80s Flashback: When TV Watches Were All the Rage | Flashback | NBC News
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- čas přidán 24. 04. 2016
- Long before the Apple Watch, gadget-lovers of the 1980s were armed with a hot, new fad: the tiny TV.
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80s Flashback: When TV Watches Were All the Rage | Flashback | NBC News
Feels weird watching this on a phone
Haaaaaaaa
No smartphone back then
Yes! 😂
In 1989 I got a Casio mini-tv, it was color and had a fantastic picture. I took it to football games to watch the replays. Wound up putting it away at my parents' house because my two-year-old son could not leave it alone. Seventeen years later I was going through a box and found it. Put batteries in it and it still worked, but couldn't get a picture because of digital TV.
Wow that's really sad in a way. The analog tech era is quickly becoming a forgotten time.
It’s too bad what they did with all the old television technology. The really made it obsolete
When I first saw a Sony Watchman in a General Mills television ad--around 1984--I wanted one, but certainly couldn't afford one. When I saw Casio's television watch on display in a store window at the local mall, I was impressed... until I later saw in a magazine how big the attached tuner unit was.
In 1998, with money to burn I bought a Casio pocket-sized color television... for a mere $50.00, on-sale a local Radio Shack. Despite it's screen being only 2.2" it served me well for many years. Some time later, I bought a digital-compatible pocket television with a much larger screen through eBay. Digital television reception being what is, it didn't serve me as well and saw little use.
Now, with smartphones like the one I'm typing this comment on and subscription television apps, and accessories for smartphones like a armband holder that fits my wrist... I can easily watch clear, smooth-streaming television anywhere on a screen far larger than that of any vintage device, just by glancing at my wrist and touching the screen.
Looks like I got my T.V.-watch after all!😊
U must be a poor minority
I miss the 80s....much simpler times....
I remember I got a desktop tape recorder. When I was almost 10 in 1980 tons of fun recording people without there knowledge ads long I was in the room hey RI has a one party consent and since I was party to such conversations I would be ok with the law but my father on the other hand 😭
My mother had this one TV with a radio on the side of TV that was portable. It was a black and white screen. I remembered tuning to this one station that played music videos on. That was in our 1982 Ford conversion van. I sat in the back to watched it. My sister usually goes the back of the van to sleep with one of our cats. I was in the middle with the other cat. Both of my parents in front. We had 2 cats back in the early 80’s to the early 90’s. Both cats were red tabby cats.
My mom worked for Sony she got a portable tv for xmass gift, Those good old days.
Wanna go back to the fall of 1985 on an adventure of a lifetime?
The Trusty Butter Knife: An '80s Adventure That’s where I’m heading To later on, Not exactly In The fall but somewhere In The warmer month’s.
She's not wearing her glasses,her eyes are all over the place .
Never knew Sinclair sold their TV's in the US.
Wow now we have smart watches and small tech now.
Sinclair was big brand in usa . We used to be europhiles in 80s ...then we visited europe lol
The Watchman was also a frequent obstacle course prize on Double Dare during its first year (86-87)...back then, what kid wouldn't want a TV they could hold in the palm of their hand?
My grandpa was a truck driver, and he got a Sony WatchMan for Xmas 1986 and thought it was the greatest thing in the world.
I have had this TV Watch since 1988, and I wouldn't give it up for any price. It is just a nice collector item and who knows what it will fetch in the years to come. Other than that, it's just going to stay in my family, or sold to a collector when my time is up on earth. My mom got it for me as a Christmas gift in 1988. A man from NY brought it to my town after my mom had searched for one. He said it was a display model in some famous NY store. She paid $150 for it!
I have a pocket tv..someplace. Had it since my wife got it for me around 1991.
80's Gadgets they where Awesome
were*
It's amazing that it took so long to get to the smartwatch if they were already around in the 80s
I had a Sony Watchman around 1984. It worked well enough for what is was.
Watching this on a tablet in late 2020 😂
Ah, the 80s, when a mobile TV is smaller than a cellphone
So thats where the applewatch came from
I never saw anyone in the u.k with those watches. The first time I saw the watch was in the movie dragnet and I was like how come we don't have them.
I would rather have a tiny tv rather than an apple watch because you cannot watch CZcams, Netflix, Snapchat on Apple Watch. On a tiny tv you could watch any channel anywhere 24/7
James Campton true. Old technology would seem more enjoyable than everything being so easy for everyone to use like modern technology.
I remember that when I was 10. Man did I want one 👍
Who else miss having a portable and compact TV?
It's surprising that portable TVs didn't catch on to a greater degree given their convenience. I used to have an walkman that came equipped with an audio only tv tuner and even that was extremely handy.
I think they positioned that lady to compensate for her lazy eye
She had eyes?
I think they positioned her eyes to compensate for the reporter's lazy story
BEAVACUDA lmao
One is looking at you and the other is looking for you
i think she's GORGEOUS tho!
what in the world!!!!! im a kid of the 80s all i wanted was my mtv. never knew about these watches.
Not all white folk had the latest state of the art tech
We had this before and I still kinda want it now
Back in 1987, when I was 12 years old, I bought a Citizen LCD Pocket TV with a clip-on backlight. The screen was 2.5 inches. I watched it indoors and outdoors. However, it drained my batteries after 3 hours of continuous use. So I used the AC adapter as much as I could. Today that pocket TV, which I really miss, is now technologically obsolete. I now watch TV shows on my Amazon Kindle Fire 8.
omg i remember my big bro getting the casio calculator watch but i DON'T remember the watch!!!
