Just Wondering........

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jttheclockman

jttheclockman

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Feb 22, 2005
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NJ, USA.
Sitting here scanning the forum on this very rainy weekend Sunday. Just got up from the shop after placing a couple blanks in the casting pot and prepping a few more. I got to thinking because I am on this watch part and trinkets kick of casting blanks and yesterday I got PSI catalog and took a quick look through it. The thought occurred to me and we all know this that they make a ton of themed kits. You name it and it seems they have a kit for it. many are to me are just not my style and just gizmo kits. But here is what was curious, why in the world have they not come out with a watch part themed kit all these years. Watch part blanks and pens are huge sellers. Within them you can easily vary the theme as I have been doing over the past year now.

How many people remember these pens?? Many years ago when the watch part pen just started to become popular I bought a bunch of these off ebay as junk pens and was going to incorporate the time piece in the cap. I never did get around to that idea. There are also highend pens made that have a watch in the cabochon of the cap. I am sure that PSI could have come up with some sort of theme even if it was just gears. Now before letters start coming in I know they make a Steampunk kit but look at it and it is not watch related. It is pipes and tubes which is more steampunk look. Now with all said maybe, just maybe there is such a kit out there that I am not aware of and have never seen used here. So I am open for suggestions. Otherwise I do know for fact there are PSI spys that follow this site so maybe they can read this and soon we see something. Maybe they will give me a free kit.:p Yea right.

Again an example of a watch pen or pen watch. How many remember these??

watch pen.jpg
 
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The IAP app BushNTubes lists discontinued kits. It lists them in Dark Blue
by default to show that they are no longer available. Hard to differentiate, I went to the app's settings and changed discontinued to red so that they would stand out. I'd say about 20% or more of the listed kits are discontinued. Most of them are PSI. For this reason I buy kits that are classic designs and not the trendy
novelty pens. Lately I've been ordering from different stores but I still buy the tried and true designs. I wish they would bring back watch part pens. They are classics.
 
Hi John,

I remember them too, sometimes I wish I could go back to the 1980's, things were just different (better in my opinion) for the electronics enthusiast back then. Radio Shack, Heath, and all of the electronics projects magazines. I think it was the large scale integrated circuits that brought these companies and most of the electronics hobbyists to their end. Surface mount and large scale devices were just not conducive to the hobby market, and companies converted their manufacturing to the newer technologies leaving a lot of us in the dust.

Since then there sure have been a lot of companies either go under or get bought up and went by the wayside. I always wanted a (German quality) Grundig shortwave radio, but now they are made by Eton and only sold using the Grundig name.

Dave
 
egnald said:
Hi John,

I remember them too, sometimes I wish I could go back to the 1980's, things were just different (better in my opinion) for the electronics enthusiast back then. Radio Shack, Heath, and all of the electronics projects magazines. I think it was the large scale integrated circuits that brought these companies and most of the electronics hobbyists to their end. Surface mount and large scale devices were just not conducive to the hobby market, and companies converted their manufacturing to the newer technologies leaving a lot of us in the dust.

Since then there sure have been a lot of companies either go under or get bought up and went by the wayside. I always wanted a (German quality) Grundig shortwave radio, but now they are made by Eton and only sold using the Grundig name.

Dave
Click to expand...
Oh I spent my fair share of money in Radio Shack. Before I got into scrollsawing and any other hobby I use to make model cars and then when the models progressed to large trucks such as semis and dump trucks I was all over that. That led to the CB craze and the Convoy by C.W. Mcall. Then the hit tv show Moving On with Claude Atkins. That started the truck model business. I made a replica of his green truck and still have it somewhere. To tie this into radio shack I bought all kinds of lights and battery setups so that I could use at that time the beginning of Fiber Optics. I worked in a General electric facility they were experimenting with Fiber Optics and I was able to get a bunch of it. I used that to actually light the dashboard, headlights, overhead lights tail lights and side marker lights on the model trucks I was building. Even back then I was into fine detailing. Then also from radio shack I built a power mike for my CB. I put that thing in series with my regular mike and boy I was able to step up the power. It did sound a little tinny but was cool. Brings back memories.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071012/mediaviewer/rm4140203264/?ref_=tt_ov_i
 
jttheclockman said:
Sitting here scanning the forum on this very rainy weekend Sunday. Just got up from the shop after placing a couple blanks in the casting pot and prepping a few more. I got to thinking because I am on this watch part and trinkets kick of casting blanks and yesterday I got PSI catalog and took a quick look through it. The thought occurred to me and we all know this that they make a ton of themed kits. You name it and it seems they have a kit for it. many are to me are just not my style and just gizmo kits. But here is what was curious, why in the world have they not come out with a watch part themed kit all these years. Watch part blanks and pens are huge sellers. Within them you can easily vary the theme as I have been doing over the past year now.

How many people remember these pens?? Many years ago when the watch part pen just started to become popular I bought a bunch of these off ebay as junk pens and was going to incorporate the time piece in the cap. I never did get around to that idea. There are also highend pens made that have a watch in the cabochon of the cap. I am sure that PSI could have come up with some sort of theme even if it was just gears. Now before letters start coming in I know they make a Steampunk kit but look at it and it is not watch related. It is pipes and tubes which is more steampunk look. Now with all said maybe, just maybe there is such a kit out there that I am not aware of and have never seen used here. So I am open for suggestions. Otherwise I do know for fact there are PSI spys that follow this site so maybe they can read this and soon we see something. Maybe they will give me a free kit.:p Yea right.

Again an example of a watch pen or pen watch. How many remember these??

View attachment 360828
Click to expand...
Yep I remember those. As a matter of fact I still use a TRS-80 PC-1 as my main calculator.
 
Sadly, I have let all of my vintage computers go over the years, mostly during moves.

TRS-80 Model 1 with all of the bells & whistles (plus aftermarket Lobo Drives 8" Floppy discs)
Digital Group System 4 with drives and Phideck.
Original 1984 Macintosh
Kaypro-2 and Kaypro-10 (Thought I was on top of the world with a 10MB hard drive).
Early IBM ThinkPad (1992 vintage)

Of course there have also been a plethora of other brands of PC's over the years as well.

At one time I was even part owner of an IBM 1620 and an IBM 1401 2nd generation mainframe computers until we lost access to where they were set up. So we pulled it out and had it recycled for the price of scrap and reclaim of the silver and gold. All I have left is the metal placard that says IBM 1620 and the trash can from under a 1622 Card Reader / Punch along with a handful of little discrete component plug-in cards.

Dave
 
I started my first job in the semiconductor industry at Texas Instruments in Dallas in the fall of 1972. Moved to TI Lubbock for the startup of a new facility in late 1973. They assembled and tested calculators and digital LED watches there. I don't recall any LCD watches, only red LED. Some of the watch displays were probably small enough for a pen, but I don't remember the size of the batteries. They might not be small enough for a pen? Search EBAY for vintage TI LED and LCD watches and you might find something you could incorporate into a pen.

Mike
 
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