Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from half
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren, both of them, and
Speaker 1: it's time for a new intro. Okay, guys, So we
Speaker 1: recorded just now an epic episode about smart watches. And
Speaker 1: when I say epic, I mean it was over an
Speaker 1: hour long. As as it turns out, there's a really
Speaker 1: fascinating and very long history about not just watches, that
Speaker 1: digital watches and the technology that has led up to
Speaker 1: what we are currently calling smart watches. Right. So with
Speaker 1: that in mind, we decided to split this episode into
Speaker 1: two to make it more fun sized for all of
Speaker 1: our listeners out there who may want to listen to
Speaker 1: podcasts that don't have me talking on them. I don't
Speaker 1: know why you do that, but anyway, we have decided
Speaker 1: to split this up. So in this first episode, we're
Speaker 1: going to really focus on the development of wrist watches,
Speaker 1: into the development of digital watches, and then leading right
Speaker 1: up to the the very birth I would say, of
Speaker 1: what would become smart watch, the point at which these
Speaker 1: devices started um getting interconnected, right, and a little bit
Speaker 1: more than just about time. So smart watch I guess
Speaker 1: it's a watch that does things betther than time. Yes.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about smart watches is that the definition
Speaker 1: is somewhat vague, and it's probably because we've got a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways that people are coming at the
Speaker 1: smart watch design. It's kind of a convergence really, which
Speaker 1: is for those of you who have been listening to
Speaker 1: tech stuff for a long time, you remember that's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite words in the whole wide world. Convergence,
Speaker 1: this idea of very previous types of things converging into
Speaker 1: a single form factor. And we're seeing this across multiple platforms,
Speaker 1: not just with watches obviously. Sure sure, I mean you know,
Speaker 1: as as technology as is letting UM chips be smaller
Speaker 1: and more powerful, and as displays are getting um more
Speaker 1: energy efficient and um more more capable of show and stuff. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You know, as as the touchscreen capabilities are getting better,
Speaker 1: voice recognition capabilities are getting better, it's making the smart
Speaker 1: watch more of a reality. Although, as we'll see, the
Speaker 1: idea of a smart watch, or at least a watch
Speaker 1: that is able to do more than just tell time,
Speaker 1: is not exactly a new idea. It's actually been around
Speaker 1: for several decades, but really defining it as tough really
Speaker 1: because as we add more capabilities to watches, we then
Speaker 1: have to have the discussion of does this make it
Speaker 1: a smart watch? And more frequently than not, I see
Speaker 1: people say, no, that's not really a smart watch. So
Speaker 1: really a smart watch is more about what a watch
Speaker 1: isn't rather than what a watches right right, And you know,
Speaker 1: it's if we were talking a little bit before the show,
Speaker 1: and I kind of think that the you know, if
Speaker 1: we can define a smart phone as um as as
Speaker 1: a phone that lets you, um access the internet and
Speaker 1: access the power of the Internet through various things like
Speaker 1: apps and browsers. But but but furthermore, choose what software
Speaker 1: you put on it, most watches are not really at
Speaker 1: that point yet, even I mean most smart watches, even
Speaker 1: you know, there are a few. There are a few
Speaker 1: instances of smart watches that are running something like the
Speaker 1: Android operating system that allows you to install apps, although
Speaker 1: the utility of those apps is somewhat compromised by the
Speaker 1: fact that the watch form factor is pretty small. So
Speaker 1: using a lot of apps that are designed for a
Speaker 1: screen that's at least the size of a smartphone, if
Speaker 1: not a tablet makes it problematic when you're getting down
Speaker 1: to the smartphone size. Yeah. Yeah, So so I would
Speaker 1: say that a smart watch is probably more like something
Speaker 1: that um that allows you to have connectivity to your
Speaker 1: other devices, right, it might be a second screen experience
Speaker 1: for something like a smartphone. Uh. It's really you know,
Speaker 1: getting into this era of wearable computers, and we're seeing
