1979: Pulsar calculator watch

Sometimes buttons go a little too far. They get overly confident of how they can improve our lives. They try to help, really. They just don’t know any better.

For example, calculator watches. It seemed like a really good idea at the time. The electronic guts required to run a calculator had shrunk radically due to advances in chip technology. Calculator watches had already been around for four or five years when this 1979 Pulsar came out, but this one seems particularly crazy.

Just picture it. It’s 1979. You liked disco a little, but you’re really excited by this weird band the Talking Heads. You’re driving a cool Gremlin. You park it to head to the roller rink.

As you walk to the rink, you stop, because all of a sudden, you really need to know the square root of 7569. Fortunately, you’re wearing your new Pulsar Calculator Watch! You dig your paper clip out of your pocket because you already lost the little stylus. You carefully poke 7 5 6 9 and then poke the square root symbol. Oh, that’s right, it’s 87. Back to Skate Ranch.

The size of these buttons is astounding. As an interaction designer, it almost gives me the heebie-jeebies to see buttons that unusable, buttons that impossible to be pushed.

Generally, buttons are designed to be pushed by fingers. It’s one of those unwritten rules that really should be written down. Since we’re here…

Buttons should be designed to be pushed by fingers.