Pulsar P1 Limited Edition Marks 40th Anniversary

[bruce wegmann]

Today, April 4th, 2012, marks the 40th anniversary of the initial offering to the public of the Pulsar P1. I call on all P1 owners throughout the world to add their voices to mine in celebrating the seminal event that brought the world into the Digital Age of Timekeeping. I plan on (carefully) wearing one of my P1s this entire day in tribute.

[Kasper]

in addition to that, today i have the pleasure to say that my wife and i are 19 years together , so i wear my pulsar calculator all day

[abem]

Happy P1 day to all.

Special thanks to all the engineers and visionaries that made this happen.

A little Pulsar anecdote for the day:
My wife roller skates on Wednesday mornings with a group of senior citizens. Her favorite skating partner is a guy named Arnie who is a former electrical engineer. A few weeks back, they were talking and she found out that he was the co-founder of Hamlin Corp., who made the reed switches for Pulsar. The next week, he proudly wore his P2 to the skating rink. Through most of the 1970s, they made the reed switches by hand. Hamilin also made reed switches that were used on the sensors on the legs of the Apollo 11 lunar module to shut down the engine as soon as it made contact with the lunar surface. So, your Pulsar contains a little bit of Apollo technology!

-abe.

[retroleds]

Abe - I find the guy's story a little "speculative". Reeds were first patented in 1936 - and the patent drawing show what looks almost identical to our modern reeds. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=reed%20switches&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CIgBEBYwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FReed_switch&ei=r218T4K8JcfFtgeZmYySDQ&usg=AFQjCNGbtN58S_p0Nkpx27dckQkT_9-fjg

And the company that made the reeds for Pulsar was Hermetics Co. (still in business), albeit other suppliers may have been used.

[abem]

Ed,

Peter Doensen also says that the reeds came from Hamilin USA from Lake Mills, Wisconsin:
http://doensen.home.xs4all.nl/k1.html

His story checks out. Hamlin was founded in 1949 by Ronald Ferguson, Arnie Darsch (my wife's skating partner) and David H. Owens).
Here's a link to their company history:
http://www.hamlin.com/about-history.cfm
Here's a link to a bio of one of the founders:
http://www.pasty.net/~dowens/DHOBio.htm

Perhaps the early prototype/LE/P1/P2 reeds were from Hamlin and they switched / added suppliers later? Pulsar had such a hard time keeping up with demand that they often had multiple suppliers. I'll try to find out the full story.

-abe.

[retroleds]

Abe - agreed, they may have used different reed suppliers. Doensen is very good, but like the rest of us, he is sometimes in error.....I've found 5-6 things in his book "Watch" that I think are totally incorrect. Along with the important brands he virtually skips in the history of the LED watch. Like Texas Instruments' early movements for other companies, e.g. Benrus and Wells and TIs connections to the early Hamilton work that resulted in the P1. Seems like he hates TI.