History lesson on the Beta 1 and Beta 2 movements

[Eeeb]

This contains a lot of detailed information I have not seen before. Interesting!

First-Hand:The First Quartz Wrist Watch - GHN: IEEE Global History Network

[William2]

Interesting. I had kind of assumed that the first quartz watch had been developed in Japan. The standard narrative is that the Swiss watch industry regarded quartz technology as a threat.

It's puzzling that the Swiss watch industry seems nowadays to have lost interest in advanced technology.

[webvan]

Very interesting, especially the "Temperature Compensation" paragraph, it does sound like there is such a scheme in the Beta 21, which would explain why it's so accurate.

They don't say why it was a flop, I doubt the 1+ year battery life would have been the reason, wasn't it the asking price rather?

Too bad they don't list out all the Beta 21 models launched at Baselworld 1970 too, we were only able to come up with a few in the "Beta 21 list" topic here.

[Outta Time]

Interesting, but fails to mention quartz clocks were invented and used in 1930, and that Seiko simultaneously introduced their quartz watch, the Astron, at the same time as the Beta 21. The quartz watch was indeed, a threat to traditional watchmaking, and the "Quartz Crisis" was born. The industry all but died, and would have gone the way of the Dodo, had not Nicolas Hayek and the Swatch Group rejuvenated the industry. Today, there are more high tech mechanical watches than ever before (utilizing space age materials) , but the price tags make them available only to the well-heeled.

[artec]

It is interesting but it's surprisingly badly written and it appears to be grinding some axes. As Outta Time mentions, and indeed, it's mentions in the article, the Seiko Astron emerged simultaneously with the Beta 21 and it obviously didn't do so spontaneously, so they must have been laboring away for quite some time.
Honestly, I don't see that it matters who actually assembled the first quartz watch.... Simultaneous, or almost simultaneous, versions of the same invention emerge all the time after two or more groups have undertaken research and development independently. It's clear that Seiko produced the first commercial model and I wonder what Citizen was doing though I don't think they started to produce any quartz for quite some time, did they?

[Eeeb]

Since the Seikos were hand assembled engineering prototypes limited to 100 examples. and the Beta 21s were production movements sold in quantities of thousands... well, I've never considered Seiko's claims as more than PR bs.... but we've been down this road before.

[Hans Moleman]

Very interesting. And all that from the horse's mouth!

All those new and untested / undiscovered technologies need to come together in a new product. That's just mind boggling. Would anyone be that brave nowadays?
And not that they took any shortcuts: I would think they were far too thorough with that temperature compensation thingy.
Its amazing that all that came together in the end.

Reminds me of the Xerox Parc effort: Put an amazing amount of effort and research into something only to have it decided upon by someone who wasn't interested in it in the first place.

On the other hand; giving such a decision to someone like that is simply reckless.
How do you keep the decision makers informed and interested?

[artec]

As you say, from the horse's mouth..... at least from a horse's mouth and it reads as if the horse might have been a bit biassed, too. Still, even if it's only one point of view, it is interesting.

[everose]

Here is an interesting thread i saw on tz-uk

One high road to quartz

[Eeeb]

Here is an interesting thread i saw on tz-uk

One high road to quartz

Oh Oh Yes!! Nice thread. Too bad they don't post over here where they would be appreciated!!