Speaker 1: that grow year over year, and I think the watch
Speaker 1: is going to be probably one of the earliest examples
Speaker 1: of a wearable computer, but we're going to see this
Speaker 1: implemented into lots of stuff, uh in the future. We
Speaker 1: we've got activity trackers, which we've talked about in previous podcasts,
Speaker 1: and in fact, activity trackers and smart watches are converging
Speaker 1: as well, just not just the smartphone and watch models,
Speaker 1: or even the computer and watch models, because because a
Speaker 1: lot of these smart watches coming out have some of
Speaker 1: those um, you know, GPS tracking components are a pedometer gyroscope,
Speaker 1: but will let you, um right right track whatever you're doing,
Speaker 1: whether how many steps you're taking or whatever. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about a couple of those one in particular as
Speaker 1: we go on in this podcast. So so we're kind
Speaker 1: of narrowing down the definition. But to really understand about
Speaker 1: aren't watches, it would help for us to kind of
Speaker 1: take a trip through time. Ha ha, since we're talking
Speaker 1: about time anyway, Lauren is just going to be shaking
Speaker 1: your head through this whole episode because which I'm like,
Speaker 1: electricity lends itself to lots of puns. Yeah, that's why
Speaker 1: you know it's gonna be a good episode when Jonathan
Speaker 1: opens the show and I just go yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that she's already shaking her head twice and
Speaker 1: we haven't really gotten started yet. Anyway, Let's let's look
Speaker 1: at the history of watches and clocks in general. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, clocks date back hundreds and hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of years, especially if you're going to things like
Speaker 1: water clocks or hour glass anything that is used to
Speaker 1: track the passage of time. But if you want to
Speaker 1: talk about watches, something that's a wearable clock, you really
Speaker 1: got to go all the way back to the sixteenth
Speaker 1: century hundreds. So this is the same century where Henry
Speaker 1: the Eighth wed and wived, and wood and beheaded and
Speaker 1: lots of other stuff round around that same time. This
Speaker 1: is the time at which Shakespeare would have gone like, man,
Speaker 1: that's a minute ago. Yeah yeah, Actually Shakespeare for the
Speaker 1: for the earliest watches would have gone, I'm not born yet,
Speaker 1: but yeah yeah. Watches at this time were mostly coming
Speaker 1: out of Germany. There are a couple of cities and
Speaker 1: well what would be Germany and uh. The watches at
Speaker 1: those times were these big, heavy things made out of
Speaker 1: bronze that really only had our hand. They didn't have
Speaker 1: a minute hand at all. And because they that, the
Speaker 1: mechanism um would have been some kind of um. I
Speaker 1: was pretty primitive. Like this was before they had invented
Speaker 1: screws for things like watches, so they're like giant pegs
Speaker 1: holding this stuff together. Really, the watches were these enormous,
Speaker 1: heavy pieces of jewelry that weren't meant to help you
Speaker 1: keep time. It wasn't. I mean that's what they were
Speaker 1: supposed to do, but that's not what they actually did.
Speaker 1: What they really did was they acted as status symbols.
Speaker 1: So flavor. Flavor would have been perfectly at home at
Speaker 1: this time, because that's how you wore them. Under these
Speaker 1: you have an enormous chain holding it up a big
Speaker 1: what I'm from the street, Well, I'm from a street anyway,
Speaker 1: big heavy watches that were meant to show off status,
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, because they were expensive, they were very
Speaker 1: difficult to make, they didn't work so well. Uh, which
Speaker 1: really when you get down to smart watches, kind of
Speaker 1: mirrors the development of the smart watch. So but at
Speaker 1: any rate that they were just wearable clocks, so so
Speaker 1: not a wrist watch at all. These things were heavy
Speaker 1: and you warm around your neck and on a big chain. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the the technique for making watches improved, you began to
Speaker 1: see more precision in watches and clocks as well, and
Speaker 1: they began to get smaller and lighter and so yeah,
Speaker 1: and they were still in his pendants really until the
Speaker 1: late sixteen hundreds, So around the sixteen seventies or so,
Speaker 1: that's about the time that the waistcoat became a fashion statement.
