
Introducing the GoodWatch - limmeau
https://goodwatch.org/posts/introducing-the-goodwatch/
======
zoom6628
I am sooo jealous of this. What an amazing project. Yes it would be front page
on Hackaday but pleased it appeared here because HN is all about (IMHO)
inventive and creative technology and its possibilities and applications.
These sort of projects illuminate for the rest of us on what might be
possible. Has inspired me to break open the boxes of parts i have and build
something that works (useful or not remains to be seen), just to explore the
possible. By day i work on Enterprise software, but ive had more inspiration
moments when working on IoT wireless stuff at home than ever had in meetings,
workgroups, or sitting in an office.

To the author and creator, a huge thank you for the inspiration, education.
Like one other poster mentioned i too would like a quick donate button for
this. I do use for other projects because i think its important to acknowledge
people who make stuff like this. Whether is code or hardware, or sometimes
even just ideas on KS, give a few bucks if you can to share the fun and
inspiration and reward others.

------
alunaryak
This is a bit orthogonal, but if you're interested in the watch form factor,
TI makes a really neat watch dev board for the MSP430 that has a built-in
accelerometer and support for wireless sensors.

[http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/EZ430-Chronos](http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/EZ430-Chronos)

~~~
dfox
I'm not sure whether Chronos is still in production. In comparison to this
chronos is large (it is significantly larger that you would expect from the
pictures) and it's radio capabilities are limited (not to mention that it does
not have keyboard ;))

TI also for a short time made more advanced version with bluetooth, sane
industrial design and certified radio which was quite similar to Pebble.

~~~
alunaryak
It's definitely getting long in the tooth, but I believe a few places still
stock them. Mouser & Digikey both have a handful in stock.

Mouser:
[https://www.mouser.com/search/refine.aspx?Ntk=P_MarCom&Ntt=1...](https://www.mouser.com/search/refine.aspx?Ntk=P_MarCom&Ntt=182587955)

Digikey: [https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/t/texas-
instrum...](https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/t/texas-
instruments/ez430-chronos)

------
yoodenvranx
This is one of those articles/projects where I really miss an established
universal web-wide donation system. I just want to click a button on that page
and send the author a few bucks as a Thank You for doing amazing things.

(And no, a Paypal link is not an answer to this problem)

~~~
manigandham
Why doesnt paypal work? All they need to list is an email address, it's the
lowest amount of work.

~~~
gpvos
It forces me to create an account with them (even though people say it
doesn't), and has repugnant policies.

------
omn1
I miss posts like this on HN.

~~~
bastijn
Came here to reply: “this is why I read HN.”. Glad to see more people feel
like that.

@author (if here). Thanks, fantastic read and an even better gadget. You made
me feel “O my, I need this!”.

~~~
ZenoArrow
If this why you read HN, I'd suggest checking out Hackaday, which gives you
new content along these lines pretty much every day.

Would recommend checking out both the Hackaday blog and Hackaday.io. The blog
covers news articles about hacks, and Hackaday.io is a place where a community
of hackers share their own projects:

[https://hackaday.com/blog/](https://hackaday.com/blog/)

[https://hackaday.io/](https://hackaday.io/)

The main negatives I could say about Hackaday is the comment section on the
blog is frequently a waste of time, and the UI of Hackaday.io could do with
some improvements (IMO), but there's plenty of interesting projects to check
out, and it's easy to ignore the comments section.

~~~
throwanem
Hackaday is indeed great for finding out about neat projects. Don't read the
comments, though. Everyone is _hobbying wrong_ and _they need to know it right
now._

~~~
sowbug
Post more Hackaday articles here.

~~~
ZenoArrow
You're capable of doing the same.

------
codinghorror
Oh my gosh this is amazing, such a labor of love. Everyone clearly needs a
reverse engineered disassembler on their wrist.

~~~
passwordqq2
I was going to leave a snarky comment about "reverse engineered disassembler"
but then accidentally saw the username. What do you mean by that?

~~~
tazard
I would assume he's referring to the MSP430 disassembler built into the watch
so you can reverse engineer the watches hardware, as it says in the article.

~~~
unwind
That was awesome but that is a reverse engineering disassembler (a bit
redundant when the GoodWatch guy wrote the code to begin with but ...).

