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The Bulova Accutron
warewolfsmith writes "The Bulova Accutron. Introduced in 1961, it was the first successful transistorized watch, far more accurate than any other watch then on the market and a major advance in timekeeping technology. Prior to reading this article I had never heard of it. Interesting history." There are a number of websites devoted to it.
Who cares how accurately it kept time? The more important issue at hand is.... Does it run Linux? ;-)
I'm sure NetBSD's already working on a port
S.t.e.v.e.
1961 is a whole millenium ago.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
I have an old toothbrush you can do a story on. I might have a pair of transistorized crotchless panties also, but don't hold me to that.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Transistors have been around since the days of Henry Ford, so I find it hard to believe that 1961 was the year of the first transistor-filled watch.
-
26 year-old Web developer from Seattle. And yes, chicks do dig *nix
Okay, let's get them out of the way so other people can start some real discussions. Here are all the clichéd posts in one easy-to-read post!
(+1 Funny) -- "The Bulova Accutron replaces the old Bulova Helluvaweight, a valve operated watch which the wearer pulled along behind them in a shopping cart."
(-1 Flamebait) -- "Who cares about this old crap? It's just old technology that we don't use now anyway."
(-1 Troll) -- "This sucks. Using transistors in a watch? Nowadays we use pure silicon, which they actually had in the 60's but they were unable to see the benefits."
(-1 Overrated) -- "Hi, I'm John Romero/Alan Cox/Linus Torvalds, and I thought I'd drop in and just say 'Hi'"
mogorific carpentry experiments
I thought paying Slashdot users weren't supposed to be subjected to advertising on the site.
Don't forget to check out the Seiko Kinetic Watch - it doesn't require a battery. Here's how they work: http://www.seiko-kinetic-watches.com/seiko_kinetic _watches_wk.htm
Why *wouldn't* you care about the first watch ever? I wear my watch every day and couldn't imagine how folks in the '50s went through life without one!
-
26 year-old Web developer from Seattle. And yes, chicks do dig *nix
One of the most accurate watches ever made was made in the 1700's by a man named John Harrison, in order to fix longitude.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
This watch also holds claim as the only watch ever to be used on the moon. Because of thier super-high precission, these watches became the official watch of NASA (which you should know, of course, because it was in the article). It is just too bad that it is so hard to find an original tuning fork model for a reasonable price (and to find parts to fix it when it breaks!). Oh well....
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
That's a very common problem with the Kinetics, and fixing it is damn expensive.
And in case you didn't know, watches didn't require batteries before the Accutron, either. In fact, none of my modern nor vintage watches require batteries. (And no, they're not Kinetics.)
somebozo writes "The facsimile machine, introduced in 1966, is an amazing device that sends images through a phone line! It's far quicker than sending something in the mail and a real advancement in communications technology! Prior to learning about the fax machine, I had never learned about it before. Very interesting." Gee, we are really running short on stories today.
mogorific carpentry experiments
On a program on watches, one of the excellent series The Secret Life Of Machines, shown on Channel 4.
"Accurate to within a minute a month, guaranteed!"
I'm just wondering how many people reading this have realised that watches are still filled with transistors, albeit smaller. Nowadays people probably dont think of digital technology at such a "low level".
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
Do you even know what that word means?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Seiko Kinetic Watch
Recharges best when flogging your bishop.
I forget about the average age on this forum until an artcle appears with cites predating 1980.
Search for "Omega Speedmaster" to see which watch was approved by NASA for use on the moon.
The Accutron movement was used in some instrumentation, if I recall correctly. The watches weren't approved for use on the moon.
I bought one in the early 1960's, with the solid ;-). Tech support
gold case. I slipped down once while it was on
my wrist, and the hour and minute hands are not
indexed correctly. It'll run, but after a while,
when it is supposed to read "8 o'clock" the hour hand
is off somewhat. Anyway, the watch was very unusual
in that it used a tuning fork, which you could hear
when it ran. The second hand moved continuously, rather
than jumping second to second as with quartz watches.
btw, I have a swiss army watch, and it is very tough
and keeps excellent time. I had a friend that had one
of the transparent-case accutrons, and all the innards
were visible.
btw, last time I checked, my site,
rapidweather.com was not working either
says they'll get around to fixing it sooner or later.
