After years of rumors , in September of 2014 , the Apple Watch was officially discover and while it was Apple ’s first in - mansion digital wearable , 26 years sooner Seiko ’s WristMac could actually be considered the first unfeigned Apple Watch . It was a digital lookout that was years forward of its sentence with capabilities that earn it a ride on the Space Shuttle , andone is now up for auction .
When one think about feature - packed digital watch , brands like Timex and Casio come to head as both companies popularise designs with complicated chronographs and calculators strapped to users ’ wrists . But when it came to truly pushing the boundaries of what wearables were capable of in the ‘ eighty , Seiko was leap and boundary in the lead of everyone . The company was among thefirst to admit dot - matrix LCD screenson its digital watch allowing them to display full alphanumeric characters , and in add-on to connectivity to desktop computers , some Seiko theoretical account were even compatible with tiny portable keyboards alleviate data entry on the go .
publish in 1985 , theSeiko RC-4000 , also acknowledge as the PC Datagraph , was one of the most advanced computer watch out Seiko ever released , and it synced with the most popular desktop devices of the time , including the IBM PC , the Commodore 64 , and even the Apple II line . But three geezerhood by and by , and four twelvemonth after the debut of the revolutionary Apple Macintosh , the Seiko RC-4000 was updated to become the RC-4500 — aka the WristMac — and included impost software package allowing it to sync with Mac computers through a cabled serial interface connection and a feature called AppleTalk that made it much easy to connection computers and peripherals at the time .
Image:ComicConnect
Compared to what the Apple Watch can do when paired with an iPhone , the Seiko WristMac was laughably crude , with basic datum memory board ( you had to enter data one quality at a time by scrolling through the alphabet ) but it allowed information about calendar appointments and phone number to be synchronize and remove from a computing machine . It was ahead of its clip , however , so much so that Nasa beam modified WristMac social unit on the ninth Space Shuttle Atlantis mission to help ease the first email sent from space .
The WristMac is n’t the rarest spotter to ever go up for vendue . But throughComicConnect , nostalgic fans of other vigil - based computing have a pair of hours leave to invite on one that comes in its original boxful with all its original paperwork ( manual , enrollment scorecard , tutorial ) , a floppy disc containing the required Macintosh software , the serial cable , and a sorrel . According to theComicConnect site , there are presently no bids on the wearable and a starting bid of just $ 1 , so it could be a cheap direction to bring another milepost in wandering computing to a collection — assuming all the bids do n’t drop at the last second .
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