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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.
Right... I certainly remember the Accutron, and lusted after it. IIRC the original price was something like $300, which would be the equivalent of $3000 or so today, way way beyond my means (or even my parents' graduation-present means).
Before the Accutron, watches, even quite expensive ones, could gain or lose a minute A DAY.
After the Accutron, there was the Pulsar, the first quartz watch, which I also lusted after and also couldn't afford. I believe this was the first quartz watch, certainly the first well-known one. It had a red LED display, and the drain on the batteries was so high that it just displayed a black face until you pushed a button on the side, then the LED's lit up. John D. MacDonald wrote about one in one of the Travis McGee novels, favorably; he said that he liked the idea of a watch that only showed you the time when you WANTED it to, like the old pocket watches with flip-open cases.
Sometimes technological dreams to come true. In the case of wristwatches, TWO of mine have. In the fifties, quartz-crystal timepieces were huge things--I imagine they were rackmounted but I don't know whether I've ever seen one--that were kept only in places like the Naval Observatory and the Bureau of Standards. Being able to pick up a CHEAP quartz WRISTWATCH at the drugstore is a dream come true.
The second... well, I don't know if anyone remembers a movie from the sixties, "David and Lisa," starring Keir Dullea and Janet Margolin. Keir Dullea is better known for playing the role of astronaut David Bowman in "2001: A Space Odyssey." It was a heart-touching romance (really!) between a neurotic young man and a psychotic young woman. The young man is obsessed with time and has dreams of being trapped with his head in a huge clock whose rotating hands will eventually decapitate him slowly.
He tells the psychiatrist that he has a dream of inventing a watch that would synchronize via radio waves from a central location so that everybody could always know the exact time.
I thought this was a pretty neat idea, so I was a little alarmed when the psychiatrist identified it as a neurotic symptom.
Anyway, neurotic or not, I have a quartz-crystal wristwatch on my left hand, and upstairs I have a $25 Oregon Scientific clock that synchronizes via radio (WWVB, I think) to an atomic clock in... well, in Colorado anyway. (It's very puzzling... some of the atomic clock companies say the atomic clock is in Fort Collins, some say Boulder. I suspect the truth is that they synchronize to WWVB in Fort Collins which, in turn, is controlled by an atomic clock in Boulder.)
I've had the radio-controlled clock a year. The only time I actually need to set my watch is when the time changes. I just checked, and my watch and my "atomic" clock are reading within two seconds after each other.
Dan is happy.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
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.
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!)