this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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retrocomputing

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[–] Terr@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wow, you gotta use a needle to press the keys on that keyboard!

[–] dbucklin@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 years ago

I hope it comes with a stylus.

[–] CarlsIII@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

@larsbrinkhoff “Your fingers are too fat to operate this watch. To receive a special dialing wand, mash the keyboard with your palm, now.”

[–] mochi@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

What I want is a watch that looks just like old fashioned analog watches, does all of the fitness tracking you get from a modern Fitbit, and transmits it to my phone. I don't want a square watch or a digital display. I want classic beauty with tech under the hood.

[–] tvmole@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago

https://www.withings.com/us/en/scanwatch This one is mostly analog plus a small monochrome screen

[–] lackthought@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I tried using an analog style watch face on my Apple Watch, but the rectangular digital screen + the need to charge it every single day just wasn't all that great

I traded it back in and reverted back to my Citizen Eco Drive (which is solar powered so I never have to worry about charging it) and is visible easily in sunlight

[–] mochi@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah? I kind of figure that's how it'd be for me. I like the idea of how the Apple Watch integrates with iPhone, but I don't like the way it looks.

[–] friend_of_satan@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

Folks who like this may like Watchy, an opensource smart watch with an eink display, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 7 day battery life. I do not own one but it is a bit tempting. https://watchy.sqfmi.com/ make sure to check out the watch faces

[–] mounderfod@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I wonder if it would be possible to recreate something like this for real, with cartridges for each software/tool (like a gameboy or similar?), excluding the comically tiny keyboard probably :P

[–] larsbrinkhoff@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The size of that floppy does seem a decent match to a microSD card.

[–] mounderfod@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'm really tempted to buy some RPi pico stuff or smth and see if i can make something similar

[–] krackalot@vlemmy.net 2 points 2 years ago

What is this, A keyboard for ants?

[–] kbity@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Every time I think about smartwatches, I just think about how much I miss Pebble. I loved my Steel and Time Steel, and was bummed that the company failed before the Time Steel 2 happened.

[–] xoniq@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Good old floppydrive for ants

[–] IlIllIIIllIlIlIIlI@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Aka micro SD.

[–] al177@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Today $300 or less can buy a watch that runs UNIX, can emulate any machine in 1981 in realtime, and stream data from the ~~ARPA~~Internet over a wireless connection orders of magnitude faster than any leased line.

[–] larsbrinkhoff@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 years ago

I think you had it right, let's bring ARPANET back.

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Sounds like a €30 smartwatch I've seen some 7 years ago. Yep, it costed that back then. It ran Android 4.4 and even the battery was user replaceable.
I think it was called QW09.

Unfortunately, I was 10 at the time, and €30 sounded like a lot to me, so I didn't buy it :(

Edit: Found some pics

[–] TheElectroness@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

I mean, you can probably still get 300 different variants of that on aliexpress for less than $10

[–] fsniper@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

this looks cool. Particularly this rectangular screen is great.

[–] janus2@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

rectangular smartwatch master race
i don't care that watches used to be round because of a rotary mechanism. i want a SCREEN on my wrist and screens are square for a reason!

[–] jcg@halubilo.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Tell me about it. They rather hamfistedly tried to fit a rectangular design language into a circular screen and it never quite works right.

[–] perennial@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 years ago

To be fair, Apple seems to have done a good job at fitting a circular design language into a square watch…

[–] Harryd91@vlemmy.net 1 points 2 years ago

BYTE had the best magazine covers

[–] detoxlife@exploding-heads.com 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Would be interesting to read this old journal.