Included in this list, since although neither particularly rare or early, the DBC 600 has something of a cult following as its an archetypal representative of this particular style of watch.
top 15 classic calculator watches
Nothing demonstrates a more interesting quirk in the history of bad user interface design than the calculator watch, which required cramming the largest number of buttons into the smallest space. So quirky are they that there is a certain nostalgia, for their distinctive styling, both for the collectible ones from the 70s and their mainstream counterparts from the early 80s.
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The resin version of the first Casio calculator watch. This was the iconic product that brought calculator watches into the mainstream market.
The HP-01 from 1977 has the same solid design aesthetic but difficult to use UI as HP’s quirky reverse polish calculators from the same period.
Strictly speaking the Sinclair Wrist Calculator from 1977 should not be in the list since it didn’t actually tell the time. However, it arguably fits into the development of the calculator watch. And we like it!
If calculator watches were a UI stretch, then the Scientific Calculator Watch is the absolute zenith of this insanity. The CFX-200 was the first Casio Scientific Calculator Watch.
Considered to be the first ever calculator watch, introduced in late 1975, there is evidence that the Calcron preceded it, having been advertised in a June 1975 issue of Playboy.
From 1976 this is one of the first ever calculator watches after the Pulsar. Hughes - as in Howard Hughes, there is something ironically minimalist about this calculator watch.
This prototype digital calculator watch with sliding bars rather than buttons was created by the LED supplier for Pulsar.
This is a third generation 1982 collectible Seiko with distinctively large keypad. A brave attempt at the impossible, an ergonomic calculator watch, after the impossible to use second generation Seikos.
The second calculator watch from Seiko was released in 1979, a stylus model with truly tiny unusable buttons, it created a swing towards much larger buttons in later Seiko models.
Although the Pulsar Module 1 is commonly thought to be the first digital calculator watch a predecessor to this Calcron was advertised in Playboy several months before the Pulsar release, in June 1975. With a solar panel hidden on the side (out of the way of sunlight?) this is a true quirk of un-nature.
