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Seiko TV Watch is now 20 years Old
TheGreatOrangePeel writes "In 1982 the Seiko "Television Watch" became available to buy. Now, 20 years later, the watch has become a bit of a rare item to find. When it was available new, it contained the following:
1-1/4" LCD Screen on wristwatch, Shirt pocket receiver, Case, Earphones, Owner's Manual." Apparently the small wonder is still the smallest TV commercially produced.
I want a TV watch
Live in hope. Die in despair.
...and we haven't come up with any new ideas since.
I don't think it lets you tune into websites such as http://www.watchmedance.com
Now the real questions is, will the remote watch work with the the Tv watch?
Trying to be different, just like everyone else.
Has a clock! It tells the time *AND* the date. It's incredibly useful. I look at it dozens of times throughout the day.
Wait, pocket receiver? So the whole thing DIDN'T fit on a watch, and they had to hide the bulk. Today, they wouldn't use a wire, they'd use bluetooth from pocket to wrist :)
a *really* slow news day.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I've seen a number of watches that allow you to program them to act as a TV remote control. Not as cool as a TV watch, but it'd still let you play some fun practical jokes. "Who keeps changing the channel!?"
It was the giant dish you had to wear on your head that was a bother.
Well fuck, I can't masturbate to erotic TV commercials if the TV is mounted on my friggen wrist... it keeps moving back and forth, back and forth...
Masturbation requires concentration, which this device does not allow.
here
how many they have sold since it's introduction. I'm guessing not many.... who wants to watch tv on a 1-1/4" LCD screen?
My organization is known for studying the viability of certain technology products, including televisions.
We've found that the next place a TV makes sense is within cell phones. With phones getting high quality displays, it's relatively inexpensive (power/space/$) to add a television tuner.
We found smaller devices were not economical, due to the fact that most people already carry around a cell phone as a device.
We've also found that cell phones are displacing the sales of watches, as most modern cell phones have a server-synchronized clock built in.
Over time, we find that the cell phone will shrink into a watch-sized device - but that will take at lesat two more generations of development. Battery life and size is, as always, the limitation.
this is cutting edge stuff. .amazing. .snore.
Hey Taco, if I email you some interesting info on the Great Wall of China, will you post it on slashdot?
Apparently it's still the only man-made object that can be seen from space. So it must still be newsworthy, right?
seriously, I know I'm trolling. But this post has to be among the worst I have seen.
Apparently it's still the only man-made object that can be seen from space.
Actually, that's an urban legend.
dbretton writes:
click here
Seems to me one of the other portable TV's would be a lot more convenient, especially considering the improved screen size. Which you know, is probably a real darn good reason why it never cought on. ;)
Still, having a resolvable display in the early 80's was doing pretty darn good, even if it ended up being little more than a neat hardware hack.
"Asians are so inventive that they can turn a tv into a watch."
-Reggie White (football player turned preacher for you anti-sports geeks)
Combine this with the world's smallest TV transmitter, and you're all set.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I remember talking about this in grade school all this dick tracy stuff. I touted it as being impractical and expensive, which it was but in retrospect were these guys ahead of there time or what. Well there is an museum peice for you. Put it right along side the star treck communicators.
the watch has become a bit of a rare item to find.
tell that to this guy who's selling one for 200 bucks.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I mean, it's a cool idea, but how long can you possibly stare at a tiny little screen for to watch something? And what would require such urgency that you need to carry a television around? I get enough eye strain staring at a 17" monitor a good chunk of the day, never mind doing the same thing on a small display.
If it's a sports event like hockey, forget about seeing where the puck is going. Academy awards results can come via text messages. 3G networks will make streaming video possible over phones anyway. Reception can't be that great on a little watch. For portable TV, I have my 4" Casio screen, and then only if it's used sparingly.
That's not to say that it's not interesting technology or that we shouldn't commemorate it. I used to have a Pac Man video game watch (the one with the joystick, not the buttons), and I wish I still had it because it was neat. But, like all thing in life, we have to move on to what's modern and better. I'll probably be playing video games on the go on my cell phone soon, and so will I be watching tv and video, if not on my multi-function multi-emulator PDA.
Who says the US doesn't get the cool stuff? http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/03/2019216.shtm l?tid=137
In that case, slashdot WOULD post it as a story.
There's one on Ebay for auction.
Mwhahaha... The site euclid.nmu.edu is running Apache/1.3.22 (Unix) (Red-Hat/Linux) mod_ssl/2.8.5 OpenSSL/0.9.6b DAV/1.0.2 PHP/4.0.6 mod_perl/1.26 on Linux. FAQ
The Linux takes last place, again.
It's always nice to get a visual confirmation of a through-slashdoting. "Warning: Too many connections in /staff/WWW/Dept/web/deadch/pn_714/html/pnadodb/dr ivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 108
/staff/WWW/Dept/web/deadch/pn_714/html/pnadodb/dr ivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 108
mysql://deadch:@euclid/deadch failed to connect Too many connections"
And I remember seeing a couple of these back in the day (TV Watches), nice idea for the gadget lover, but even then seemed kind of a waste for us practical people that prefer calculators on our watches. =P
Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in
======
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
I was a salesman at Bel Air Camera in Los Angeles
in 1982 and I remember selling these silly things.
Actually I remember selling ONE. It was bought by
David Hearst... Patty's brother. He wandered
around Westwood looking at the stupid thing and
bumping into people.
splat, there goes another site that uses a mysql backend.
