In 1972, the Hamilton Watch Company announced the Pulsar Time Computer, billed as the first digital watch. In the video above you can see—and hear—how grand the company’s vision for the future of timekeeping was.
“Time. The endless river,” the ominous voice intones as a clock ticks in the background. “Transporting some. Engulfing others. A stream upon which information explodes, communications multiply, technology accelerates into ever new life.”
The “Time Computer” bit was mostly marketing hype. It didn’t double as a calculator or address book, or have any of the other bonus features that later digital watches would include. All the Pulsar watch did was tell time. But in an age when computers were still enormous, lumbering machines, the prospect of wearing anything that could be construed as a computer on your wrist was downright science fictional. And much as today’s watches tout sensors to monitor your heart rate or activity, the Pulsar boasted a light sensor that could adjust the brightness of the LEDs so that they looked the same to the eye regardless of the lighting conditions.
“That model sold for $2,100, which was more than a new Ford Pinto went for at the time,” journalist Harry McCracken wrote in a retrospective on early digital watches. A Pulsar even appeared on James Bond’s wrist in 1973’s Live and Let Die.
Klint Finley Business Date of Publication: 03.06.15.
https://www.wired.com/2015/03/tech-time-warp-week-1972-digital-watch-cost-car/
