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Avia Swissonic Electronic Watch
1965?
The first of the breed was the legendary Bulova
Accuton, which used an electronically ‘excited’ tuning fork, that ‘hummed’ at a
constant frequency of 360Hz and was connected, through an ingenious mechanical
linkage and gears, to the hands. This watch was accurate to within 2 seconds a
day and was even used by the NASA astronauts on early space missions.. Sadly this isn’t an Accutron, but one of a
number of watches that came hard on its heels, cashing in on the then trendy
‘electronic’ tag. ‘Battery powered’ would be a more apt description, though to
be fair the tiny circuit board inside does have a handful of electronic
components (a transistor, resistor, inductor and a capacitor). The circuit is a
simple oscillator that drives a coil that produces a magnetic impulse that
swings the balance wheel. From that point onwards it’s just like any other
mechanical watch, nevertheless, it’s still quite a feat of engineering though
it’s nowhere near as accurate as the Accutron. This one, which I have owned since new, is
accurate to around plus or minus 10 seconds a day, depending on the
temperature, and the state of the battery. Speaking of which, they lasted only a
few weeks. The battery cover, on the back, is helpfully marked with the numbers
1 – 12, to remind you when it is time to fit a new one. It's a bit battered and showing its age but it is superbly well built; the case looks
and feels like it has been hewn from a solid ingot of stainless steel. It’s
really chunky and together with the metal strap it weighs a hefty 200g. It’s so
well made, in fact that this one, which has been languishing in a box of old
watches for the best part of 20 years, started working as soon as a fresh
battery was inserted. What Happened to It? Very basic electronic watches like these were a passing fad that lasted only a few years. Accuracy was always an issue and it was easily outperformed by mid-priced mechanical watches. The ‘hearing aid’ batteries cost a pound or two and were hard to come by so they were quite expensive to run. I’m not sure when they finally disappeared but I suspect it was towards the end of the sixties when modestly priced ‘self-winding’ watches, became very popular. Highly accurate electronic 'quartz' controlled watches with analogue faces started appearing in the mid 1970s but digital watches didn’t really catch on
until the late seventies, when LCD models arrived and prices plummeted. This
now almost forgotten episode in watch design deserves more recognition though sadly watches
like this one probably won’t become classics or highly collectable, like the Accutron. Nevertheless, if you
ever come across one grab it, it’s a little bit of horological history. GIZMO GUIDE First seen:
1965 Original Price
£25? Value Today?
£50? Features: Electronic movement, sweep second hand, date display, luminous hands, battery replacement 'reminder' Power req. 1.3v button cell Weight: 200g Dimensions:
40 x 45 x 11mm (whd) Made in: Switzerland Hen's Teeth (10 rarest): 8 Rolling Ball Clock 1980?
This
rolling ball clock was invented by Harley Mayenschein, an American engineer,
who patented his design in 1979. Once a minute a ball is scooped up from a
track at the bottom by a rotary arm and released at the top. On early versions
the arm rotates continuously, on later models it does it in one action. The
balls collect on counterbalanced pivoted arms. As soon as the arm is full the
weight of the balls causes it to tip, one ball rolls onto the next level, the
rest are returned to the 'reservoir'. The clock in the picture shows 5 balls on
the lowest 'hour', arm, there are 4 balls on the 5-minute arm, giving a total
of 20, and one ball on the minute, arm, so the time is 21 minutes past 5. The
earliest examples use a mains synchronous motor to drive the arm, on later
versions the clock is governed by a simple clock movement. A cam on the minute
dial operates a small switch that operates the arm that loads the balls. It's
ingenious, fascinating to watch, especially at 12.59, when it gets a bit noisy
as all of the arms empty their balls. Power comes from a set of 4 C-cells, held
in compartment in the base, or from a mains adaptor The
original rolling ball clocks were handmade, out of wood but such was their
popularity that Harley Mayenschien set up a company to make them, called the
Idle Tyme Corporation, in the early 1980s. This was about the time when I first
came across them whilst editing a magazine called Gadgets and Games. What Happened
to It? It never went away and over the years several different versions have been made, both ready built and in kit form, there's even a giant one that uses bowling balls. This one is a fairly recent example, possibly late 80s, made by Arrow, who licensed the design in the early 1980s. I picked it up recently at a car boot sale for £12. Modern examples, made in China and badged Time Machine, can be found in gadget shops selling for around £30. I suspect original Idle Tyme clocks, made out of wood, are extremely rare and I wouldn't be at all surprised if good ones are now worth several hundred pounds. GIZMO GUIDE First seen: £1979 Original Price £40 Value Today? £40 Features: quartz controlled clock movement, pivoting hours, 5-minutes and minute arms, ball-bearing time indicators Power req. 4 x C cells or mains adaptor Weight: 1.25kg Dimensions: 16 x 26 x 20cm Made in: USA Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 5
