Mechanical watches.

[x88x]

I found this the other day on Gizmodo and thought it was awesome. I love seeing how old mechanical tech works. For some reason it just feels more...idk, better. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiCPu0SjEW4&feature=player_embedded

[Konrad]

We have an amateur horologist (clock-maker) come into the shop now and then needing some custom gear or pinion widget machined. He restores antique pieces but doesn't work on watches.

Having seen the part complexity and precision inside some of these 17th-18th century (or older) clocks, I'm astonished that they could make them by hand, even with the crazy tooling jigs they used. The parts inside a watch are much the same except with additional design constraints and precision for the miniature scale. A pure mechanical wristwatch with all the extra gearing for multi timezones and calendars, stopwatch, tides and lunar phases, and "new" technological features like self-winding, etc - all built without modern machining? - it's just impossible for me to conceive.

[mDust]

This is why all the really high-quality, super-accurate watches cost as much as a car.

[Konrad]

Yeah, true. But I just can't help thinking

Mechanical watches
- timekeeping accuracy affected by changes in pressure (or liquid depth), temperature, shock/impact, and orientation/movement
- requires manual winding; self-winding models require constant movement by wearer
- can be used indefinitely if regularly cleaned, lubricated, and maintained
- unaffected by EMP

Digital watches
- near-perfect accuracy timekeeping, can self-recalibrate with reference timebases (Cesium atomic clocks, GPS/satellites, internet/cellular) when needed
- can be programmed to hold any number of timezones, calendars, and software features
- can be made to interface with digital/electronic devices like GPS, USB, etc
- batteries will last several years; newer isotope cells (http://www.physorg.com/news174139641.html) will last several decades
- low cost

Alas, I'm still a digital wristwatch fanboy, those retro mechanical watches might be considered more expensive, stylish, fashionable, sexy (and have the nuclear-aftermath advantage) ... but in my eyes they're still inferior technology, lol

[mDust]

... but in my eyes they're still inferior technology, lol

I agree to a point. Just about anything that can be replaced with a digital proxy will be eventually. It's just more efficient, cheaper and easier to produce. Plus, microprocessors can do almost infinitely more than a collection of gears.
I'd never spend thousands of dollars on something as relatively simple as a watch. I don't value things only because they're expensive, and price almost never represents quality-level these days. However, I would value a mechanical watch that exuded exceptional craftsmanship and near-impossibly precise design over a digital watch that cost $10.00 to manufacture on an assembly line owned by a company that doesn't specialize in time-pieces.

[Diamon]

Check this video. Now that's a neat clock:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HIclBlErTw

And I'd rather buy a digital watch instead of a mechanical one since the electromagnetic interference around here isn't that bad and it's just a more accurate and robust technology. The advantage of mechanical clocks is that they're just beautiful and the machinery is mesmerizingly precise. That wooden clock sure looks better then hanging a tiny microchip on the wall, even if it's probably less accurate.

[x88x]

IDK, I think it's a similar reason to why I love old houses (ie, 100+ years...old for this country...don't make fun of me UK/Europe guys :( ), there's just this..idk, I hate to say they have "character", just because that's so clichéd, but they kinda do. I also like complex mechanical things more than complex electronics. Because of the IC, yes complex electronics can do amazing things, but they don't look very impressive....just little lumps of plastic over silicon.


and have the nuclear-aftermath advantage

Plus, there's this. My post-apocalypse plans will be much more productive if I have a working timepiece. :D

[Blackout]

the old stuff is better because...... the classic design was for the product, it done what it was supposed to do and that was it, watches were mechanically congested, they had a functional beauty, they achieved what they did through there process, keeping time was achieved as infinitely beautiful as the concept of time was itself.
Homes today are designed to serve multiple purposes, they are there to house, to maintain conformity( ie 12 houses on one plot) and abide too budget restrictions, the role of a house used to be to house a famiely, to have focused individual zones o offer a environment to grow, what i think a house should offer; the kitchen was a place to eat and cook, designed to be a world away form the living room which was for congregating and enjoying company, bedrooms were for peace and disconnection, old houses seem to have a way of you being able to move through them and feel your disconnected from places you arnt occupying, these days your never more than 6 feet from the next room :(

Classic watches participate in time, modern watches just relay the time and the mechanics show this!

[x88x]

You make some interesting points, Blackout...there's a lot of truth in that.

