A calculator watch is a watch

Watch

A watch is a small timepiece, typically worn either on the wrist or attached on a chain and carried in a pocket, with wristwatches being the most common type of watch used today. They evolved in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appeared in the 15th century. The first watches were...

 with a calculator

Calculator

An electronic calculator is a small, portable, usually inexpensive electronic device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Modern calculators are more portable than most computers, though most PDAs are comparable in size to handheld calculators.The first solid-state electronic...

 built into it.

History

Calculator watches first appeared in the Mid 1970s introduced by Pulsar and Hewlett Packard. Several watch manufacturers have made calculator watches over the years, but the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese electronics company Casio

Casio

is a multinational electronic devices manufacturing company founded in 1946, with its headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Casio is best known for its electronic products, such as calculators, audio equipment, PDAs, cameras, musical instruments, and watches...

 produced the largest variety of models. Thus, Casio is considered the main player in CWs. In the mid-1980s, Casio created the Data Bank calculator watch, which not only performed calculator functions, but also stored appointments, names, addresses, and phone numbers. Currently, Casio sells only a few "pure" CWs (e.g. CA-53W) and considers a calculator as merely a function on their Data Bank watches. The eData version of its Data Bank watch, featuring the aforementioned storage capabilities, also has greater memory and the ability to store computer passwords.

When mass produced calculator watches appeared in the early 1980s (with the most being produced in the middle of the decade), the high-tech community's demand created a "feature war" of one-up-manship between watch manufacturers (e.g. the Casio scientific calculator watch CFX-400 in 1985) and were considered fashionable or hip

Hip (slang)

Hip is a slang term meaning fashionably current and in the know. Hip is the opposite of square or prude.Hip, like cool, does not refer to one specific quality. What is considered hip is continuously changing. The term hip is said to have originated in African American Vernacular English in the...

 to some people. As an example of CWs as a fashion accessory, in the cover The Police

The Police

The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. For the vast majority of their history, the band consisted of Sting , Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland...

’s single Wrapped Around Your Finger

Wrapped Around Your Finger

"Wrapped Around Your Finger" is the second UK single from The Police's 1983 album Synchronicity. It was released worldwide by A&M Records and featured non-album track "Someone To Talk To" as a b-side....

, 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 protector

Pocket protector

A pocket protector is a sheath designed to hold writing instruments and other small implements, such as slide rules, while preventing them from damaging the wearer's shirt pocket...

s and thick glasses, associated with nerd

Nerd

Nerd is a derogatory slang term for an intelligent but socially awkward and obsessive person who spends time on unpopular or obscure pursuits, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Nerds are considered to be awkward, shy, and unattractive...

s and today are no longer considered to be in vogue. Depictions of calculator watches 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

Tom Hanks

Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

 film Cast Away

Cast Away

Cast Away is a 2000 drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks as a FedEx employee stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane crashes in the South Pacific. The film depicts his successful attempts to survive on the island using remnants of his plane's cargo, as well as his...

is seen wearing one as he’s pouring a cup of coffee right before the crash scene. Also, Marty McFly in the Back to the Future

Back to the Future

Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...

 series can be seen wearing one in the first two films. As a homage to this stereotype, Dwight Schrute

Dwight Schrute

Dwight Kurt Schrute III is a character on NBC's The Office portrayed by Rainn Wilson. He originally exactly resembled Gareth Keenan from the original UK version of The Office. Dwight is the top salesman and former acting manager for the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and has won numerous awards for...

, playing the egomaniacal and nerdy character on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

's American version of The Office, can be seen wearing a Casio Data Bank watch. Current users of calculator watches are more common among the trades and technical fields. Heavy Metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 lead singer Rob Halford

Rob Halford

Robert John Arthur "Rob" Halford is an English singer-songwriter, who is best known as the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning heavy metal band Judas Priest. He is nicknamed the "Metal God" as a tribute to his influence on metal, and after the Judas Priest song of the same name from 1980's...

 of Judas Priest

Judas Priest

Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...

 wears calculator watches as seen in interviews

Interviews

Interviews is:# the plural form of "interview"# a compilation album by Bob Marley & the Wailers, see Interviews # a C++ toolkit for the X Window System, see InterViews...

 possibly insuring the watches popularity.

Future

The future of the calculator watch as a practical and useful electronic device has been impacted by the introduction of PDA

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

s, cell phones, and other powerful multi-functional compact computing devices. Another technical drawback facing digital watches are their small monochromatic LCD displays and hard-to-use miniature buttons. Both of these input/output bottlenecks further alienate calculator watches from multimedia applications. On the other hand, one could also argue that advances in electronics, RFID, and voice recognition could result in several qualities of the PDA

Personal digital assistant

A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...

s, cell phones, and other powerful and compact computing devices being incorporated into a watch format—a Wrist PDA or more complex wearable computer

Wearable computer

Wearable computers are miniature electronic devices that are worn by the bearer under, with or on top of clothing. This class of wearable technology has been developed for general or special purpose information technologies and media development...

 -- just as the Data Bank absorbed the calculator function, TV controller, and camera in some CW models. PCOnHand.com offered a PC/PDA/calculator wrist watch but, as of April 7, 2006 has ceased selling this device.

See also

• Nelsonic game watch - Multipurpose wrist-watches allowing the wearer to play micro video games, these units were the technological descendants of the calculator watch and were patented under calculator watch patents.

External links

• Build your own scientific calculator watch
• Programmable calculators - Specifications and descriptions