Calculator watch
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Calculator watches are watches with a calculator function appeared in the Mid 1970s introduced by Pulsar and Hewlett Packard. Several watch manufacturers have made various qualities of CWs over the years, but the Japanese electronics company Casio, being the most prolific, has produced a plethora of models over the years. 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 (i.e. CA-58W) and considers a calculator as merely a function on their Data Bank watches. The eData version of its Data Bank watch, that features these aforementioned storage capabilities, also has greater memory and the ability to store computer passwords.
When CWs first appeared in the early 1980s, (the golden age being the mid 1980s) the high-tech community demand created a "feature war" of one-up-manship between watch manufacturers (i.e. Casio scientific calculator watch CFX-400 in 1985) and also were considered fashionable or hip. CWs as a fashion accessory example, 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 used in an homage by Dwight Schrute, playing the annoying and nerdy character on NBC's The Office wears a Casio Data Bank watch. With the recent geek chic phenomenon gaining momentum, many fashion commentators predict that the calculator watch, like thick-rimmed Henry Kissinger-style eyeglasses and Members Only jackets, will become a must-have fashion accessory for the intellectual hipster.
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 likely may not be much of a need for a digital watch that holds a fraction of the information and displays it on a tiny monochromatic screen and has hard to use miniature buttons. On the other hand, one could also argue that advances in electronics and voice recognition could result in many qualities of PDAs, cell phones, and other powerful and compact computing devices being incorporated into a watch format (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 have ceased selling this device.