> Why *wouldn't* you care about the first watch ever?
The Accutron was scarcely "the first watch ever".
> I wear my watch every day and couldn't imagine how folks in the '50s went through life without one!
I haven't worn a watch for about 10 years, since I find them uncomfortable (for reasons which I won't go into). I manage fine, because I live in a world full of clocks. If things get really bad, I can always look up at the sky and get a reasonably good idea of the time.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
characterized by often poignant difference or incongruity between what is expected and what actually is
u worship.com
courtsey of www.dict.org
next person who bitches about now havin the lil blue AOL link to click on can go to my tutorial on how to Cut & Paste at www.shootyourselfintheadfortheloveofwhatevergodyo
There would be a tutorial there if Verisign didn't send my renewal notice to somebody else.
And blame that space in the url to slashdot. Probably triggers a lameness filter or something.
He loved it. He worked at the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, and he used to hang his Accutron on the bedpost upside-down each night. If he hung it right-side up, it would lose or gain a half-second in the night, or so he said. But hung upside-down, and during the day, it kept perfect time.
Thanks for the memory!
-- S.T.
I wore my Dad's accutron throughout junior high school. People used to ask me about it, and I'd tell them the story of the Astronaut watch.
The coolest thing was, it hummed all the time, and the desks would amplify the sound. During a test, when all the room was quiet and scratching pencils, I would put it on my desk, next to Nadine, my hot 13-year-old desk mate, and she'd smile at the sound it made. That was great.
Then she'd say, "Nerd," and stick out her tongue. That was soooooo great. But I would blush.
Later on, on the foursquare court, people would ask about it, and if I wanted them to think I was cool, I'd let them put their ear to my arm and listen to it.
I tried the same thing last week. The girl at the bar laughed at me, said, "Nerd," and took my buddy home for some reportedly mind-blowing sex.
Sigh.
Few people know that cavemen had wristwatches too. They used vibrating rocks along with extremely small sabertoothed tiger nostril hairs to achieve a timing accuracy of +/- one second per second.
Well I knew it existed...
Watch the original Bullova Watch TV Commercial!
The AJAX commercial is good, too!
And here is Wendy's commercial making fun of Communism
Funny out of towner
E*Trade Monkey
Where's the Beef?
And a little nudity...
Last one
Cleo Magazine
(No Signature file found.)
Cover your eyes and click this link!
An Omega Seamaster modified with different strap holds that distinction. I happen to have the lunar dust collected out of one when it went into Omega for maintenance after Apollo 11. The Seamaster is a mechanical eg. non electronic timepiece.
The Bulova Accutron. Introduced in 1961, it was the first successful transistorized watch, far more accurate than any other watch then on the market and a major advance in timekeeping technology. Prior to reading this article I had never heard of it. Interesting history.
Woah! Oldtimers (pun intended) invented transistorized watches. They also invented things like ICs, CPUs, computers, and television. I don't know if I'm more frightened by the current accepted ignorance of recent history or the M$ Visual Studio .NET (R)(TM) ad that assaulted me when I clicked in.
Watches used to sail ships have been getting more and more accurate since the 1700's. And watches people carry with them have been getting more and more accurate since the 1700's, to the point that, for the last forty years, a person has been able to carry a watch precise enough for navigation. There is nothing ironic with that, one should not compare apples with oranges.
"You can't have any software run on a watch like this. You are so stupid! Why would you even think of that. Please don't post anymore. One last thing...Pity me"
There, does that sound ok? Why am I being so bitter today.....?They were Speedmasters. The Seamaster is a diver's watch, the Speedmaster is a chronograph.
LOL that's not the first watch ever! Mechanical watches were around centuries earlier.
:)
Ever heard of self-winding watches? Then learn How does a Self-Winding Watch Work?
Find a good short FAQ about automatic watches Here
The first hand watch was invented in the 1741. Then self-winding watches came about when Rolex invented the mechanism in 1931. On howstuffworks.com there might be an image of a transparent backside of an "automatic" or self-winding watch showing the mechanism. It's basically a half of a disk at the bottom of the watch that slides back and forth whenever the wearer does anything to move the watch (walk, write, etc.) This keeps them recharged for as much as 48 hours when you stop wearing them!