Speaker 1: So once the waistcoat became a fashion statement, also pockets
Speaker 1: became a thing, and that's when we started seeing the
Speaker 1: pocket watch. So the next step in the evolution of
Speaker 1: the wrist watch was the very first wrist watch. Now
Speaker 1: there's some reports that say that people began to modify
Speaker 1: pocket watches so that they could be worn around the wrist,
Speaker 1: mostly for the ladies, because gentlemen like to have a big, old,
Speaker 1: unwieldy pocket watch because it showed how again wealthy and
Speaker 1: important they were. Right. But but as ladies did not
Speaker 1: necessarily wear waistcoats, I imagine that was a that was
Speaker 1: a fashion thing. Where again you're just going like, look,
Speaker 1: I've got twenty eight yards of dress, zero pocket, right,
Speaker 1: I need I need a way to show off that
Speaker 1: both one I'm important and too I need to know
Speaker 1: what time it is. Uh So, in eighteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: a Swiss watch manufacturer named Petick Philippe created the first
Speaker 1: documented wristwatch. Now, again, there may have been wristwatches before this,
Speaker 1: but this is the first time that anyone actually bothered
Speaker 1: to say this is this is it? This was designed
Speaker 1: to be worn upon the wrist, and it was jewelry,
Speaker 1: it was ornamentation. It was meant for a lady. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was a very important lady, the Countess Costcowitz of
Speaker 1: Hungary and h Other watches again may have been adapted
Speaker 1: for bracelets, but this is the first one that was
Speaker 1: designed for that purpose and actually documented as such. That's
Speaker 1: according to the Guinness Book World Records. By the way, now,
Speaker 1: if you go up to the eighteen eighties. That's when
Speaker 1: another Swiss watch manufacturer began to mass manufacturer wrist watches
Speaker 1: for German military officials who wanted to have a way
Speaker 1: of of of synchronizing time, but not have something so
Speaker 1: unwieldy as a pocket watch. Now, if you want to
Speaker 1: talk about a wristwatch designed for the general consumer and
Speaker 1: not just the military, you have to get up to four.
Speaker 1: And that's when Louis Cartier designed the first wrist watch
Speaker 1: for a man that was not designed as just a
Speaker 1: military wrist watch. It was for Alberto Santos Dumont, who
Speaker 1: wanted a time piece he could use while he was
Speaker 1: also operating his marvelous flying machine, because while piloting a machine,
Speaker 1: he wanted to have both his hands available at any
Speaker 1: time and not fumble for a pucket watch. That's fair, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see that. So Cartier created a wrist watch
Speaker 1: for his buddy, and he called it the the Santo
Speaker 1: and they began to manufacture them in mass amounts around
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, and that's when we started seeing wrist watches
Speaker 1: hit the actual general public. And then we have to
Speaker 1: skip ahead to digital watches. So the first digital watch.
Speaker 1: That's why like what the nineteen seventies, the twenties say
Speaker 1: what say what? Yeah, no, no, it was it was
Speaker 1: a mechanical digital watch. So we're kind of stretching the
Speaker 1: definition here, but um, but but by digital I mean
Speaker 1: showed numbers on its face that moved, rather than a
Speaker 1: watch hand that that aund circulate around the face. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about digits like the way you would think
Speaker 1: of an analog pinball machine where he had the little
Speaker 1: digit counters which would fall when you use your supple
Speaker 1: wrist to play pinball better than anyone down in soho,
Speaker 1: what was basically going on was was instead of having
Speaker 1: having watch hands move, it would be a little dial
Speaker 1: with numbers that would that it would would turn right.
Speaker 1: So so this was designed by well, it was the
Speaker 1: court to bear digital wristwatch in the nineteen twenties. Just
Speaker 1: like saying that word. Yeah, so spoiler alert here, guys.
Speaker 1: I actually didn't know about this, but only because I
Speaker 1: had looked it up just before Laurence started talking. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: So the nine twenties first digital wristwatch do for digital
Speaker 1: being that the digits are written down as opposed to
Speaker 1: and the digits move as opposed to uh, an actual
Speaker 1: watch hand sure right, um, And and now other other
Speaker 1: stuff was going on in the early twentieth century with
Speaker 1: with watch technology. Um. The quartz movement was invented in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties in larger clocks not at all and
Speaker 1: risk watches yet and and quartz movement UM just means
Speaker 1: that that when you hook up a quartz crystal to
Speaker 1: an electric battery, the it will vibrate a very specific frequency. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's the piece of electric effect. That is what
Speaker 1: it's called, thank you. And when you when you you know,
Speaker 1: hook up a bunch of gears mechanisms to this quartz crystal,
Speaker 1: then it will vibrate the the mechanism, the mechanism in time,
Speaker 1: which is how we get ticking watches. And because it's
Speaker 1: such or ticking clocks, yeah, because it's such a a
Speaker 1: regular occurrence, then it kept time in the level of
Speaker 1: precision that had not been really affordable for any up
Speaker 1: to this point except for the very very wealthy. Because
Speaker 1: I mean, like the Swiss clockmakers were famed for their precision,
Speaker 1: but this was tear springs and by hand, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like not a mass manufacturing kind of way.
