LCD Watches

Many of us may be familiar with that movie scene involving a really old grandparent who would talk about things they had encountered in their youth. Typically starting with the words, “In my day…”, they would launch a long story of how thy had to cope with difficult times or narrate some that was new back then.

Well today, I’ll be starting a new series covering some of the things I encountered in my youth; things that many boys and girls take for granted today. So hunker down kids and prepare for stories about a bunch of old things as narrated by an old guy.

Blast from the Past

My family and I dropped by Time Depot in Eastwood City in Libis last weekend as to find a replacement for my trusty old Timex Expedition wristwatch. After accompanying me on quite a few adventures, and gaining a few battle along the way, I felt that it finally earned the right to enjoy an easy life away from the elements.

After trying out several models and making a final selection, I had time to go over the other displays while the warranty card was being filled up. I noticed that most of the timepieces sported analog faces instead of purely digital ones.

However, the digital watches that were on display did not exhibit the latest designs. On the contrary, they looked like they came straight out of the late 1970s or early 1980s.

[Talk about a blast from the past!]

Given the designs, I figured they were dug out of someone’s basement cabinet and put on display just to attract attention. But after talking to the staff of Time Depot, they confirmed that everything was being sold as new.

While I do have a preference for analog timepieces that appear really old, I must admit to being surprised that 70s or 80s-style watches were making a comeback. And judging from the number of people wearing them, I’d say that they are somewhat popular.

LCD

As I gazed upon the various digital watches on display, I could not help but be transported back to my Grade School days, to the time when the first digital watches hit the mass market.

I don’t know about you, but it feels like the market is cluttered with too many products today. Back in the late 20th century, at least to a kid in Grade School anyway, there weren’t that many things that completed for attention. And the one thing that stood out at the time was the LCD.

Marketing people just love to create new names that end up becoming buzzwords in the minds of consumers. And in the late 70s, they found a goldmine in the acronym LCD, which stood for liquid crystal display.

Some adults may comment that the LCD wasn’t the only buzzword at the time, and historians may back them up on this. But to a kid like me, putting it on a watch was enough to keep it at the top of my mind.

Many kids today may be wondering what the fuss about the LCD was all about. Well, the impact was that it changed the way we could read time back then. Thanks to digits, many of us didn’t have to pause and count the 5-10-15-20-25… in order to interpret the minute hand of an analog watch. All we had to do was look at the face and the time would be right there!

Quartz

While the LCD forever changed the appearance of watches, it was the widespread adoption of quartz technology that may have been the biggest breakthrough back then.

One of the reasons quartz technology was praised back then was due to their accuracy and consistency. Before this, the common watches needed to be wound. And as many watch owners may have experienced, winding watches weren’t exactly the most accurate. Sure, there were timepieces claiming high accuracy back then, but they would cost as much as a car.

When quartz technology was adopted for wristwatches, one didn’t have to pay through the nose to get consistent accuracy from their watches. All of a sudden, a group of people could now synchronize their time, without a few being off by minutes weeks later.

These watches were so accurate that time could be accurately split down to a hundredth of a second, something which the Olympics and other sports-related activities could make use of.

LCD Quartz Watch

Watch companies such as Citizen, Seiko, and even Casio, combined the LCD with quartz for wristwatches, they nearly drove Europeans watchmakers out of business.

And even if the early LCDs had a few limitations, people overlooked them because it was the in thing back then. Yes, it was impossible to see the time at certain angles because the numbers would disappear. Yes, parts of the numbers would begin to fade as the battery began to run down. And yes, they were comparatively expensive to make and buy back then.

While any of these negative things would be deal-breakers today, they actually were taken positively as many considered it to be the price to pay for something new. Try selling a smart phone with the same limitations today, and makers would most likely end up in bankruptcy.

[Yes, it was a different time back then.]

And even if producing that tiny LCD screen may have been the highest cost in a timepiece, it didn’t stop watchmakers from rolling out more innovations, one being the calculator watch.

Introduced at a higher price, the calculator watch was the staple of a nerd’s arsenal back then. Coming with its own tiny keypad, one needed to use the tip of a ballpoint pen to work it.

I remember when some of my classmates got the first few batches of this watch back in the late 1970s, our teachers didn’t even know they existed. Capitalizing on this, those classmates began using them during tests!

The brand that was extremely popular at the time was Casio as they churned out quite a number of these tiny computing machines. And if I recall correctly, some of the later models could handle more complicated formulas; things that involved Sine and Cosine computations.

But then our teachers weren’t the dinosaurs we made them out to be; they had children too. And their children would ask for these newfangled watches. And that’s when those tiny light bulbs started popping over their heads.

Many banned these calculator watches outright. While other teachers, like those in my Physics class didn’t really care because calculators were a requirement anyway.

[And he was right because unprepared students would still fail tests even with calculator watches.]

As the quartz and LCD timepiece evolved, watchmakers began to cram more and more stuff in them. Not content with calculators, anyone could now have a, stopwatch, relay stopwatch, alarm, and even multiple time zones on their wrists.

And when you put such capabilities in the hands of kids, expect them to find ways to use them. Suddenly everything from recess time to games to sleep were tied to these tiny watches.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the European watches banded together to fight this threat unleashed by Japan. Coming underneath a single holding company, Europe adopted quartz watch technology to their analog faces. But instead of continuing to dress their watches in stainless steel and gold, they wrapped them in colorful plastic.

It was with the launch of Swatch that Europe made huge impact on the youth in the 1980s. Bathed in colors to match the equally colorful clothes of the 80s, they pushed back the onslaught of Japanese watches.

[All of a sudden, the old became cool again.]

Final Thoughts

While there is a renaissance of digital watches today, I doubt if they will have the same impact they had decades ago. So while mobile companies try to expand into wristwatches by putting colored LCDs and adding even more capabilities, it just won’t be the same.

[Tastes have changed since then.]

And there you have it, one of the things that made a huge impact decades ago. To many kids today, it is something they take for granted. But back in my day, they made such a huge impact that LCD watches became a part of many memories.

 

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The author would like to thank Time Depot in Libis for their assistance.