Apparently self-winding watches are coming back into style because they're so sweet and lose their accuracy at a rate of only a couple of seconds each month.
Sorry to bore you, but I did this research a few weeks earlier because I was interested in getting a watch of this type.
(No Signature file found.)
Cover your eyes and click this link!
There was this killer article in the New York Times last week about how cell phones are making "squishy time" more common.
People can be late for meetings as long as they call and say things like "I'm fifteen minutes away," and it's now more acceptable. He also talks about how you sort of plan unspecifically to meet someone for dinner after work, and you sort of home in on each other in location and time by calling their phones in the middle of a crowd or a parking lot.
I never wear a watch anymore, really. I think the days of precise time for human scheduling are starting to weaken.
time is relative...
Einstein told me...
Once you go mechanical, there's no going back. :) I have several mechanical watches, and there's no way I'd go back to quartz. Life is too short to wear boring watches.
I did a search on ebay and found ~140 items, the first page probably having the most relavant results. I for one wouldn't mind owning one.
Check out the ebay results here
I reaquainted myself with the Accutron recently. The battery was shot and had coroded a bit, but it cleaned up nicely and runs like new with the new battery. I think I'll wear it again.
When he first heard of them, he ordered one in the mail. Before it was shipped, he found one in a store. My gandpa loved these watches. He said that they were the first rail-road approved wrist watch. Before the accutron, rail road conductors needed pocket watches to keep time well enough to run a rail way. He made a watch band that would let him wear both at once; so no matter what side of his arm he looked at he could see the time. He would set one to local time and the other to Pacific time when traveled to a different time zone. He was a real watch and radio nerd. He listened to WWV "at 10, 15, and 20 Mgz" (the exact time for navagation at sea) all the time so he would know how fast or slow all his watches and clocks were. He loved fixing and adjusting clocks. The accutron work by counting the number of times the tunning fork vibrates. He loved to put his ear to the watch and hear the little tunning fork keep time. He told me quartz clocks work the same way; only the frequency of quartz is way higher than the frequency of the tunning fork. Both are faster than the frequency of a pendulum.
Of whichI proudly wear on my wrist today.
n n/ kippsphotos/5390.jpg
Here is a picture of it with Buzz Aldrin wearing it proudly
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/ap11a
I was given my grandfather's old Accutron (a trend, it seems), and have really enjoyed it. The only thing that ever gets to me is the constant humming. It's a nice novelty to show others, but can get obnoxious in a quiet enough place. With music playing and fans in my computer spinning, it's virtually unnoticeable, but I honestly can't sleep with it sitting on top of my dresser. It spends the night in my sock drawer.
Also, if you ever get one, pray that it never breaks. I had to have the coils replaced, and there is pretty much one guy on the continent who could fix it. Oh yeah, it scarfs down batteries pretty fast, too. All in all, though, a great watch to have.
To think that a 1960's tuning-fork watch can, given the right conditions, be more accurate than the clocks that service 100,000+ people!
Alas, most clock services seem to be wrong. My VCR continually records programs at the wrong time. And it's a VCR with a "self setting" clock. It's about 2 minutes wrong.... thanks to a lame broadcaster who doesn't know how to synch a clock.
This site even tries to make a summary of inaccurate (public) clocks in some guy's world... crazy!
(Yeah, I know that the Bulova wasn't that super accurate, but it's the principle of the thing! We should have better time 40 years later!)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I had occasion to call Bulova about this thing, and their switchboard in Brooklyn, NY answered the phone "It's 3:52 Bulova watch time." Very much an old-line company.
The watch industry was hit hard by quartz watches. Originally, they were developed by the Swiss Institute of Horology to provide a new high-end product. But when they got cheap, it destroyed the mechanical watch business, and with it, most of hte industry in the canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland. The mechanical watch industry used to compete on accuracy, but once cheap watches became good, that was over. High-end watches today are strictly status symbols.
