Released in 1981, this impressive piece was very early for a dot matrix watch, with the only previous model being a single line full dot matrix from Seiko the year before (excluding the prototype Hamilton Pulsar which greeted the world from Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show on the 6th of June 1970). The four mode mode buttons across the front catch the eye next; an unusual and effective user interface paradigm in combination with the crown, which is an amusing feature on a digital watch, if a little fiddly. It certainly involves some fancy engineering; after 44 years of service the pull-to-set switch was only making intermittent contact, and thus the crown mechanism was overhauled – it’s a fabulous concoction of mechanical and electrical elements… One small part in particular is just astounding; where the two-way clickspring rests against a tiny stop, this little sheetmetal part is scissored in a way that defies the imagination as to how it was manufactured. Just absolutely lovely stuff.

Like many watches from the early 80s, it features a front-firing speaker (voicecoil and diaphragm, as opposed to a piezo disc inside the caseback), which busts out a slightly ominous, calm-sounding ding-dong; a sound which might have served well to build tension as a persistent background noise in something like Kubrick’s 2001, or Valve’s Portal. This one has been well-loved, evidently having been worn for most of its life; rather than one or two scratches heavily detracting from its aesthetics, it wears its evenly-distributed patina in authoritative wabi-sabi style, like a superstar in ripped jeans at a black-tie event. A huge favourite, this watch is the site’s favicon.

A fair price for this one probably wouldn’t be more than $400; the extra hundred bucks is to get it off my wrist 😉

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