Sinclair "The Black Watch Kit" 1976

Have you read the unbiased reviews

http://rk.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/other/blackwatch.htm

Until about twenty five years ago I had three test boards for the ICs which one of my sisters friends found in a flat in Cambridge which was where Sinclair was based. Unfortunately there was on;y one, faulty IC in all the boards. I gave them to a Sinclair Museum that I now can't find any trace of.

A friend got a very good price for a working one of these on ebay. Any that still work are valuable.
It appears non working are still more than a new G Shock or similar.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ULTRA-RARE-VINTAGE-SINCLAIR-BLACK-ELECTRONIC-WATCH-VGC-BOXED-Not-Tested-/264728582724?hash=item3da30d9a44:g:ABUAAOSwjpVeupG1&nma=true&si=LqtQzdgxcbPCXvcYdIk7V7c7CAE%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

Sinclair had Quality Comedy. I do remember the case on mine frequently popping open, it was not easy to assemble for sure but I don't remember it being inaccurate, I was "young" though, time and timekeeping didn't mean a lot, unless it was trying to see how fast you could go

I wonder which drawer it's in?

 

Back in 1977 there was a boy in the year below me into electronics who I referred to as "The Kid with the Digital Watch". In a school of 1200 pupils everyone else into electronics knew who I meant.

 

Calculators were far more common, all LED or VFD of course. The school actually had about a dozen Busicom calculators in the maths department. Amongst the pupils was a massive variety although the most popular model might have been the Texas Instruments TI30.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-30 Not surprising given the notes in the Wikipdia article about price. I don't recall ever seeing the book mentioned, but the calculators were even cheaper here.
We were actually allowed to use calculators in our Chemistry practical exam, on the basis they were trying to test your knowledge of Chemistry rather than maths.

edit. Out of curiosity I just checked the 1976 Argos calculator. The cheapest calculator was £4.99



The cheapest Digital watch £24.99

Being LED it would have needed specialist batteries every couple of months.

In contrast you could buy a wind up watch for less than the cheapest calculator, or a wind up "digital watch" for not much more ! You didn't get any street cred wearing one of those, which shouts "I wanted a digital watch but couldn't afford a real one".


While they were power hungry the calculators (with the exception of the Sharp) all used batteries you could get at your local supermarket. No wonder there were far more calculators around.

Finally I just checked the BoE inflation calculator and it says multiply by 7 for 2019 prices.
£35 for a calculator to solved your maths problems = bargain.
£175 for a watch that eats through batteries = It depends on how desperate to be up to date you are.
Of course it did impress the ladies and provide material for a classic comedy sketch

 

That's got me wondering how I was perceived by my college "mates" I might just have recovered a few cool points by being a biker.

 

Amazing what you find when you start rummaging around, don't ask why I have two straps but no watch, I haven't a clue.

The ZX81 stayed in the loft but this lot is going, there's one of the early TV's in there somewhere too.

 

Can't remember, a lot these days

 

That would depend entirely on the bike. When I was at school kids were buying old BSA Bantams for about the price of a digital watch.

You were certainly good at keeping Sinclair in business.
Hopefully, a Sinclair collector will pay a good price. One of my most profitable purchases was a box full of used Sinclair HiFi bits bought about 20 years ago for £1 at an Amateur (Ham) radio rally. When I moved house ten years ago I listed them on Ebay as a low start price auction and was very surprised to get £50.

I still have a few Sinclair bits including a Spectrum (again bought for £1) and one of the Flat Screen TVs. I paid about £30 for that working, mainly because I had intended to get one back when they were announced but got so fed up with waiting that I bought a normal TV.

It was always rumoured that Sinclair would advertise a product then use all the money from pre-orders to pay for its development. I think I had to wait about 12 weeks for my ZX81 kit and when I got it there was a mistake in the build instructions. Luckily the problem was worked out by an experienced colleague at work, who realised trying to feed a digital signal through a low value capacitor didn't seem right.

 

Maybe that's where the watch went I wasn't fussy in those days, Ariel Arrow Sports, Tiger Cub, RE Crusader, BSA C15 and more an Ariel Square 4 was my last hurrah before an enforced long gap overseas.

I continued the good work by supporting Psion sales for years after that, I just love an underdog.

 

At one point I had a BT Tonto (AKA ICL one Per Desk) based on the Sinclair QL in my collction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Per_Desk

While the microdrive based hardware wasn't up to much the inbuilt Psion software was very impressive and well integrated, doing thing like letting you scroll through an address book an dial a number, things we take for granted now but cutting edge for the 1980s.

It was only recently that I found out that Symbian (which my Sony mobile runs) is a descendant of Psion's EPOC software.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian

 

I like the TONTO acronym, you can almost imagine BT as the masked cowboy

The PSION / Symbian saga is an interesting story. Quite sad that a multinational could see what was happening, couldn't match the technology or out advertise them and did a fiscal number, death by a thousand lawyers. And when was the last time you heard anyone use the term "Netbook"?

 

The iPhone caught a lot of manufacturers off guard, especially since Apple already had iTunes up and running for music purchasing. Before then many people would buy a phone and a separate MP3 player (which often cost more than the phone). Other manufacturers were also trying to cludge the internet on to a 2" screen using special pages like WAP, which after a colleague tried to look up a bus timetable, we decided stood for "Without Application Potential".

As for Netbooks I had / have a Toshiba Libretto (a Netbook from before anyone invented the word) which I used every week for years to do my finances. I actually bought a Toshiba NB100 Netbook when that came out because at the time there seemed to be a trend that laptops were getting bigger and heavier (17" screens, two large fans underneath, a 1 hour battery life, and a price to match) so it was refreshing to see something small and cheap. However, Intel reversed each new model is bigger trend with their Ultrabook specification, and Apple with their Macbook Air which both built on the Netbooks idea of a small light laptop, although unlike Netbooks weren't built down to a price.

 

Haven't heard that one before but very apt. Having to use my phone for work nearly all the time I tried to keep it as clean as possible but baulked at the idea of buying anything Apple or a separate player. When Casio came out with their first Exlim Card Camera, I couldn't be without a camera constantly in my pocket either, I jumped at it. It was such a good tool with a very usable MP3 and inline control. I almost halved my carry around weight instantly.

I suspect PSION panicked and got caught in a race to the bottom in cutting assembly costs. I was stuck with work Thinkpads, to be fair they were solid workhorses until they went to plastic chassis but I had to have something for the other half when she visited, Asus was familiar to me in Asia so when the EE came out that was just the ticket, it was remarkably good for it's size, weight and cost and made them a name quite quickly.

 

In the village we had a small shop selling greetings cards, stationary like pens (ranging from cheap ones like Platignum to expensive ones like Parker and Paper Mate) and on the counter a stand with about 50 Timex watches on it. The shop was run by a snooty woman. Imagine Margo Leadbeater from the Good Life working in a shop. In the mid 1970s my first watch, bought at a birthday present, came from there.

Staying on the subject of Timex in about 1977 one of the instructors at the Air Training Corps was proudly showing us all his newly purchased Timex Digital Watch. He told us he had bought a Timex on the basis that they had been making watches for years so should know what they are doing, which was probably true compared with Sinclair.