"Rolex is not in the watch business. We are in the luxury business" - Andre Heiniger, Rolex CEO
I had nearly the same story
well, about the humming part. Oh, and I'd do it after a few rounds of Bong-O-Rama.
Geek.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
the Bolivia Approxmatron. Offered to me down in Miami by a guy with a rather heavily loaded coat.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I used to own an Accutron, later an HP watch with LED display, then a Seiko digital ... but it's been years since I wore a watch, at least to tell time.
There's time on: the cell phone & PDA in my pocket. There's a PC, VCR, TV, or microwave in every room of the house. Radios in the cars. PC or workstation in every office & lab at work. Just why would I bother with a watch?
The only one I now own is an ornately engraved pocket watch, but carried as jewelry, not for the time.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
and was the distributor of Bulova watches in South Africa. I remember him showing me one of the Accutron Astronaut watches when Bulova started the campaign with posters of the the guys on the Moon along with a Bulova Accutron. Bulova made a special edition for that campaign with a quartz crystal transparent bottom piece. These watches were the holy grail of my fathers company for me and I really revered them. Sadly all these watches were killed by the digital watches with the funny pulsing red LEDs that turned up in the early 70's.
innovative? hardly. just another payper liesense FraUDuleNT FUDgePeddler designed to increase the bodIE couNT of the ill eagle kingdumb's hostage ransom scam.
does any1 really know what time IT is?
I was a bit hasty, I am of course aware that Seamaster chronos were made back in the day as well as now.
Incidentally, I have two Seamasters myself (one vintage and one new black/black). Great watches, even if I'm not a big fan of modern Omegas. (Especially their horrible advertising.)
Go to the website: http://www.bulova.com Accutrons still available for sale, and you can download one for your desktop as well. (link on their home page) Yes, they are indeed an old line company in many ways still; I thought they had gone out of business, but apparently not. Good for them! There is a lot to be said in this day and age for a watch that has hands and gears and works well.
I bought an "Acurton Astronaut" when I was a student at the Air Force school for Navigators. The "issued" watches were only good enough for navigation for about 6 hours. After that, you had to reset them to "Coordinated Universal Time" by radio (WWV).
My Acutron was good for several days! By "good" I mean within 5 seconds of WWV!
Well worth the money I spent!
Fuzzy
Former Celestial Navigator
www.aviationsextant.org
A truly great watch. My dad was a trainman for 33 years and he bought an Acutron in the mid 60's. At the time, it was the only wristwatch that was approved for railroad use. It was one of his most prized possessions. I now have it and it still runs perfectly.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
Or is it smoking what you're doing?
There are a lot of fake Spaceview Accutrons out there. The Spaceview is the really neat clear faced model, and there are a lot of plain faced Accutrons that have been modified to look like the much more valuable Spaceviews. Of course, this is real common on eBay.
Another part of the standard was that you had to unscrew the crystal to access the lever that allowed you to change the time. No accidental time changes were allowed. Put one of these modern digital watches in your pocket with a few other items, and the buttons get pushed accidentally every which way, and you have no idea whether what you've got when you take it out is the time or the futures price for unwrinkled prunes in Singapore.
Wristwatches first gained popularity with military aviators during the Great War, ca 1916. Because these were such celebrated heroes, the popularity of wristwatches then spread to the public and the pocket watch died, except for those needing accuracy. With radio popular, and every radio station had a time-tone every hour, and it being easy to set a watch, need for accuracy over a day or more was not so critical, and the wristwatch was the way to go, even though it was a bad idea. I already need one wrist for my cell phone, one for my TV, one for my computer, and one for the little tag that tells people where to return me when I'm lost.
I have one, I should have batteries put in, and USE it.
I got it as a Jr High grad present, of so many years ago. A few years later I actually worked for Bulovia for the summer
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Both my father and gradnfather have been jewelers, and to this day my father runs the store my grandfather started 60 years ago. Used to work there as a kid, and I learned so much about watches and pretty sparkly things.
Dad still has an Accutron or two... the SpaceView was one of the coolest watches ever... clear front and back so you could see all the insides.
