By popular request - The HP-01 Calculator Watch Video
A common request I've received recently has been to make a video about my HP-01 wristwatch. I bought this as a treat for myself... to mark a landmark event, the idea being that whenever I check the time it reminds me of this.
I never intended to make a video about the watch, but with so much interest it only seemed right to demonstrate this rare gadget so that anyone can see it in action, even if they never get the chance to see one in person.
RetroTech: Hewlett Packard HP-01 1977's Smartest Watch (YouTube)
Comments (9)
I remember briefly using a family friends Casio touch screen calculator watch in 1983 pick up in Hong Kong. Way ahead of its time with it capacitive (I think) touch screen. It funny why that style didn't take off. I wasn't a aware of the hand writing recognition watch. That should have been more popular than it was. The Hp-01 was quite an achievement though and quite capable. You'd still be hard pressed to easily find a regular large calculator to do that I'm now a days. As always very interesting stuff.
I was listening and waiting for the drumroll indicating an episode of the Youtube Pedant, and sure enough there it was - but for just a fraction of a second. Then we went straight to the Patreons. You're such a tease, Mat!
Oh and what a smart watch! I'd never remember how to make all those time-based calculations, but the concept is amazing! I stopped wearing digital watches once I got into my teens, but I did have a push to show LED watch which I was given in 1979 I think. It was really a kids toy kind of watch in blue plastic with a kite on the front, but it really told the time. I wonder what happened to it? Until very recently I wore my late father's 1950s Omega Seamaster daily, but an incident with a spring bar coming loose meant I nearly lost it while motorcycling. I decided to get a watch I wouldn't mind losing, and it was your video on the Seiko SNZF17 that got me interested in my first Seiko for many years. I actually got the SKX007 instead of the SNZF17, but it's still thanks to your video!
Very enjoyable. The first calculator I owned (in the early 70s) was a tin contraption operated with a stylus in rows of grooves on the front. First electronic one was a Sinclair.
The gauss rating is probably a little bit of a boast, when most mechanical watches can't survive even the lightest of fields. They are often rendered inaccurate just by being near a speaker, for example.
So I guess that's something that any digital watch can accomplish.
May I ask what you paid for your watch?
It was a couple of hundred pounds less than my Apple Watch...but worth a lot more to me.
I'm to dumb to use that watch