Speaker 1: And making sure that making sure that add that that
Speaker 1: you could wind it in a way that would not
Speaker 1: decrease the accuracy. Yes, because as as this mechanism would
Speaker 1: wear down, it would become less accurate over time, less
Speaker 1: precise over time. So the because precision and accuracy being
Speaker 1: related but different things. Yeah. Now, if we get up
Speaker 1: to nineteen six, that's when a character who was becoming
Speaker 1: quite well known in the comics strips the funny papers,
Speaker 1: Dick Tracy, plain clothes cop. You may have heard of
Speaker 1: this character, if you're not familiar with him. Uh, he
Speaker 1: was a crime fighting cop who had lots of different
Speaker 1: adventures throughout decades and decades of stories that the comics
Speaker 1: are actually debuted in nine thirty one, Right, there was
Speaker 1: a movie with Warren Batty in something around there, right
Speaker 1: when Madonna did all the music. Right, Yeah, she played
Speaker 1: one of the characters. Yeah, that happened. Dick Tracy had
Speaker 1: lots and lots of adventures. Well six, that's when he
Speaker 1: got his infamous two way wrist radio. Now, this was
Speaker 1: one of those examples of using something like the wrist
Speaker 1: watch had now become something of a fashion item by
Speaker 1: the forties, and so now this was taking it to
Speaker 1: the next step, having a two way radio on your
Speaker 1: on your wrist as opposed to some sort of enormous
Speaker 1: radio that you're carrying around um and it gave Dick
Speaker 1: Tracy that edge over some of the nefarious evil doers
Speaker 1: they would face off against. In nineteen sixty four, he
Speaker 1: upgraded his two way wrist radio to a two way
Speaker 1: TV screen so you could actually see stuff and be
Speaker 1: recorded back, obviously decades ahead of any real world technology
Speaker 1: that would allow you to do do this now. I
Speaker 1: should also point out that in nineteen six, this is
Speaker 1: before anyone outside of a few laboratory folks had any
Speaker 1: inkling that a transistor would even be a possibility. So
Speaker 1: transistors are what actually allowed us to go the route
Speaker 1: of miniaturization and have technology that's that's that's tiny. Other
Speaker 1: before that, I mean you you're talking about vacuum tubes
Speaker 1: and enormous pieces of of of electronic equipment. That's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we didn't have that quartz movement
Speaker 1: in uh in wrist watches yet because it's hard to
Speaker 1: get that manaturization. But it was starting to to follow
Speaker 1: through um so in in nineteen fifty four, Popular Science
Speaker 1: showed off a prototype wrist radio, so already people were
Speaker 1: talking about it being like Dick Tracy's uh wrist radio, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, to this day, when you see smart
Speaker 1: watches announced, there's about a seventy chance there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a Dick Tracy reference in there somewhere. I mean, I
Speaker 1: remember seeing those in two thousand nine, and I'll get
Speaker 1: to that when we get to that part of the podcast.
Speaker 1: But I think that must be a law. It's really
Speaker 1: enduring image. It is. So the one in that Popular
Speaker 1: Science showed off was designed by Sylvania and it had
Speaker 1: a transmitter, so it wasn't just a radio as in
Speaker 1: a receiver where you could listen to the radio on
Speaker 1: your on your wrist. I've seen other radios that were
Speaker 1: designed that way, wrist radios, but they were just receivers.
Speaker 1: So it's like having a pocket radio, except reward on
Speaker 1: your wrist instead of in your pocket. Uh. This was
Speaker 1: a transmitter as well, so you could actually communicate with somebody.
Speaker 1: But again, just to prototype wasn't meant for mass consumption.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until that we even had a watch that
Speaker 1: ran off of a battery instead of needing to be wound.
Speaker 1: Holy cow. It's it's still used a balance wheel mechanism. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: the Courts technology had not been miniaturized yet, got you,
Speaker 1: So it's but still we're making progress. We are making progress. UM.
