may have found a minor grail

I used to live a large block or so away from Nat Semi in Sunnyvale/Santa Clara. The Apple Buildings I worked in were on the other side of the expressway.

In some of my old trade magazines there would be advertisements for National Semiconductor watches. My friend and mentor, John, who had the tool and die shop would tell the story how all the chip makers after the success of calculators decided watches were the next big thing. His company did stamping for some of them. My friend said that before Ti cornered the market, there were 17 watch companies in the Silicon Valley and that he made parts for most of them. My friend also showed me some of them in the La Chaux de Fonds museum, buried in a back corner in a display of non Swiss watches from around the world.)

Years ago did find a Fairchild branded watch. (may be an award watch.) But I always wanted a Nat Semi watch. A few weeks back I saw one blip by unsold for basically the cost of shipping. The seller relisted. Of course someone else bid on it. I then did a sold back search to see how common these are. Quite common. eBay of course suggested other auctions and BINs. So I threw them into my watchlist. One of them sent a make offer for what the watch I missed sold for. Another was up for today, again for the cost of shipping. This was a better deal as it was a 2 for one lot.

I was out all day, but when I checked it there were 5 minutes to go. So I bid in the last second and won. I certainty seem to be getting watches in pairs these days.

Not sure if these are the ones in the adverts. They look is sort of similar to what I remember. The LCD is a later date. (Not sure when the LCDs became common.) Ideally I would like the Red LED ones of the 1970s. Still this is an interesting part of history, mostly forgotten if ever known in the first place.

Now I am going to have to dig through dozens of the old magazines to find the advertisements.

-j

I’m sure it wasn’t just watches they were making there 😗

I have a young co-worker who was telling me about her new boyfriend- I asked what he does for a living…he works for Raytheon. I looked at her for a moment and asked- do you know what he does there? She paused for a second and said- I don’t really know.
Uh-huh.

If you take over the world, remember who your friends are. 😀

LOL one of my cousins was a Raytheon VP (Now retired.) I used to get that all the time. "If only I could tell you what we do ..."

Answer: ‘You just did.’

They are here. Seems I got ultra fast shipping as I only ordered these Sunday.
I have wanted one of these for a long time. Watches do not like to be lonely. So this was companion for the Fairchild one, which is a proper LED. Ideally the Nat Semi LED would be the ideal match, but the stainless LCD is more what I remember wanting.

Here is a photograph of the Fairchild watch, so it does not feel excluded from the attention.
It is interesting the economy of scale. How the electronic digital watches took off for a decade. So many made, that it changed the very foundation of how watches were used. From a functional necessity to a fashion statement. In the end of this era, watches could be made for a few cents each.

The other interesting detail is the battery type is not marked. I did some searching online. Seems mercury oxide was still popular when they were made.

Now they can go into the drawer and be ephemeral, just like the advertising that made me want them in the first place.

You might enjoy the book Electrifying the Wristwatch by Lucien F. Trueb.
Also:
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/four-revolutions-led-watches
https://omegaforums.net/threads/tha...es-me-interested-in-mechanical-watches.80437/

Found my old book on electronic timepieces from the 1970s -- more clocks than watches the ASICS are pretty much unobtainum now.