The Fox Report
Barry Fox’s technology column
Not all tech progress is for the better
W
atchmaker Timex broke
new ground in 1994 with the
introduction of its DataLink
series of digital watches, which very
usefully stored user information, like
telephone numbers, in on-board memory. In 1997, they added the ‘Ironman
Triathlon’ edition to the series and the
Ironman name stuck.
When introduced, DataLink watches
were known as ‘PIM’ watches – ie,
‘personal information managers’. Bill
Gates was known as an owner of one,
and Microsoft was involved in the
project – see image.
Timex cleverly enabled DataLink/
Ironman to ‘talk’ to a PC by ‘looking’ at
the display screen and decoding data
from a sequence of light flashes – rather
like a bar code reader. I used one for
years, storing essential phone numbers, along with addresses, passport
numbers and credit card info dressed
up as phone numbers.
In 2003, and with the slow flash rate
of LCD displays causing transfer problems, the optical system was scrapped.
The Timex Ironman DataLink USB did
what it said on the tin, and sucked data
from a PC via a proprietary USB cable.
Memory capacity was bigger, and the
system worked very well.
New Ironmans are no longer available because everyone and their dog
turned to storing personal information
on smartphones. I have a couple of
The Datalink line shown (left to right): Datalink model 50 (1994), Ironman Triathlon, with the Ironman Triathlon logo on the upper part of the
face (1997) and Datalink USB sports edition (2003). The small communication system lens is seen at the top of the face on both the model
50 and the Ironman. Microsoft’s logo appears at the top of the model 50’s display, just under the lens. (Courtesy Tasoskessaris, Wikipedia)
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Practical Electronics | December | 2021
beat-up DataLink USB devices that
still work, but only when their ‘sticky’
control buttons can be persuaded to
respond reliably.
I liked ‘em!
I wish I could buy a new Ironman.
Why? Because although I can buy any
number of smart watches that ‘talk’
(by Bluetooth) to their smartphone, I
have so far been unable to find one
that can store anywhere near as much
useful data as the old Ironmen. Usually, smart watches only cater for a
dozen or so phone numbers. Perhaps
some of our smart readers will have
had more luck? If so, do please share
the good news.
More is less
Instead of storing data, the new breed
of smart watches boasts all manner of
detailed health checks and analysis.
One of their favourite tricks is to measure how far the wearer has walked.
The top-end watch I borrowed (which
stores a measly few phone numbers)
consistently assures me I have walked
far greater distances than I’ve actually
travelled. It also measures my heart
rate in beats per minute, displays it
on the watch face and vibrates alarmingly when the rate goes high.
The only problem is that – like distance travelled – the logged heart rate
is consistently far higher than BPM
measured by traditional methods, such
as finger on pulse or blood pressure machine readout. My posh watch usually
shows around twice the actual BPM.
I have checked this by reading the
watch rate while measuring BPM with
a blood pressure ‘pod’ in a GP surgery.
I have also checked it while a GP is
measuring blood pressure and BPM
with a surgery sphygmomanometer;
and I recently checked the watch readout while being checked by a hospital
ECG machine (electrocardiogram). In
each case the watch was more or less
doubling the actual BPM.
I asked the hospital cardiac physiologist who was running the tests, why
my smart watch was reading 70 BPM
and over, while his ECG equipment
was showing a near-steady 44 BPM.
Was the watch doing something very
clever, perhaps? He sighed, with resigned exasperation, and said with a
world-weary tone: ‘It happens all the
time. People make medical emergency
calls because their watches tell them
their heart rate is something like 300
BPM, when actually it’s just a little bit
high. Usually all they need do is to stop
worrying about what their watch says’.
Early professional VTR from the BBC
Experimental VERA (Vision Electronic
Recording Apparatus) linear VTR
developed by the BBC in the 1950s.
I
n the early 1950s the BBC
almost invented the world’s first
broadcast quality video recorder.
VERA, the Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus, filled a small room and
in pre-metric days boasted 20.5-inch
spools of half-inch tape, running at 200
inches per second to record 15 minutes
Practical Electronics | December | 2021
of 405-line monochrome pictures and
mono sound. Two machines were
ganged together to make continuous
recording possible.
Previous attempts at video recording
had failed because of the difficulty
of capturing low frequencies on tape
that had to move fast to capture high
frequencies. VERA simultaneously
recorded three tracks, two video and
one audio. The 3MHz picture signal was
split into two bands, one 0 – 100kHz,
the other 100kHz to 3MHz. The high
band was recorded normally on one
track, like very high-fidelity audio. The
low-band frequency modulated a highfrequency carrier on the other track.
Complicated braking systems were
needed to start, stop and rewind the
tape without snapping or stretching it.
The recording heads were handmade, with insulating material hand
sheared from mica sheet. The tape
gave best results only after a few dozen
playings had polished its surface and
improved contact with the heads. The
BBC used VERA for a few broadcasts,
but dropped the project in 1958 when
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the UK and Europe adopted a new 625line standard which needed a 5MHz
bandwidth. Running VERA faster to
achieve this would have reduced recording time to only a few minutes
per reel.
US company Ampex had by then
proved that its Quadruplex recorder,
first demonstrated in 1956 under team
leader Charles Ginsberg, could record
a full hour of 625-line TV on a single
spool. It did so by running the tape
slowly but mounting the heads on a
wheel and spinning them rapidly across
the tape width. Although he did not
like to talk about it, a young Ray Dolby
was part of the Ampex team. Dolby
later became famous for Dolby Noise
Reduction, but that’s another story.
More technology stories and images at:
https://tekkiepix.com/stories
Practical Electronics is delighted to be
able to help promote Barry Fox’s project
to preserve the visual history of preInternet electronics.
Visit www.tekkiepix.com for fascinating
stories and a chance to support this
unique online collection.
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