Broken Time

In the 80s and 90s, I wore a Casio Telememo 30 Database watch. When they first came out, they cost about $70. This Casio Telememo 30 Database watch could be considered as one of the first smartwatches. Not only did it have the usual function of telling time, but it also had a stopwatch, a calculator, a calendar (which told you which day of the week it was) and space to store phone numbers/fax numbers.

This one is actually one of the later versions of these watches, and it has an indiglow style backlit screen. I also had an earlier version of this watch, which was the World Time watch, which had the same functions, but stored 10 less entries, and used a front light. I bought this one when the watchband on the old one broke.

Nowadays, we don't store information on our watches, we store them on our cellphones or PDAs. While in college, I upgraded to a Swatch, and this watch was my backup until it ran out of battery. When I did that, I put it aside into a box, and was rather surprised when I opened the box one day and found that the watch band had completely disintegrated.