Hamilton LED Watch Patent "Print" Auction spotted

[BENRUS]

Not my auction, but thought I would share the link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/HAMILTON-Solid-Stat ... 35aded916e
There is also a Bulova Driver Patent Print available too:
http://cgi.ebay.com/BULOVA-Solid-State- ... 3cb28978bc

[abem]

Benrus,

That's kinda cool, but how are those 28 pages different from these 28 pages that you can download for free?:
"Solid State Watch":
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3672155.pdf

If it were a nifty poster print or something, then I could certainly imagine paying for it, but it sounds like they just found interesting stuff in the public domain and are printing it out to sell. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that I guess although is does sort of seem to imply that they have the right to it which is bogus. I've noticed the same thing with things like old Accutron repair manuals etc. I guess there are worse ways to make a buck (cough, "Pigeon", cough, cough).

This patent is actually pretty cool reading material (well, at least to the microscopically small minority of folks you're likely to find around here), so I thought I'd post the link to the free PDF. There are all sorts of cool patents available on this site. For example, here's a slightly later Bergey / Hamilton patent:
"Solid State Timepiece with Liquid Crystal Display":
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/3701249.pdf

... and here's the (quite a bit later) Bulova sideview case patent:
"Solid State Electronic Watch Assembly":
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4033110.pdf
"Electronic Digital Wristwatch Case":
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/D246230.pdf

-abe.

[abem]

Oh, one other little thing - notice the date on those first two Hamilton / Bergey patents.

The LED "Solid State Watch" patent was filed on May 6, 1970 about two years before the P1 came out and was awarded on June 27, 1972 about three months after the P1 was released (April 4th, 1972).

The "Solid State Timepiece with Liquid Crystal Display" patent was filed on March 12, 1971 almost a year before the P1 and was awarded on October 31, 1972 about 7 months after the P1.

People say that technology moves fast today. Well, look at the pace of technological change in the early 1970s. You have to admit, Hamilton sure had some smart cookies working for them.

-abe.

p.p.s. One other tiny detail that may be of note to a few uber-geeks - the graphics in the the LCD patent depict a watch with the same 6 digit display layout as the early P1 E/D modules. Actually, it looks like a lot of the graphics were recycled from the first patent - not surprising given how quickly things were moving.

p.p.p.s Another interesting detail to note is that the LCD watch conceived of in 1971 displayed the time at the push of a button just like an LED watch. From page 6:
"As previously pointed out, the watch of the present invention incorporates a display demand switch operated by a pushbutton. This substantially increases the life of the liquid crystal, as well as the power supply, by several orders of magnitude since, based upon past experience, the operate to no-operate ration becomes quite small (on the order of 0.05 percent) when the demand technique is employed."
Also, they used AC current instead of DC to drive the liquid crystal display. This is not the LCD watch of today!

[rewolf]

... Also, they used AC current instead of DC to drive the liquid crystal display. This is not the LCD watch of today!

I didn't read the patents, but LCDs still today are AC-driven. DC destroys the LC.

[J Thomas]

[abem]

I stand corrected. Apparently, the AC voltage is what causes the flickering that I've noticed on most LCD displays from segmented watch displays to high res bitmapped displays like on my iPhone. According to Wikipedia, "LCDs do not flicker" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refresh_rate), which is a gross oversimplification / incorrect. Here's a pretty good explanation:
http://www.intersil.com/data/an/an1208.pdf

They describe in detail why DC voltage can not be used:
"This DC voltage causes charge storage, or memory. In the long term, it is a form of aging, degrading the pixels by electroplating ion impurities onto one of the electrodes of the pixel. This contributes to image retention, commonly known as a sticking image."

Learned something new today.

-abe.

[J Thomas]

[BENRUS]

Benrus,

That's kinda cool, but how are those 28 pages different from these 28 pages that you can download for free?:
-abe.

Thanks Abe
Who knew? Not me.
I was just browsing auctions on the Bay for some interesting cheap watches, and when searching under "Solid State Watch" I stumbled across this persons listings.
I did not know it was available for free, or I never would of posted this info. Thanks for pointing it out for everyone (who like me may not have known without actually searching for that specific information). When I first found these listings, I just thought for those who might find it interesting, there it was....I am glad to know that one does not have to pay to see this info, and that its available to print out at ones free will.
Thanks for posting the links