the article, we can help you to fill in the details. First, though, you should have an overview of the larger geopolitical context so you can decide how to tell the story. One way of telling the story is not of of a battle between Pulsar and Synchronar, or of a battle between technologies (LED and LCD), though that certainly is also true, but more broadly as a battle between three different cultures from three continents: the Americans, the Swiss, and the Japanese.

1) On the American side, you have Hamilton/Pulsar and Synchronar (east coast and west coast), each pushing LED (light emitting diode) technology - the shiny red digits that we love so much.
2) On the Swiss side, you have BWC in partnership with Optel (from the U.S) pushing LCD (liquid crystal display) technology - the black and grey digits that we see everywhere today.
3) On the Japanese side, you have venerable Seiko, who came out with the first quartz watch - a traditional analog watch called the "Astron".

The Cliff Notes short version of the history is as follows:

- The American upstarts, fresh from the success of Apollo, with great verve (and naivite) thought that they'd remake the entire watch industry in their image - an image of science and technology. This understandably scared the lederhosen off the Swiss.
- The Swiss in the late 1960s had 90% of the watch market when their entire cozy world was upended by the new technology. Grudgingly, they engineered the LCD watch to counter the American threat, just in case this quartz digital watch thing turned out to be something.
- The Japanese, in their traditionally patient and incremental way, took the traditional analog watch and adapted it to quartz technology.

The result:
The American approach burned fast and hot and succeeded in the short term from the sheer novelty and glitz factor, but ultimately, the more practical approach of the Swiss and the more traditional approach of the Japanese won out.

If you decide to tell the story in this way, we help to provide information about the LCD watches and the first quartz watch (the Astron) to round out the article.

-abe.

p.s. Please forgive my (politically incorrect) sweeping nationalistic stereotypes, but they make the story easier to understand and are approximately correct.

[LEDluvr]

I love it Abe! YOU should write the article!

(uh... no offense Norma..... )

[azimuth_pl]

to have all facts straight I'd discuss LCD details with Mr. Zanoni because the Swiss have not much in common in this story.
BWC was just a label and distribution channel of a developed product. as mentioned already the same identical watch was sold as Lucien Piccard and Optel LCD modules can literally be found in dozens of obscure European watch brands. for some reason the one branded by BWC is known most (maybe due to quantities sold/ordered). also the DSM LCD "Optcom" by Jules Jurgensen is thought to be one of the first LCDs but it's again the one that is known most and visible on eBay. the same thing was sold under many, many, many brands.

before BWC (or any other private label) there was Optel, before Optel there was RCA.
so in other words... the LCD origins from the USA.

as for Japan and their first Quartz in 1969...
it was a Quartz just like LED and LCD but the output was analog.
the Swiss from CEH had a Quartz prototype even earlier in 1967.
so to sum up... the analog motor Quartz race is a slightly different thread as there were at least a dozen of analog Quartz concepts running parallel next to CEH and the LED/LCD race.
the Swiss were not into micro-chip and electronics development at all and in result all early analog Quartz inventions contain American-made electronics (mainly by RCA and Motorola).
the only Swiss part were the cases :)

[charger105]

Hi Norma.
Howard Riehl has contatced me and asked me to pass on his correct Email address. He says he hasn't received an email from you.
PM sent with details.

He indicates he'd be willing for you to visit him for an interview and quality photographs.
Rgds,
Andrew.

[Norma]

Dear Led friends - As always I seem to have so much information to sort through that I dont know where to start. Please would someone answer my questions from a few days ago that seemed to go un-noticed, thankyou so much again!

Hi Abe, as always you deliver but as always it raises more questions than it answers for me, sorry to be a dummy! The ebay prototype looks like an washing machine part lol but I do recognise the watch in the top right and also the circuitry that is in your watch but how does this all fit together and who owns all of this? The pictures are good but I could do with better and the ebay says that the item is no longer available so I cannot send a question for seller or buyer.

A 1969 item is the earliest that I can see mentioned anywhere.

Once again thankyou for your patience and for taking the time to help me here.

[azimuth_pl]

who owns all this?
today Mr. X, tomorrow Mr. Z.

please go to www.oldpulsars.com and talk to the webmaster Dennis Klein as he owns a lot of the early stuff.

the nickel Pulsar P1 (sales demo/ wear test) from Abe should (IMO) be considered a production sample as it is in every way identical with a product that was launched to market... in solid gold.
prototypes are the ones made in a handful of pieces.

[rewolf]

...The ebay prototype looks like an washing machine part lol but I do recognise the watch in the top right and also the circuitry that is in your watch but how does this all fit together and who owns all of this? The pictures are good but I could do with better and the ebay says that the item is no longer available so I cannot send a question for seller or buyer....

After your very first posting here I sent you a PM with this link: http://www.dwf.cc/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=510#p2264
Simply follow it, scroll down a bit and your question about the "washing machine" part and its owner will be answered