A reverse engineered disassembler would be a disassembler that has been
reverse engineered itself, which was not what the article said.

It confused me, too.

------
dessant
> It also has a hex editor, because no proper lady or gentleman should be
> caught in public without one on the wrist.

I'll hold this thought dear for the rest of my life, thanks for sharing this
amazing project.

------
mmjaa
I really wish the Oscilloscope Watch had made it through the hassle of
production:

[http://www.gabotronics.com/oscilloscopes/oscilloscope-
watch....](http://www.gabotronics.com/oscilloscopes/oscilloscope-watch.htm)

(Disclaimer: I'm one of the disappointed backers of his kickstarter campaign,
which went nowhere...)

If there were another attempt at making a watch like this one, I'd definitely
be a backer. I think this is really an ideal time for someone to start up an
open-source, powerful watch platform ..

------
brncsk
So what's going on with those Hungarian words on the disassembler pic? :)

~~~
sly010
I want to know the answer to that as well. Judging from travis's callsign (and
name) he is based in the US.

------
wepple
In case anyone loves this type of thing but hasn’t heard of PoC||GTFO, I
encourage you to take a look:
[https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/](https://www.alchemistowl.org/pocorgtfo/)

------
limmeau
At first I thought this was a firmware mod for those calculator watches, but
it's a new circuit board. Comparable in power to those TI msp430 developer
watches, but with better UI possibilities.

------
AlliedEnvy
See also
[https://github.com/carrotIndustries/pluto](https://github.com/carrotIndustries/pluto)
, a replacement board for the ubiquitous Casio F-91W, also using a TI
microcontroller.

~~~
zokier
That's pretty incredible, considering that f91w has such a small body.

------
vr46
Wow. Everything about this is amazing, including the nostalgia from leafing
through KMart catalogues of the 1980s for all the Casio watches.

~~~
bringtheaction
Casio Wrist Camera digital watch

Casio digital watch with built-in infrared remote for your TV

Good times. Actually not very useful but they looked so hot back then and I
remember just laying on the floor looking at the pictures of such watches.

~~~
Belphemur
It was quite useful to drive your teacher crazy when changing the volume
randomly of the TV.

That was so fun when I was a teenager.

------
coupdejarnac
Awesome project. I'm surprised we don't see more msp430-based watch projects.
Bonus points for ham radio functionality. I'd be all over this if I didn't
hate wearing a watch.

------
ctkrohn
Does anyone know what the apparently pocket-sized notebook computer is? The
one in the picture about halfway through the post, with the watches draped
over it.

~~~
detaro
GPD Pocket: [http://www.gpd.hk/pocket.asp](http://www.gpd.hk/pocket.asp)

~~~
craftyguy
well that's fucking sexy. now I want one.

~~~
sowbug
It delivers what it promises -- an unbelievably small Windows PC -- but there
are four annoying things about it.

First, the fan runs when it's charging. Every other device on Earth can charge
silently when turned off.

Second, the keyboard is not just small but also oddly arranged. Maybe some
people can adjust to it, but for me, dear lord do I despise the letter Q when
I'm using it.

Third, there's something odd in the I/O that makes USB drives incredibly slow.
The first thing I did was make a Windows 10 recovery drive on it (because I
wanted to wipe it and run Linux). I kid you not, the operation took about 24
straight hours to complete. I haven't bothered profiling the system so I don't
know where the bottleneck is. But it was a USB3 name-brand USB drive that I
know is fast.

Fourth, they claim Ubuntu runs on it, but they took the typical Shenzhen
approach of putting a modified binary on Mega -- in this case an Ubuntu ISO --
rather than upstreaming their changes or publishing source code. No way in
hell am I installing a binary download like that as my OS. Maybe they are in
the process of upstreaming and a future pristine Ubuntu distro will run on it.
Meanwhile I'm stuck with Windows 10 (and no, I'm not happy with that, either
-- I have no way of knowing it's not rooted, either).

~~~
craftyguy
> Fourth, they claim Ubuntu runs on it, but they took the typical Shenzhen
> approach of putting a modified binary on Mega -- in this case an Ubuntu ISO
> -- rather than upstreaming their changes or publishing source code.

Well, that makes this a no-go for me. Thanks for the info, seriously!