Sinclair Black Watch, 1975
It’s a really stylish design with no visible controls, or display for that matter, you have to press two barely visible circular pads on the panels, just below the display window to fire up the tiny LEDs. This helps to prolong battery life, even so most users, checking the time 4 or 5 times a day would need to change them every week or two. It gets worse; the four-digit display only shows the time,
(hours, minutes and seconds) though a time and date version was produced. The
metal strap is quite well made but the rest of the case is rather fragile and it
marks easily. It also has a tendency to self destruct, so all in all it was up to
Sinclair’s usual standards… What Happened to it? It was a huge flop, the kit was virtually impossible to build, even for those experienced with a soldering iron. The electronics are based around two printed circuits, one of which is flexible and prone to fracture. The push button contacts are incredibly unreliable, but even when it was working it was inaccurate and gained or lost, according to the ambient temperature. The clock chip was easily damaged by static discharge; some users even claimed it would blow if you wore a nylon shirt. It ate batteries and if you dropped it, it flew apart. Tens of thousands of Black Watches were made but the return rate was very high and it was a financial disaster. Working examples of the Black Watch turn up on ebay from time to time but alas this one no longer functions. It didn’t cost very much -- £15 at an antiques fair -- and I reckon that was pushing it. Runners especially if they are in good condition and boxed, can easily fetch £100 or more. It’s not quite the end of the story and in 1984 Sinclair went on to make an outlandish and, for its day, technically advanced combined wristwatch and FM radio. Several thousand were made but it was only on sale in the US for a very brief time before it was withdrawn. Depending which story you believe this was due to production problems, Sinclair’s precarious financial position or a warehouse fire. These are now incredibly rare and when they do turn up on ebay they invariably sell for between £300 and £500, and I have seen them going for as much as £800. GIZMO GUIDE First seen: 1975 Original Price £26.00 Value Today? £26.00 Features: Time display (hours, minutes and seconds), two-button operation, wrist strap Power req. 2 x 1.2 volt button cells Weight: 50g Dimensions: 28 x 50 x 10mm (case, excuding strap) Made in: England Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest):
8
Binatone Digivox ‘Digital’ Alarm Clock, 1975?
I reckon the Binatone Digivox Digital bedside
radio alarm clock came out sometime in the mid 1970’s but I’m happy to be
proved wrong. My reasons for that date are simple; the word ‘Digital’
was becoming a buzzword following the
appearance of digital watches and calculators. The brown 'mockwood’ case is classic
mid-70s design feature and at that time Binatone were a canny bunch and no
doubt thought this was a quick and easy way to hop on the bandwagon, because as you can see, the word Digital is being used somewhat
loosely… The clock display is
actually mechanical; the numbers or digits are printed on little hinged panels,
attached to a rotating reel, and they flip over as the reel turns.
It’s driven by a highly accurate synchronous electric motor, but the point is, no digital
technology is involved anywhere in this product, not in the clock and
definitely not in the 3-band AM/FM radio. Feature-wise there’s not
much to say. The clock and alarm adjuster knobs are on the left (the latter
turns a reel graduated in 15 minutes intervals, covering a 24 hour period, and
on the right there’s two knobs for tuning and two slide switches for waveband
and mode (on/off/mode). The only other refinement is a small
permanently on neon bulb to illuminate the display at night. It’s idiot proof and it works, and there’s no fangled
Snooze button to confuse things. What Happened to it?
As we all know bedside
radio alarm clocks never went away but towards the end of the 70s LED displays
had become so cheap that there was no point making clocks like this anymore so
I’m guessing it wasn’t around for very long.
Pukka ‘digital’ displays became the norm though interestingly even today
most models are no more accurate as this one. That’s because most mains powered
clocks derive their time timing signals from the mains frequency, which is very
carefully maintained at an average of 50Hz over a 24-hour period. This practice
goes way back and has used to ensure mains powered clocks keep good time since the
year dot. This one came from a car
boot sale and it set me back £1.00. After a quick wipe over, a squirt or two of
contact cleaner and a check around to make sure it wasn’t going to burst into
flames, the clock and radio powered up and both ran straight away.
