Sunday, 3 January 2010

What Is A Digital Watch?

By John P Stevens

For almost everyone, a watch is a necessity item. Irrespective of age and gender, it is a requirement for everyone. The main function that a watch performs is to tell the time, but it has been widely used as a luxury accessory.

With the passage of time, the technology used in watches has undergone many changes, and they are more advanced now. The traditional watches were analogue. The analogue watches are designed in a manner that they have a numbered dial with two hands, an hour hand and a minute hand, which collectively tells the accurate time. This was changed in the 1970s when a watch with a new design was introduced. In a digital watch, there are no minute or hours hands; in fact, the time is displayed on a screen in the forms of digits such as 06:30 pm. All you have to do is to look at the screen to know the exact time.

A digital watch works in the same way, as a mechanical watch, but it is powered by electricity. The source of this electricity is a small round battery, which powers the watch. A digital watch has an electronic time base, which is used to tell time accurately.

The display screen can be of two types, it may either be a light emitting diodes (LED) or a liquid crystal display (LCD). As compared to the mechanical watch, a digital watch has a counter that has the same function as that of a gearing mechanism in a mechanical watch. The counters functions in a way, that it produces numbers from zero to nine in a sequence, which enables it to keep track of the time.

The Pulsar division of Hamilton Watch Company made the first digital watch in the year 1970. As it was a new technology, therefore it was very expensive, and was not affordable by all and sundry. When the production of watches started in bulk in the year 1975, only then it became affordable for everyone. In the beginning, the display screen used to be red, and they were made form the use of light emitting diodes (LED). For viewing the time, you were needed to press down a button.

It was in the 1980s that the digital watch industry saw many new developments. One of the most popular brands, Seiko introduced a new digital watch in the market, which had a television screen built in the display. Another famous brand Casio launched a digital watch, which could translate Japanese words into English, and had a thermometer in it.

Since then, the digital watches went through revolutionary changes. There are even digital watches that enable you to store information like the telephone numbers. There are even some watches with calculators, which enable to carry out both arithmetic, and scientific functions. During the era of 1990s, the digital watches were launched that had the feature of downloading, and storing data form external sources.

The digital watches are used just for telling the time, and they do not have much appeal, as a luxury item. Many expensive brands are famous for their analogue watches, and they even have their collection range. Still the digital watches have their own function and appeal and is still very useful as it has many features that an analogue watch cannot have.

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