Today $300 or less can buy a watch that runs UNIX, can emulate any machine in 1981 in realtime, and stream data from the ~~ARPA~~Internet over a wireless connection orders of magnitude faster than any leased line.
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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Sounds like a €30 smartwatch I've seen some 7 years ago. Yep, it costed that back then. It ran Android 4.4 and even the battery was user replaceable.
I think it was called QW09.
Unfortunately, I was 10 at the time, and €30 sounded like a lot to me, so I didn't buy it :(
Edit: Found some pics
this looks cool. Particularly this rectangular screen is great.
rectangular smartwatch master race
i don't care that watches used to be round because of a rotary mechanism. i want a SCREEN on my wrist and screens are square for a reason!
Tell me about it. They rather hamfistedly tried to fit a rectangular design language into a circular screen and it never quite works right.
To be fair, Apple seems to have done a good job at fitting a circular design language into a square watch…
I mean, you can probably still get 300 different variants of that on aliexpress for less than $10
I think you had it right, let's bring ARPANET back.
Good old floppydrive for ants
Aka micro SD.
I wonder if it would be possible to recreate something like this for real, with cartridges for each software/tool (like a gameboy or similar?), excluding the comically tiny keyboard probably :P
The size of that floppy does seem a decent match to a microSD card.
I'm really tempted to buy some RPi pico stuff or smth and see if i can make something similar
I'm curious if it would be possible to replicate somehow with a PineTime
Just seeing the Byte logo makes me want to open up that magazine and see which basic listings I can type in.
What is this, A keyboard for ants?
@larsbrinkhoff “Your fingers are too fat to operate this watch. To receive a special dialing wand, mash the keyboard with your palm, now.”
I love retrofuturistic tech. It even has a full qwerty keyboard, like anyone would be able to use it lol.
you'd have to use a needle to hit the keys lol
What I want is a watch that looks just like old fashioned analog watches, does all of the fitness tracking you get from a modern Fitbit, and transmits it to my phone. I don't want a square watch or a digital display. I want classic beauty with tech under the hood.
I tried using an analog style watch face on my Apple Watch, but the rectangular digital screen + the need to charge it every single day just wasn't all that great
I traded it back in and reverted back to my Citizen Eco Drive (which is solar powered so I never have to worry about charging it) and is visible easily in sunlight
Yeah? I kind of figure that's how it'd be for me. I like the idea of how the Apple Watch integrates with iPhone, but I don't like the way it looks.
While I wouldn't call it classy I really like the familiar design of the garmin instinct. It's definitely a sports watch but as a woman I actually love it so much more than my fitbit versa 2. And I love my fitbit. Now it's still a digital watch not mechanical but I'm from the generation where they started making tamagochi etc when I was in middle school so it's pretty nostalgic to have a watch using that tech.
Every time I think about smartwatches, I just think about how much I miss Pebble. I loved my Steel and Time Steel, and was bummed that the company failed before the Time Steel 2 happened.
RIP Pebble. I went through three of them that all ate it to their failing LCD. :(
god, i loved my pebble back in the day. Had an OG and picked up a Time a couple years ago to try Rebble. It's nice but it's just not the same anymore...
Folks who like this may like Watchy, an opensource smart watch with an eink display, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 7 day battery life. I do not own one but it is a bit tempting. https://watchy.sqfmi.com/ make sure to check out the watch faces
Neat. This one looks pretty interesting too
I'm putting that on my birthday list.
Forget the smartwatch, I want that 3.5 mm floppy!
I miss Byte magazine so much. Now you've made me sad. I hope you're happy! (jk)
https://archive.org/details/BYTE-MAGAZINE-COMPLETE (although contrary to the name it's not complete, only goes to 89)
Wow, you gotta use a needle to press the keys on that keyboard!
I hope it comes with a stylus.
There was an early smart watch released in the late 90s called the Ruputer or onHand PC. It had a small grayscale screen and a joystick input, and featured installable applications. There was a small but thriving development scene for it. I’ve wanted to pick one up to play with but they seem nearly impossible to find now, at least at a good price.
I wore a “data bank” watch around that time, which could store memos and phone numbers, typed in via a tiny phone style keypad. I also remember lusting after the Casio watch camera.
Yes, I want this
I remember when that issue came out.
BYTE had the best magazine covers
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