Anyway, my actual info to contribute relates to their power source. Old Accutrons utilized Mercury batteries, which all you environmentalists know are now taboo. When these were phased out, a new model battery was specified as the replacement for the original mercury(damned if i can remember the new composition). The sad thing is, the new batteries, regardless of the what specs say, run at a slightly different voltage(i think, i am a programmer, not an electrician!) and over time will burn out the circuitry of the watch. Oooops! So much for you collector's item.
This info was current as of a couple years ago... if I see any of you here who appear to care about it, I will check with pops and see what the exact update is.
So hey, you want a cool watch? Get a Citizen EcoDrive, no battery, no worries. Or if you are rolling in $$$, go buy a Tag Heuer or some other fancy watch, with a certified chronometer automatic movement. No batteries, and if it's Swiss, guaranteed by law to be accurate.
Now if only my computer kept such good time... I swear it loses a few minutes each day.
I'd sleep with my grandfather when staying at his house during the summer, and could hear the watch humming away on the dresser beside me at night. Grandpa would tell anyone who'd want to know about how advanced the watch was, and let them listen to the hum.
Grandpa has since gone to be with the great watchmaker several years ago, and I hadn't thought about the watch and all of the emotions attached to it until just now, reading that article. Slashdot may post some off the wall stuff, but I can forgive it just this once, just to allow me to go back to a time when I didn't have to worry about anything but mosquito bites, and spend weeks at a time with grandpa.
Memes don't exist. Tell your friends.
The article states that the Omega Speedmaster was NASA's official watch.
Forget timekeeping, the unconventional movement somehow freed Bulova to use designs not even close to other Bulovas (or any other watches, and copied to some extent the wild ass Hamiltons from the 50's (ie. the Ventura "MIB" watch - which had a utterly worthless elecric movement).
2 18/asym/14kt/1/ but you won't see exactly the same thing. You'll get an index page instead of a thumbnail gallery.
I'm not big on accutrons although they certainly have a cult following in the watch world, but I couldn't pass this one up.
For the dns-impaired try http://vrx.net/richard/watches/b/bulova/accutron/
Need Mercedes parts ?
This watch was not only the first transistorized watch, but actually the first consumer device period that used a transistor. It was the result of years of innovation at Bulova, and it's ironic that its success led to Bulova's resistance to quartz movements in the 1970's. Bulova had too much invested in Accutron technology to acknowledge the superior quartz movement, and missed the boat by years. Their market share has never recovered from that, and their brand prestige now (to people my age, for instance, since i'm 23) is practically nonexistant.
I own an Accutron that my great-grandfather bought in 1962, and they are difficult to get repaired now. In addition, the mercury coin-cell batteries used in them are now verboten due to strict environmental regulations; many of the watches require special adapters/adjustments to use modern silver oxide batteries.
>The best thing about the Accutron was the cool sound they made.
I had one. It made a faint whine that sounded a lot like a mosquito. If you wore it while sleeping (which I did), and ended up with your wrist near your (or perhaps someone else's) ear, it could wake you (or other owner of ear) up.
Other watches worn in space include models by Poljot, the Russian manufacturer. Their watches were the first to travel there.
I have a classic Accutron (waterproof to 666 feet! how devilish) and need a new crystal.. parts are fairly common on Ebay if you take a look. Good luck.
You used to be able to find the railroad approved Hamiltons in pawn shops. You could buy them for about $50. It was the only way I could afford a halfway accurate time piece nbefore the mid-1970's. I have 3 of them. I stopped using them after I bought my first Seiko digital. I have gone back to analouge dials, they are much easier for me to read quickly, Seikos with quartz movements. One of my Seikos says railroad approved on its dial. I just took it out of the drawer where it had been sitting for the last 2.5 years. It was one minute slow. It cost $125.
Enby in Waltham
Western Union had telefax, no gray scale, before 1954.
Finch Facsimile, before 1953, was highly developed, but not a commercial success.
There might have been others.
What gave fax a real boost was the great desire of Japanese businesses to use handwritten business communications, fairly sure. Similarly, 24-pin printers had the bare minimum for Chinese characters used in Japanese.
Enby in Waltham:
nbodley [at} world [dot} std [dot} com
WWJD == Who Wants Jack Daniels