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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.
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 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.
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.
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!)