Calculator watch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Calculator watches (watches with a calculator function) appeared in the Mid 1970s introduced by Pulsar and Hewlett Packard. Several watch manufacturers have made CWs over the years, but the Japanese electronics company Casio produced the largest variety of models. Thus, Casio is considered the main player in CWs. In the mid-1980s, Casio also created the Data Bank calculator watch, which not only performed standard mathematical functions, but also stored appointments, names, addresses, and phone numbers. Currently, Casio sells only a few "pure" CWs (e.g. CA-53W) and considers a calculator as merely a function on their Data Bank watches. The eData version of its Data Bank watch, featuring the aforementioned storage capabilities, also has greater memory and the ability to store computer passwords.
When mass produced CWs appeared in the early 1980s (with the most being produced in the middle of the decade), the high-tech community's demand created a "feature war" of one-up-manship between watch manufacturers (e.g. the Casio scientific calculator watch CFX-400 in 1985) and were considered fashionable or hip to some people. As an example of CWs as a fashion accessory, in a poster for The Police’s album Synchronicity, front man Sting can be seen with his arms folded, proudly sporting a black plastic Casio calculator watch. However, as the novelty of this new electronic fad watch wore off, they became, much like pocket protectors and thick glasses, associated with nerds and were no longer considered to be in vogue. Today, the overall style status of the calculator watch is uncertain. Depictions of them in today’s media abound, but with no single type of wearer. For example, Al, the seemingly normal middle-aged pilot in the Tom Hanks film Cast Away is seen wearing one as he’s pouring a cup of coffee right before the crash scene. In many trades and technical fields, calculator watches are more common. As an homage to this, Dwight Schrute, playing the annoying and nerdy character on NBC's The Office, can be seen wearing a Casio Data Bank watch.
In addition to their questionable status as a fashion accessory, the future of the calculator watch as a practical and useful electronic device is also uncertain. In an age of ubiquitous PDAs, cell phones, and other powerful and compact computing devices capable of storing many megabytes of information, there's likely no need for a digital watch that holds a fraction of the information and displays it on a tiny monochromatic screen, with hard-to-use miniature buttons. On the other hand, one could also argue that advances in electronics, RFID, and voice recognition could result in many qualities of the PDAs, cell phones, and other powerful and compact computing devices being incorporated into a watch format -- a Wrist PDA or more complex wearable computer -- just as the Data Bank absorbed the calculator function, TV controller, and camera in some models. PCOnHand.com offered a PC/PDA/calculator wrist watch but, as of April 07, 2006 has ceased selling this device.