Now we have smart watches lol
Can't wait to get one
It was great.
80's Technology Devices
Not even modern smartwatches can do this. I've tried.
Have you tried smacking my mother in the face? That just might work.
The original TV watch failed because the technology wasn't there yet to make it self contained and even now, it would be difficult to put all that into a watch for a reasonable price. And battery life would be an even bigger problem at that size.
All you have to do is switch the antenna to digital
Love her hair!
Wow lcd tech is old
Little did people know back then that years later that they would be having a computer device called smartwatches on their wrists.
If someone would tell them, they would have a camcorder, walkman, phone and a supercomputer in one device in the size of a wallet, nobody believe them.
Cool retro tech.
These days its obsolete.
Ah good old american memories when stuff was built good and well organized and nothing was fake from China
Unknown User That’s why tiny tv’s were made In Japan, Because The Greatest Country on earth Japan know’s how To do It better while all other one’s lie That They’re better, They’re really not.
erin Asherton Right. Buy your televisions there. Just don’t buy the 4-hour battery back-up for your nuclear plant.
she's the senior tech writer ? like a senior in high school?
Yeah, and when was the last time you saw ANYBODY using a smart watch? Exactly.
Would have been nice to know the date this aired. 86? 88? Does anyone know???
Hey! That's before we watch Netflix via our phones!
Only at radio shack...
Mostly landscape screens too.
Somethings simply aren't meant to be that small.
Mr. JH and yet they still watch them in that size... And cheaper as well.
You sound like my wife when she first pulled my trousers down.
Apple watch.......
Good thing a tiny hand held portable mobile device isn’t going to be released in 2007 called the iPhone one 😮💨phew
With those prices ..no wonder I never had one 200 dollars like 600 right now
Look that ain't,much if you make 45'000 bucks a year you can,spare 200
Anyone else feel creeped out about anything in the 1980s
Well even if you had one of those old tv watches today, and it actually still worked, you couldn't watch tv on it because of the switch to digital. Those would've only picked up analog tv.
1980 Ice watch
Lazy eye
Well I won't tell you how I got my first small tv I was a bad boy sometimes.
Does that watch phone have picture in picture? If it doesn’t it’s no good to me.
Today we have Smart Watches the Technology is advancing
Smart watches social media cell phone's are all that's ruining 2k20 with this pandemic going on the riot's! In the late 90's life wasn't as complicated as thing's are today thing's have changed over the years whatever happened to using Landline phone's? whatever happened to going to your local video store buying your favorite movie on VHS and watching it?. Nobody talks to each other it's only through texting nobody really makes phone calls anymore either! We're stuck in the digital age were thing's are online miss the late 90's so much.
In the 90's we had the Casio Databank watch
Anyone here a TV fanatic?
If only they knew what would happen...
the lady in the beginning and end look like Phil Swift
Love the comment in the video at 2:00 'The Japanese know exactly how many shopping days there are until Christmas'.
Just LOL. Turns out they have calendars in Asia too, eh?
She watched too much small TV...she cross-eyed
Is that ser barristan?
Was Chuck Todd even alive when this tech was featured? I still have a working Watchman, although it's now useless since everything went digital -_-
Chuck was in elementary or middle school at the time.
"The Japanese " lol
The crosseyed chick is cute
I miss when we had these smart Japanese keeping us on our toes in biz warz
The problem was the litium
now if only they had the cell phones back then that would of been something
Cell phones did exist in the 80s. They were expensive, heavy, bulky and battery tech wasn't too great. Think "big lebowski", remember that huge cell phone the dude was carrying? that was an Ericsson Hotline [circa 1988] (or similar) and it weighed 4kg believe it or not. Another cell phone that appeared in tv and movies alot during the late 80s early 90s was the motorola dynaTAC. Such a brick it could have served as a wheel chock for a truck ;-)
Rich People had cell phones in the 80's
Is orange girl blind? Why isn't she looking at the camera and communicating to the audience? o_0
I'm surprised the TV watch didn't last as there was NO such innovation of it really until the 2010s aka the smart watch.
It didn't last because you had to hook it up to a tuner the size of a portable cassette player to use the TV and that defeated the purpose. Plus it cost $500. For $200 you could just buy a portable TV with a much better picture and with a built-in radio
Susan Moody seemed pretty Moody concerning her husbands TV addiction... I would like an update please NBC. Did this couple stay together long enough to appreciate the shared joy of a front-loading VHS or did they falter during the top-loading Betamax era? If they are both reading this comment on a 60" smart-TV I shall weep with joy... though I would like to take this opportunity to remind Mr Moody that it wouldn't hurt him to do the dishes occasionally.
Aahhh????
Is she cross-eyed?
Who is she lookin at?
😂😂I hate you
Why do I feel weird when I look at the reporter/host eyes? Her eyes look weird or something.
Old people really act like they dont know how things work
She crossed eyed
Oh look, something on NBC that wasn't fake news.
Where’s the crack? Or heroine? Didn’t see in this video
you know i wanted to watch an old news cast... not some lady chiming in... Kinda takes the nostalgia out of it
Why y’all got that crossed eyed woman on there?? Lol
boring
The first Apple Watch