Long before the Apple watch came on the scene, the first digital-display electronic timepiece ever made was the U.S.-made Pulsar P1, which the Hamilton Watch Company debuted in 1972.
Previewed on The Tonight Show two years before that — where a skeptical Johnny Carson declared, “This will never put Mickey Mouse out of business” — it launched in a limited edition of 400 at a price tag of $2,100 (which then cost more than the average family car). It was made of solid gold and powered by two batteries. The red LED time display worked only when the wearer pushed a button, as having the light-emitting diodes on continuously would have quickly drained the batteries.
The watch, which was set using a special magnet, heralded the advent of the whole host of wearable and portable digital gadgetry consumers rely on today. Though the watch only told time, the press announcement for the Pulsar — named after the neutron stars that have regular rotational periods — proclaimed it a “solid-state wrist computer.” With its space-age design — inspired by a prototype clock that Hamilton had built special order for Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey (it was never shown in the film) — it was also cool. Stars, including Elvis Presley (who wore Hamilton’s Ventura watch in the 1961 film Blue Hawaii), Sammy Davis Jr. and Yul Brynner, snapped it up. Very few of those original 400 survive.
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