A lot of these clocks were sold though probably not that many are around to tell the tale
so it could be an area for future collectors of late 20th century ephemera, and if
any alarm clock collectors or Binatone experts read this I would really like to be
able to put a more accurate date on it. GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1975? Original
Price
£10-£15 Value Today? £1 - £5 Features:
On/off volume switch, tuning, waveband,
clock/alarm adjust & set Weight: 1kg Dimensions: 270 x 135 x 80mm Made in: Hong Kong Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 5 Sinclair Cambridge Calculator,
1974 (Manual)
Although adding machines and later calculators had been around long before Clive Sinclair got in on the act, few could afford them, let alone lift them… The Sinclair Cambridge was the first affordable pocket calculator, though it’s debatable how many ordinary folks could afford to lash out £43 on one of these gizmos, equivalent to several hundred pounds in today’s money. Kit versions were also available, though I seem to remember they didn’t hang around for very long since like most Sinclair DIY kits, they had a tendency not to work. The Sinclair Cambridge, and this is the later Mk 3 version, had just four functions (add, subtract, multiply and divide, plus a Constant (K) functions, which is a very crude sort of memory, but just being able to carry out calculations to 8 decimal places, on a little box that would fit in a shirt pocket was nothing short of miraculous. Sadly build quality was up (or down) to Sinclair’s usual standard and they could be quite unreliable, and the keys were such a loose fit that they rattled, but hey, this one, picked up from ebay for £20 still works, even if you do need a magnifying glass to see the display. What Happened To It? For a few years Sinclair did quite well with calculators and later models featured increasingly complex scientific functions but inevitably manufacturers in the Far East started churning them out at prices that home-grown manufacturers like Sinclair couldn’t compete with. In any event, by the late 70’s Sir Clive had started turning his attention to computers and within a couple of years calculators had become basic commodity items and therefore of little interest to most people. This one came with its original felt carry case and instructions, which is quiet rare. Quite a few of them were made, so they’re not too difficult to find but runners are a bit thin on the ground, and if you’re in the market for one make sure you check the battery compartment as a leaky battery will destroy the innards. GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1973 Original
Price
£43 Value Today? £25 Features:
8-digit LED display, 4-functions plus
Constant (K) Weight: 50g Dimensions: 111 x 50 x 28mm Made in: England Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 6 Bowmar LED Digital Watch 1972
These crazy devices really stated to
take off after getting a weekly airing on the TV series Kojak, starring the
bald lollipop-sucking detective, played by Telly ‘who loves ya baby’ Savalas.
Early LED watches also had numerous walk-on roles in movies as funky or futuristic props and one model -- forget which -- featured prominently in a couple of scenes in a Bond film.
At first they were horribly expensive, the first few models sold for several
hundred pounds but by the mid seventies the price had dropped dramatically and very soon everyone had one. What made the whole LED
watch phenomenon really weird was the fact that they were completely
useless because they only told the time when you pressed the little button on
the side. It had to be that way because early LEDs consumed vast amounts of
power and if lit continuously would suck the button cells dry in just a few
minutes. As it was they only lasted a few weeks -- a few months if you didn’t use
it very often -- making them one of the most impractical time pieces, of all
time… This one is a Bowmar and occasionally it can be persuaded to work but it’s not a very good example of the genre but the case and strap are in pretty good shape. Unfortunately they’re almost impossible to repair and all you can really do is replace the module, which is simply not economic.
Bowmar were an
American company specialising in LED displays and they were briefly quite well known for
making one of the first electronic calculators; its modest range of watches were assembled in Hong Kong. What Happened To It? LED watches vanished almost
overnight when the first Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) watches started to appear
in the late seventies. Most of them simply gathered dust and were eventually
thrown away, or the button cells were left inside and they leaked and corroded
the innards but judging by the numbers on ebay a fair few have survived. If you are interested in starting a collection be warned that most of
the ones you will see are repros, and if you do buy an original, make sure that it
works. GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1972 Original
Price
£25.00 Value Today? £10.00 Features:
Press button time display Weight: 38g Dimensions: 35 x 35 x 00 mm Made in: Hong Kong Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 5 The Technical Standard Slide Rule 1966
Those who managed to master its intricacies were able to carry out calculations faster than any adding machine or early calculator, and were often more accurate, however, they could be fiendishly difficult to drive, particularly the more specialised models. This one is a little more advanced than the basic models forced upon maths students, and judging by the crib card on the back, detailing formulas for calculating the densities, specific gravity and cubic weights of materials like brick, cement, clay, slate and various metals, it was aimed at builders and architects. It’s missing its slider or reticule, used to align digits and read out the results but otherwise it is in good condition and still has its well-worn cardboard box What Happened to it? Slide rules disappeared very quickly in the mid 1970s following the arrival of the first affordable pocket calculators and with it came a great sigh of relief from generations of baffled schoolkids.