> No way in hell am I installing a binary download like that as my OS

Um, if you run windows 10 and install drivers from them, then you're running
binary crap. (not to mention windows 10 is binary crap, but I digress)

~~~
mmjaa
Disregard the claim! I have a GPD Pocket and run Ubuntu on it, and it is
freakin' awesome. Get the proper image - not the braindead one - from here:

[https://apt.nexus511.net](https://apt.nexus511.net)

Its a mighty fine device, my favourite Linux machine ever .. and all of the
issues discussed are no longer an issue thanks to the GPD Pocket/Ubuntu
community.

(Also see [http://reddit.com/r/gpdpocket/](http://reddit.com/r/gpdpocket/) for
more up to date news on this delightful machine..)

~~~
sowbug
Thanks, I'll give it a look. Last time I looked at the subreddit, there were
various people working on Ubuntu respins, but none of the projects looked like
a frontrunner yet for a low-maintenance build.

~~~
mmjaa
nexus511's dist build is wonderful - no worries whatsoever!

------
tzs
> It has ~5 years of battery life, knows days of the week for the next two
> thousand years, and has a handy RPN calculator.

I wonder why two thousand years? All the common day of the week algorithms
should work as long as the current leap year pattern [1] continues.

[1] (year % 4 == 0) && ((year % 100 != 0) || (year % 400 == 0)

------
pmarreck
This is definitely the geekiest, most awesome thing I will see today.
Fantastic.

------
jacquesm
I absolutely love the work and the tone of this article. Very neat hack.

------
j7ake
So it will be possible to buy one ? It looks cool

~~~
exikyut
It would be pretty cool for someone to step up and make a few of these, but
they would need to be prepared to be mildly inundated with orders.

Someone should tell Casio about this, and forward them
[http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-
sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv018.cg...](http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-
sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv018.cgi?read=139415) as an example of what can
happen when insiders successfully pull strings.

In this particular case the poster in the linked thread worked deep inside HP
and lobbied hard to get an SDK released and manufacture the calculator with a
nondescript set of pins inside the battery compartment that permitted
reflashing.

The result was the "WP 34s" firmware:
[https://commerce.hpcalc.org/34s.php](https://commerce.hpcalc.org/34s.php) is
a basic overview (unknown if clicking _Order_ works, email first) and
[https://sourceforge.net/projects/wp34s/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/wp34s/)
has full source code, details - _and emulators for Linux /Windows/macOS that
Just Work™_, I might add.

This firmware was written from scratch - the SDK provided a functioning
compiler and basic architectural info about the calculator, but no sample
code. The above firmware was thus written entirely from scratch. It implements
all standard functionality (re-implements, heh) as well as a number of
advanced fan-built features (more info at the SF link above).

IIUC, the HP-20b is sadly no longer in active production, so getting one's
hands on this interesting bit of kit is tricky. But despite the fact that this
never really made headline news the whole venture worked perfectly. Thought
I'd mention it.

As for what I think Casio should do: the TL;DR is that it's really, really
hard to do things that are offensive or damaging from a business standpoint
with a 8-char 7-segment LCD and a tiny keypad. This isn't a smartwatch with a
full-color LCD. So there's that.

The real problem is that, well, what little market demand is left for wrist
calculator watches is now split between the option of purchasing a smartwatch
instead. So demand would be probably within the <2%-of-entire-market range.

But if there happen to have any active production lines still producing these
calculator watches, I can totally see Casio being able to very cheaply swap in
a PCB with something like what OP has created.

NB. Since I have no idea how far this comment could reach - by all means
copypasta.

------
andrenotgiant
Mirror:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171216140013/https://goodwatch...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171216140013/https://goodwatch.org/posts/introducing-
the-goodwatch/) (can't find a mirror w/photos)

------
hexmiles
That's pretty cool, I plan to do something similar but with a cheap
smartwatch, a lot o Chinese smartwatch are based on the same soc family, and
usualy are pretty hackable.

------
larrydag
You are the Q for Dick Tracy.

------
estevaovix
This is neat!

------
kelu124
Superb!

------
VectorLock
>What if you’re stuck in an hour-long SCRUM meeting and need to reverse
engineer your watch’s firmware with pen and paper to retain your own sanity?”

The worst of the worst meetings.