<preach>
why don't people stick a line of code in their scripts that checks system load and disables databasey stuff while the system's getting hosed?
</preach>
Captain Slash strikes again!! Warning: Too many connections in /staff/WWW/Dept/web/deadch/pn_714/html/pnadodb/dr ivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 108
Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /staff/WWW/Dept/web/deadch/pn_714/html/pnadodb/dr ivers/adodb-mysql.inc.php on line 108
mysql://deadch:@euclid/deadch failed to connectToo many connections
http://www.cybercurator.com/ also deals with the seiko watch ... couldn't find a googled cache of the link in the article, or an archive.org mirror.
-jms258
Belgian Highways....
Looks like the link is Slashdotted. You can check out more about it at this site:
http://www.tvhistory.tv/Smallest%20TV.htm
(Got it from the ebay add posted above)
Maybe the moderators woulnt be so quick if they werent Anonymous too.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
a beowulf cluster on these.... ugh, nevermind just force of habit.
Imagine a bracelet with an lcd display, and when it rings, you take it off your wrist and it unfolds to an ear boom phone. ta-da
by 600 in 20 minutes
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Come on, a story mentioning this thing showed up on the eternally spiffy memepool just a couple of days ago. 5:1 odds the article poster got it from there without giving proper credit. Show some manners, people.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Ok, so it was a novelty item then and now, but even with its pocket receiver, it's still an amazing item for its time. Most electronics look obsolete less than a year after they're introduced - this baby still looks cutting edge today (well it does if you pretend the receiver wasn't there!)
I remember as a kid when I got my first radio watch, and I was in love with it. Big ugly cheap thing, which could only pick up one band (medium wave) and its sensitivity was so poor that it could only pick up one local station that was very strong.
you can fit a cell phone into a hearing aid.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
you know its old technology when retina tv hits the shelves.
some quotes:
...Gemini V astronauts Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad were able to spot, among other things, a special checkerboard pattern that had been laid out in Texas, a rocket-sled test in New Mexico, and the aircraft carrier that would later pick them up in the Atlantic, along with a destroyer trailing in its wake...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
That's neat, but it should at least be cable ready! Or have RCA jacks so I can run linux on my xbox, keep it in my backpack powered by a fuel cell, and use X on my wrist-watch TV during commercials. Best of all, by the time all of the above is available, I might be able to afford it within only a few lifetimes.
This would be cool, because I would assume that by now they could get it alot smaller (electronics part, not the screen because why would you want it?)
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The idea of putting the main proccessing power (or tuner in this case) in a separate box is good. Technically, all the watch is is a screen, surely you could connect almost anything to it - a camera, a dvd player or even a computer. If you designed something like this with a touch screen, then you're set. I want to see a cheap, thin LCD touch screen (on a watch or in a star-trek style pad) with some kind of wireless system (bluetooth, infra red etc) or atleast a cable. You could then use it to access other devices while they're in your pocket or briefcase, such as your mp3 player, dvd player, laptop, camcorder or tv tuner. You could even use a wireless base-station. Basically it would be a dumb terminal, but a very cheap, tiny, and portable one. Obviously you'd need to sort out compatability between products, but it would make life so much easier.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
This was up a few days ago on the excellent memepool.com. Go take a look - you might like it.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
...the best place would be a small screen embedded in your eyeglass frame up in the corner. Boring meeting, just glance up! Tiny screen plus REAL close to the eyeball might work! Tv on one screen, web browser on the other eye, keypad and mousestickthingee* on the wristwatch.
*technical geekspeek lingo
I could have sworn it was Casio that made these! Maybe they came out with one too?
And wear a glove so it feels like someone else is doing it.
This reminded me of a watch I had long ago...It was a PDA/Organizer Computer Watch. It actually had a version of GW Basic in the rom, and 256k of RAM, I believe. Here's a british version on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =941378559
"UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things."
And not so good either. With a small brick sized battery and antenna pack, these were hardly the portable pieces they seem to be.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I still think that digital watches are a neat idea.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
cynasim is gooooood
life, the universe and everything? = 42
The thing was...he was right, everybody knew he was right, but he shouldn't have said it.
Its like coming out in public and saying "Man, no matter how smart and powerful women become, I still think of them naked with me banging them"
Every guy thinks that, *BUT YOU CAN'T SAY IT!"
Then we can do another story here on it so that people can mention something about a beuwolf cluster.
God, this place is so friggin predicatable sometimes.
I firmly believe TV is our 'circuses' and that fundamentalist Muslims are our Huns.
/.
I dumped my TV 6 months ago and I challenge all of you to do the same.
The first week is pure hell.
The second week you've got the shakes but you only think about it when Seinfeld reruns are on.
After 3 weeks you begin posting heavily to
{note: for this to work, you have to give the TV away}
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
It'l be obsolete in the US in 2007 unless it comes with a digital tuner. Analog broadcasts are to end. I don't want to pack a VCR or DVD along just to use the watch. I want one that will work at the ball park to watch the replay.
The truth shall set you free!
by a japanese corporation fits the enron profile !
Last year I made an effort to see if I could track any down. Seiko doesn't produce them anymore, and I could find any used ones for sale. I remember James Bond using one in Octopussy, and tried to find some places that might have some left over. If anyone know of a place to get one, please let me know.
OH MY GOD! YOU JUST DEEP LINKED EBAY! I bet the Danish would be interested in this.
[insert witty comment here]
...they blew up Earth before he got the chance to buy one.