Another thing, at least for me, is the work that went into making the thing. Take an old mechanical watch for example. I know that at the very least someone spent a lot of time on it, piecing it together and assembling it just right. If it's even older, they may have ground each piece themselves....or someone did anyways. It's the same thing with an old house. Today, yes the construction techniques make for a much quicker and cheaper process, but because of that, the amount of dedication and attention to detail is often much less. In my uncle's house, the first-floor joists are 10"x10" rough hewn timber...you just don't see that anymore. There's also a level of personalization that has been lost in far too much modern construction..yes your house is big and luxurious, but if it looks the same on the outside and has the same floorplan as the one next to it..and the one next to it...and the one next to it...it's not special anymore, it's just...there. I think what I really come back to is what you mentioned; old houses were built as homes, and far too often modern houses are just built as...houses. It is much rarer now to see a person sitting down with their architect and discussing what they want their new home to be like...now more often than not it's "Hey, here's this brand new development and you have 3 or 4 different floorplans to choose from." Also, from the perspective of someone buying an existing home (a perspective I have become intimately acquainted with the last couple months), there's another benefit of an old home. I think of it kind of like a tree...at first it starts out all excited and new, but still has a lot of 'growing' to do (in this case, frame/foundation settling, various parts in and out are tested in the new environments that they are now in). As the tree grows, it becomes more securely rooted in place and acclimated to its environment, and those that couldn't stand up to the task have been weeded out. When a tree reaches 100+ years old, it has proven itself master of its environment (well, for a tree), and basically isn't going anywhere...barring a massive natural disaster or human intervention, it can handle just about anything that gets thrown at it by now. It's the same way with a house, imo. Once a house is 100+ years old, if it hasn't been 'weeded out', it's set, solid, and it's not going anywhere.

...along those lines, assuming my realtor comes through, tomorrow (Saturday) I should be going to see an old farmhouse built in 1885! :D

Back on topic though, I think a lot of it is the change in culture. Now, your average consumer is much more likely to buy the watch with the most features, use it for a few years (if that long), and replace it. Back when mechanical watches were king, you bought a high quality watch and kept it...for generations sometimes. It had to be great or it wouldn't sell. Now it's relatively simple to turn out much more technically impressive stuff, a lot more quickly and cheaply, but when was the last time you heard of someone handing their digital Casio wristwatch down to their son...or grandson.

[Konrad]

True, mechanicals have qualities that digitals can never match. To me they're still "quaint", even though I am awestruck by the mechanical engineering.

But constant improvement of digitals (in the past and future) is a Moore's Law thing ... you can already get android phonewatches and such stuff, maybe next decade you'll be able to fit a server farm on your wrist ... how long before they offer so much raw power and convenience that nobody would ever use anything else? If I had a sci-fi wristwatchy gizmo that could interface and communicate with anything/everything and hold all my databases then I'd never want (or need) to use anything else.

Why pass your digital watch to your children when they can just get their own out of cereal boxes, lol?

[x88x]

Hmmm, I just had an interesting idea...what if you could have the best of both worlds? From the 5 seconds of research I've done on Wikipedia :whistler: I know that while electronic clocks drift backwards, mechanical clocks are designed to drift forwards, so all one has to do to correct the drift is to stop the movement until the correct time matches that recorded by the clock. Now, imagine if you will, a mechanical clock that works as it normally would, except that it has an addition. This addition contains one of those 'get the time from the atomic clock' wireless receiver things, so it always knows the exact correct time...but it also contains equipment to monitor the position of the mechanical components, so it always knows what time the clock is displaying. The third and final part of the addition would be a mechanical arm or somesuch that would stop the mechanical motion until it is corrected once it has drifted far enough that such a correction would be possible (say, once it has passed 1s of drift). You could even set up a tiny flywheel to power the electronic receiver off the mechanical movement, maybe a catch to only turn on the electronic portion once every month or so.

...I feel like this is another one of my ideas that I have nowhere near the skill, time, tools, or money to attempt. :(

[Konrad]

Sounds like a hybrid vehicle engine. A generous frankentech mix of the best and worst both paradigms have to offer.

Having said that, there are modern high end devices (timepieces included) which use "low tech" components to make use of the advantages inherent in otherwise obsolete technologies. PC mobos with integrated vacuum-tube audio amplifiers, oscilloscopes and spectrum analyzers with rubidium tuning crystals, mechanical safety valves in computerized nuclear reactors, explosive bolts on the saucer section of the Enterprise.