Soviet hardware is no stranger to us. We have previously reviewed some of its most important computers, got to know a mouse that was pure luxury in its era, and also talked about Apple as an essential piece of a very particular museum south of Moscow. However, today we find something more practical and direct, so to speak: the restoration of a Soviet LED watch Elektronika-1 from the '70s, with a modern PCB and a much more efficient design.
History tells us that LED watches made their initial steps in the early '70s. The Hamilton/Pulsar was the first on the market, debuting in 1972 with a red LED display, an 18-karat gold design... and $2,100 on its price tag. One of its updated models made it to the big screen thanks to Live and Let Die, with Roger Moore showing it off on several occasions. However, in that movie it was possible to observe the great weakness of LED watches: you had to press a button to see the time, because they consumed too much energy.
Within a few years, the industry replaced LEDs with LCD screens, but not so in the Soviet Union. Between 1978 and 1979 (other sources place it in 1976) the Elektronika-1 emerged, with hand-soldered micro-soldering in its modules, and three generations that suggest an extended production until 1990. Developer Benjamin Sølberg has one of the first-generation Elektronika-1s, but instead of keeping it as a collector's piece, he decided to restore its functions by creating a PCB from scratch.
The resurrection of a Soviet LED watch with modern hardware
Unfortunately, time took the original hardware out of action, but Benjamin managed to design a four-layer module equipped with an MSP430FR2433 microcontroller from Texas Instruments, an AS1115 LED driver from Austria Micro Systems, and an old Hewlett-Packard HP-5082-7414 display with 4x7 segments, very appropriate and "chronologically correct."
One of the most interesting aspects is that Benjamin used five "half holes" on the PCB, which serve as contact points for the watch's buttons. The battery is a conventional CR2032 with wide availability, but energy saving is a priority in the new design. Benjamin calculates a standby of ten years, something remarkable if we consider that the original hardware devoured two 1.55V batteries in less than a year.
All the technical details to build the PCB and carry out the programming are available on GitHub, but the best part is that the watch didn't lose functions (it shows time, date and year), and Benjamin uses it every day. Now, this Soviet LED watch makes us think a bit about the paradox of Theseus. Did the watch sacrifice its identity with new innards, or does it remain intact? Leave a comment!
Official site: Click here
Source: Hackaday