Speaker 1: Nineteen sixty was when Belova released their first Acutron watch,
Speaker 1: and that was that was a kind of a takeoff
Speaker 1: of the Courts movement. UM. It used a nickel alloy
Speaker 1: to to vibrate with the electric current of a battery
Speaker 1: UM at a at a less accurate interval, not as
Speaker 1: precisest quarts, but still better than what had come before.
Speaker 1: Certainly nice. I like Acutron like a very very anal
Speaker 1: retentive robot, like the The Accutron is the is the
Speaker 1: robot that goes on Twitter and starts every tweet with
Speaker 1: well actually, and he knows something. By the time this
Speaker 1: podcast has circulated, someone will have made an Accutron Twitter account,
Speaker 1: if there's not one already, I guarantee it. I certainly
Speaker 1: hope so I will be very disappointed if Acutron is
Speaker 1: not active with a week. Within a week of this
Speaker 1: podcast going live, get on that listener, and every tweet
Speaker 1: has to start with well actually, all right. Seven UM
Speaker 1: was when the c e h the Center Electronic hor Lagger,
Speaker 1: which was a Swiss research lab. The swisss mixing German
Speaker 1: and French together in a way that just defies my
Speaker 1: ability to pronounce things. They that was the year that
Speaker 1: they that they came out with a prototype of a
Speaker 1: miniaturized courts movement clock. Um. It did not hit the
Speaker 1: market because because the I think the Swiss were kind
Speaker 1: of like, we can do so much better with mechanical stuff,
Speaker 1: and then they were doing really well with mechanical movements
Speaker 1: at the time, so um uh yeah. Yeah. The in
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine, that was the first commercial release
Speaker 1: of a quarts movement watch. That was Sacho's um s
Speaker 1: q Astron. Yes. Psacho would become a big name in
Speaker 1: watches over the next couple of decades. It should be
Speaker 1: mentioned that this first uh commercial courts movement watch was
Speaker 1: such a technical failure that it was recalled after only
Speaker 1: a hundred pieces were made. Oh not yet, but but
Speaker 1: it was. It was an important I think it really
Speaker 1: got the world to set up and pay attention and
Speaker 1: go like, oh no, no, no, this is a thing
Speaker 1: that is going to happen and we should start getting
Speaker 1: on it, all right, So let's let's talk about an
Speaker 1: actual electronic digital watch, not a mechanical one that happened
Speaker 1: in seventy two. That was Hamilton's made it, and it
Speaker 1: was called the Pulsar P one Limited Edition Pulsar Um
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was encased in eighteen gold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was using an LED display with behind a
Speaker 1: synthetic ruby crystal, right, so all the light was kind
Speaker 1: of like it was like a Cylon visor from the
Speaker 1: like a toaster, the classic Galactica, you know, the good one.
Speaker 1: Oh well, okay, that's a whole other conversation. Um uh.
Speaker 1: So it was a little expensive, as I recall it was.
Speaker 1: It was dollars at the time, which equals out to
Speaker 1: about eleven thousand, four hundred in today's currency. So yeah,
Speaker 1: if you got about twelve grand to drop on a
Speaker 1: digital watch, that's the one that you would have bought.
Speaker 1: And and well, you know, it was the only one there,
Speaker 1: so I guess that's I guess that's why I would
Speaker 1: have thought. But and and you know, certainly certainly gold
Speaker 1: gold watches with with you know, all of the fixings
Speaker 1: these days are still quite expensive. That's true. There are
Speaker 1: watches that are well beyond the eleven thousand dollar mark.
