Tech Time Warp of the Week: The 1972 Digital Watch ThatCost More Than a Car

On Monday Apple is expected to announce more details about the Apple Watch. It could be theproduct that finally brings wearable computing into the mainstream. But as far as high-tech watchesgo, it's hardly the most ambitious.

In 1972, the Hamilton Watch Company announced the Pulsar Time Computer, billed as the firstdigital watch. In the video above you can see--and hear--how grand the company's vision for thefuture of timekeeping was.

"Time. The endless river," the ominous voice intones as a clock ticks in the background."Transporting some. Engulfing others. A stream upon which information explodes, communicationsmultiply, technology accelerates into ever new life."

The "Time Computer" bit was mostlymarketing hype. It didn't double as acalculator or address book, or haveany of the other bonus features thatlater digital watches would include. Allthe Pulsar watch did was tell time. Butin an age when computers were stillenormous, lumbering machines, theprospect of wearing anything thatcould be construed as a computer onyour wrist was downright sciencefictional. And much as today's watchestout sensors to monitor your heart rateor activity, the Pulsar boasted a lightsensor that could adjust the brightnessof the LEDs so that they looked thesame to the eye regardless of thelighting conditions.

"That model sold for $2,100, whichwas more than a new Ford Pinto went for at the time," journalist Harry McCracken wrote in aretrospective on early digital watches. A Pulsar even appeared on James Bond's wrist in 1973's Liveand Let Die.

But that prestige didn't last long. Technology companies soon flooded the market with new products.Back before Commodore International--the company behind the iconic Commodore 64 and Amigacomputers--got into the PC business, it released its own LED watch in 1975:

Other computer companies, including HP, Intel, and Sinclar, also got in on the action. "In short, the1970s watch business was a preview of the 1980s PC business," McCracken observes. "For the firsttime, a bunch of electronics companies which had previously specialized in scientific equipment andbusiness machines started learning about selling gadgets to consumers."

Commodification doomed most of these efforts as a prices for digital watches went from thousandsof dollars to just a few bucks in the late 1970s. Commodore, HP and the like soon moved on to themore lucrative and exciting PC market. But now, like the hour hand slowly ticking its way back to12, the computer industry is returning to the watch businesses.

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