“It was way back in December 1979 that LA’s Windert Watch Company announced the first iWatch style smartwatch, and much of what was promised then calls the bell on what’s expected from future wearables from Apple, Google and others,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“As you’d expect the Windert Communicator was based on older technologies and wasn’t capable of delivering everything we now expect from wearable computing, but a December 1979 p.22 Omni Magazine news item says enough,” Evans writes. “Bob Guccione’s legendary popular science title told us of the Windert Communicator, a sub-$100 “solar-powered talking watch that not only literally tells the time but also nags you awake with alarm messages.” (It was a step up from digital watches at that time). The watch promised a then incredibly impressive 64k memory chip, “twice as big as anything now on the market”. (In context, the $1,195 Apple II Plus available at that time supported ‘up to’ 64k memory). It’s not clear if the device ever shipped.”
Read more in the full article here.
Maybe Google or Microsoft will rebrand it with their logo?
It must have been a pipe dream, impossible to build. 64k in a watch for under $100. It was some BS propaganda that failed from the start. At the time 64k, of chips alone would make a 1″ wide 1/8th ” thick bracelet around your wrist. It would be so loose, it would fall off when you weren’t looking.
I know Mr Evans is a Apple fan, but ““It was way back in December 1979 that LA’s Windert Watch Company announced the first iWatch style smartwatch,…” Come on, iWatch style watch, 1979? The iWatch isn’t released and it’s 2014 so who know what a iWatch style is?
Dick Tracy style watch?
That would have been much better.
I completely agree. I had an Apple ][ Plus. It did not have lower case. I had to solder a video jumper through a game port to get lower case. I laughed with you about iWatch style in an era where amber monitors and daisy wheels were high tech. My apologies to those born after 1979, you’ll just have to YouTube it to believe it!
Yes, if you count Dick Tracy it’s a 68-year dream!
Yup. He is just trying too hard to look for something worth bluffing about. Next thread…
I loved my calculator watch back in the 90s. And my buddy had a universal remote wristwatch. High tech consumer stuff at the time…
J Evans is saying Apple was inspired by the Windert watch?
A watch that wasn’t “capable of delivering everything” or that it even shipped.
I can understand why some might think iPad was inspired by Star Trek, but for Evans to say that iWatch (a non-existent product) was inspired by the Windert watch is just stupid.
Next thing we’ll read the moment iWatch ships is the Windert company will be suing Apple for stealing their idea.
I’d like to see Apple design a toupee for Ballmer.
Does not compute. Cannot purge image from memory. Self-destruct sequence in 60 seconds!
I can haz reazons?
My uncle is a cattle farmer and has the perfect toupee for Steve Ballmer. He can pick one up in almost any of his fields.