Speaker 1: But this was this was pretty expensive. Now I will
Speaker 1: I will say that it was a celebrity watch because
Speaker 1: it was seen in a film, Uh, Live and Let Die,
Speaker 1: which was one of the James Bond movies. Yeah, um
Speaker 1: it was. It was also Yeah, it had it had
Speaker 1: a twenty five chip circuit. Yeah and um and then
Speaker 1: I'm crazy. So supposedly the idea for this watch. Hamilton's
Speaker 1: had done a digital clock for Stanley Kubrick's film two
Speaker 1: thousand one, and um, this is this is according to
Speaker 1: it to a great little article from the BBC that
Speaker 1: all all link on social and um and yeah, and
Speaker 1: and that kind of inspired the team to to put
Speaker 1: together the wrist watcher. Now, uh, you know, we're getting
Speaker 1: to the point here we're still talking about just wrist
Speaker 1: watches here, digital wrist watches, but still just something that
Speaker 1: tells time. But we're slowly working towards the this this
Speaker 1: idea of a wrist watch that can do more. And
Speaker 1: I'll keep in mind we had the examples of the
Speaker 1: two way wrist radio, which wasn't necessarily a watch, but
Speaker 1: was taking the watch form factor and converting it into
Speaker 1: something else. But we're now getting into an era even
Speaker 1: now in the seventy when we're talking about watches that
Speaker 1: could do more than just tell time. Uh. It was
Speaker 1: also the mid seventies when we started seeing the price
Speaker 1: for digital watches start to drop, when other companies got
Speaker 1: involved and began to find ways of mass manufacturing transistors
Speaker 1: at at a price that was way more affordable, right right. Also,
Speaker 1: Ellie l c D was coming onto the scene a
Speaker 1: little bit in in nineteen seventy three, Saco had the
Speaker 1: first liquid crystal display watch UM. And then but but
Speaker 1: it was around seventy six UM companies like like Texas
Speaker 1: Instruments UM started putting out these like twenty dollar digital
Speaker 1: watches UM, and you know, including in seventy seven they
Speaker 1: had like a whole Star Wars license line that was
Speaker 1: you know, it was for seventeen bucks and that's including
Speaker 1: the license fee. So you know, so much much less
Speaker 1: expensive than the than the two thousand watch that came
Speaker 1: out just a few years earlier. And uh so in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies six, that's what Hamilton's you know, they were
Speaker 1: the ones who got on the on the board with
Speaker 1: the first digital watch. They came out with the first
Speaker 1: calculator watch one of the first ones to hit the market.
Speaker 1: There were a few companies that were vying for the
Speaker 1: time but I think I think Hamilton's might have gotten
Speaker 1: it under the y that the buttons on this were
Speaker 1: so small that they had to be pressed with a
Speaker 1: stylists which was included with the watch, and you would,
Speaker 1: I hope not lose it immediately because if you did,
Speaker 1: it just became a very uh, buttony looking digital watch.
Speaker 1: You couldn't and if you were in the middle of
Speaker 1: a calculation, I assumed that eventually it would fade away
Speaker 1: to whatever the time was. But in HP got on
Speaker 1: with the their version of the calculator watch, which was
Speaker 1: the HP O one. They marketed it as a time
Speaker 1: machine because it was both a watch and a calculator.
Speaker 1: So it cost U fifty bucks for this steel model.
Speaker 1: We wanted it in gold it would be um. But
Speaker 1: then we started seeing other trends follow so it was
Speaker 1: you know, at first it was the calculator watch, but
Speaker 1: we started seeing other kinds of specialized digital watches. Right
Speaker 1: right right in there was a a gaming watch and
Speaker 1: uh and this this played a little three line version
Speaker 1: of Space Invaders. This is a Cassio Watch. I described
Speaker 1: it thus Lee this is in my notes. Uh, you
Speaker 1: would use a blip that would fire blips at other blips.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a great game. Yeah, from what I
Speaker 1: saw it was it was horizontally aligned, so your little
Speaker 1: blip was on one side and the enemy blips were
Speaker 1: on the other side, and you would fire your blips
Speaker 1: across to those blips before they could destroy you. But
Speaker 1: I also told the time. It also told the time
Speaker 1: gaming watch. This is something else that that keeps me amused.
Speaker 1: I remember there are lots of different comic strips that
Speaker 1: joked about the fancy watch that had all the different
Speaker 1: apps on it, and then they said what time is it?
Speaker 1: And then the responsibly time. Yeah. Either either it would
Speaker 1: take them forever to figure out how to activate whatever
Speaker 1: the time feature was, or the time features just not
Speaker 1: there trombone. Of course, later in the nineties they would
Speaker 1: come out with, um, you know, watches that did miniature
Speaker 1: versions of like Super Mario Brothers and Zelda and like.
Speaker 1: We would see a lot more game watches come out
Speaker 1: after that, but this was the first one. And that
Speaker 1: year was also when Cassio came out with a less
Speaker 1: expensive calculator watch, something that the average person could afford,
Speaker 1: not you know, drop close to a thousand dollars on it.