A few die-hards hung on to their slide rules but it was a doomed technology, mind you, they did have one big advantage over early calculators, they didn’t need batteries… GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1968 Original
Price
£3 Value Today? £5 Features:
Logarithmic slide rule, reversible
slide, common formulas and calculations on rear, inch/cm rulers Power req. n/a Weight: 0.1kg Dimensions: 305 x 45 x 15 mm Made in: England Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 5 Radofin Triton 1400 Pocket Calculator 1974
This particular model was
made in Hong Kong but Radofin was actually a UK company and its first machines were
built in the UK. By current standards it is
extremely crude, and the software is riddled with bugs, especially if you try
to make it do ‘impossible’ sums – enter divide > point > zero and watch
it go quietly mad... The ‘K’ button (it is supposed to mean ‘Konstant’) is an
early attempt at a memory function, though it is also very easily confused.
Nevertheless, at the time using one of these things for the first time and
being able to carry out complex calculations in fractions of a second was
nothing short of a miracle, especially for a generation that had been bought up
with and struggled with the complexities of logarithms (whatever happened to
them?) and slide rules. What happened to it? Calculators continued to
get smarter, smaller and cheaper but one of the biggest innovations was the
introduction of the LCD in the late 1970s, which replaced the battery sapping
LEDs used previously. We now take calculators totally for granted, they’re
cheap enough to be given away, they dangle from key rings in short they are
just another disposable commodity, but they have a fascinating history and very
early models from the 70s, which were built in comparatively small numbers, are
becoming sought after collectibles. If you see one at a jumble or car-boot
sale, especially if it has an LED display grab it! GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1974 Original
Price
c. £20 Value Today? £10 Features:
8-digit LED
display, four functions (plus, minus, subtract & divide) Power req. 9v PP2 Weight: 800g Dimensions: 120 x 65 x 25 (very approx) Made in: Hong Kong Rarity:
7 (1 =
common, 10 = Hen's teeth)
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Most people think that electronic watches
first appeared in the mid 1970s but whilst it is fair to say that the earliest digital
watches, with LED and later LCD displays date back to the seventies, electronic
watches have been around since 1960. 
Credit
for the first clock to feature a rolling ball belongs to English clockmaker Sir
William Congreve, who patented his design back in 1808. However, it was a far
cry from the one you see here. In Congreve's design a ball rolls down a zig-zag
track, which pivots as the ball reaches the end, acting like a pendulum.
The Black watch was the first of Clive Sinclair’s forays
into the world of digital timekeeping and another ground breaking product, being the
first, and as far as I am aware, the only DIY digital watch kit. This was back in
1975, when digital watches were still rare, exotic and very expensive. At the time the kit
cost £17.95; a ready-built version was also available for £25.95, which was a
tidy sum thirty and a bit years ago
Normally I can date a
gadget fairly precisely, usually to within a year or two, but I freely admit to
guessing the age of this one. 
It’s impossible to overstate the impact electronic
calculators had on us all back in the 1970s, until that point if you wanted to
do a complex calculation, and by that I mean anything that didn’t involve the
times tables, you had to resort to fearful things called Logarithms, master the
intricacies of the mechanical slide rule, be employed in an office or very well
off and own an adding machine. 
You can tell when a gadget
has acquired nostalgia value because the market is suddenly awash with modern
reproductions. That’s certainly starting to happen with that classic piece of
70s cool technology, the LED watch. 
To anyone under 30 a slide rule is probably
something of a mystery (as it was to many of us over 30...), but before the advent of the electronic pocket
calculator this was the quickest and indeed the only way to do complex sums, without resorting to a computer. 
At first glance there’s
nothing particularly remarkable about this pocket calculator but look a little
closer, the display uses microscopic 7- segment LEDs instead of an LCD and there’s fewer
buttons than you would expect to see on a modern device. The Radofin Triton
1400 is actually over 30 years old and was in the first wave of cheap pocket
calculators, following just a year or two after the pioneering models launched
by Sharp, Texas and Sinclair.