Speaker 1: It also came out with a watch calculator watch the
Speaker 1: head buttons large enough for you to press with your
Speaker 1: finger and not have to re upon a stylus or
Speaker 1: paper clip, as I'm sure so many people had to
Speaker 1: rely upon once they immediately lost stylus. Yea, I'm just
Speaker 1: assuming that some people are at least some people who
Speaker 1: bought this watch are as irresponsible as I am. You know,
Speaker 1: we all look at the world through our own lens, right,
Speaker 1: and yours is one of irresponsibility. Psacho produced a wrist
Speaker 1: watch with a tiny TV screen. This blows my mind, okay,
Speaker 1: and well, I mean, okay, it kind of sounds impressive,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was a blue gray l c
Speaker 1: D screen and um, it had to have an external
Speaker 1: box hooked up to the top of it so that
Speaker 1: it could actually do the tuning right right, So you
Speaker 1: didn't have a television tuner built into a wrist watch.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a tuner that would attach by
Speaker 1: a port plug it in. Yeah, then you could view
Speaker 1: the t and it's not like a portable TV that
Speaker 1: you could take with you wherever. No. Um, but but
Speaker 1: but it was pretty cool. Um that same year, Cassio
Speaker 1: came out with a watch that also had a thermometer.
Speaker 1: Very useful and it's super super useful. Often wonder what
Speaker 1: temperature my wrist was? And what Hey that that that
Speaker 1: becomes extremely useful and fitness day later on. I'm being snarky,
Speaker 1: but I think this one just told the ambient temperature
Speaker 1: of the room, and so like, why am I sweating? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's three degrees um? And the and and also that
Speaker 1: there was a watch that had from from Cassio that
Speaker 1: had a word Japanese to English translator in it, which
Speaker 1: is which is actually pretty cool for the time. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's actually really interesting, y'all. Yeah. I wonder if
Speaker 1: Sean Connery had one of those in that movie US
Speaker 1: And where he played the Japanese expert. Nothing like Sean
Speaker 1: Connery being a Japanese expert. By the way, The Rising Sun, Okay,
Speaker 1: that Michael, that Michael Creton book. I I remember the novel.
Speaker 1: I never saw them. It was it was an experience.
Speaker 1: We should That's another movie we could do a tech
Speaker 1: stuff episode about because they have a whole thing about
Speaker 1: digital manipulation, which was basically any Michael Crichton book though
Speaker 1: would are. But the way they display digital manipulation in
Speaker 1: this movie it was uh not realistic for the time,
Speaker 1: but it's something we could totally do now. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's something that a Disney ride does right now. So anyway,
Speaker 1: off topic, So getting back to watches, uh, in three
Speaker 1: that's the first time that we had Saco put out
Speaker 1: a watch called the Data two thousand and and this
Speaker 1: and this was a little a little thing that you
Speaker 1: could you could set it on a I think it
Speaker 1: was a magnetically driven keypad and um, and and and
Speaker 1: enter data into the watch from this key pass so
Speaker 1: make it easier to put data in as opposed to
Speaker 1: having to use tiny little buttons or some weird button combination.
Speaker 1: It was. It was still the pictures ever, remind me
Speaker 1: very much of you know, maybe like like the Microsoft
Speaker 1: Xbox keyboard keyboard for the controller. Yeah, so still a
Speaker 1: tiny keyboard, but but bigger, bigger than what you would
Speaker 1: normally see on a watch. Yes, certainly. Um. That's also
Speaker 1: the same year that Cassio came out with the c
Speaker 1: D forty, which was a wrist watch that had twenty
Speaker 1: four buttons that would let you type in short digital notes,
Speaker 1: so kind of like kind of like a little memo
Speaker 1: taking or database type watch, but still you know, self contained, right,
Speaker 1: like everything you put on the watch stayed on the watch.
Speaker 1: There was no way other than transcribing it to get
Speaker 1: the data off the watch. Four saw Saco's UM, a
Speaker 1: kind of advanced version of this of the statatuoe thousand
Speaker 1: called the U C two thousand, and that had a
Speaker 1: slightly more enhanced keyboard and UM would let you program
Speaker 1: on the watch in basic Wow, so you could have
Speaker 1: your own little program where when you run it, AT
Speaker 1: prints out a little picture using asterisks as the the image.
Speaker 1: Because that's what I used to do basic. That's about
Speaker 1: as far as I got in basic programming, which other
Speaker 1: things as well. I'm sure it could be done. And
Speaker 1: that U and that's when Cassio released the t M
Speaker 1: one hundred, which this was the first UH watch I
Speaker 1: discovered while while doing research for this podcast. UM, which
Speaker 1: again takes you right back to the Dick Tracy wrist
Speaker 1: radio because it was a digital watch that had a
Speaker 1: tiny little antenna that you could extend from the launch.
Speaker 1: It was actually cute. You can actually get a little
Speaker 1: extendable antenna that would come out of the watch and
Speaker 1: you could, uh, you could then speak into a microphone
Speaker 1: that was on the watch and transmit radio signals to
Speaker 1: any nearby radio tuned to the right frequency. So you
Speaker 1: had to tune the radio to whatever the frequency is.
Speaker 1: And this is not that unusual. We've seen lots of
Speaker 1: other tech use this. I remember before UM, before it
Speaker 1: became more common to have MP three auxiliary hookups in
Speaker 1: your radio, you would use things that would you would
Speaker 1: hook your your iPod or other m P three player
Speaker 1: up to this little transmitter and the transmitter would transmit
Speaker 1: a very weak signal to a particular UM frequency, and
Speaker 1: then you would tune your radio to that frequency, and
Speaker 1: that would let you listen to your iPod in your car.
Speaker 1: Before we actually got to deeper levels of integration, same
Speaker 1: sort of technology is going on here. The digital watch
Speaker 1: would transmit at a very weak signal at a certain frequency,
Speaker 1: and you could pick it up on nearby radios. Not
Speaker 1: terribly useful, but kind of interesting, Yeah, pretty cool. Never
Speaker 1: never went on sale in the United States. It went
Speaker 1: on sale in Asia apparently, but never in the US.
Speaker 1: UM Also that year, the that that BBC article that
Speaker 1: I mentioned said that Citizen came out with a watch
Speaker 1: that that had some kind of voice reaction software, which
Speaker 1: is pretty cool. I did not come across that in
Speaker 1: my research, but yeah, that's that's really early for any
Speaker 1: kind of voice control type stuff. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: it was voice controltrol. I yeah, I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: that's that's all I know about it, so we can't
Speaker 1: draw many conclusions. I would hope that it would allow
Speaker 1: you to at least turn the alarm off by screaming
Speaker 1: at it. Only only screaming, right, That's kind of my
Speaker 1: reaction whenever I have anything that has an alarm that
Speaker 1: goes off that I did not remember had been set,
Speaker 1: screaming is usually my follow up. And then something about
Speaker 1: ye Cassio came out with a watch called the Cosmo Phase.
Speaker 1: Um so, uh did it just play back the time
Speaker 1: in Carl Sagan's voice? That would be so cool? Ullions
Speaker 1: and billions of seconds to make your next appointment? It
Speaker 1: had it was an LCD display watch that um that
Speaker 1: was just chock full of planetary data, so um so
Speaker 1: it would it would tell you all kinds of things
Speaker 1: about about the phases of the moon and what planets
Speaker 1: were visible from different things and stuff. That's actually kind
Speaker 1: of cool. I mean, you know, it's it's again self
Speaker 1: contained information, right, It's not like it's it's not connective.
Speaker 1: It's not downloading this off the Internet of eight, right,
Speaker 1: which that did exist, but hardly anyone had any access
Speaker 1: to it when you look at the general population. But
Speaker 1: you know, but but but that's a bunch of information
Speaker 1: to stick in a watch. If you can, you can
Speaker 1: track Hayley's comment from from like nine one through two
Speaker 1: or something like that. Um well, I mean if you're
Speaker 1: if you're marked Twain, you can talk about it just
Speaker 1: by being that's when you were one and when you died. Right.
Speaker 1: So this wraps up the first part of our discussion
Speaker 1: about smart watches. We've got a lot more to talk about,
Speaker 1: including some watches that are actually smart. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even know it from the title, right. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: that episode is coming up soon, so in the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you have any thoughts on things we should cover
Speaker 1: in future episodes of tech Stuff, please let us know.
Speaker 1: You can let us know in an email or I
Speaker 1: just is tech Stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop
Speaker 1: us a line on Twitter or Facebook. Our handle of
Speaker 1: both of those is text Stuff hs W and Lauren
Speaker 1: and I will talk to you again in just a
Speaker 1: little more time. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.