In the heart of the golden age of LCD watches, Seiko released the first ‘wrist computer’ not just allowing people to make use of the two built-in memo screens, but opening the door for geeks with a penchant for coding, an opportunity to create their own mobile apps via their Apple computer or extension UC-2200 keyboard.
Pretty impressive for 1984.
Of course, you could just use it like a normal watch – setting the time and alarm, and using the stopwatch didn’t rely on any external accessories at all; and using the memo functions could be done with the included UC-2100 keyboard. So one could bear all the hallmarks of some computer genius without knowing anything about writing code at all.
If one was game enough to purchase the UC-2200 keyboard, though, they could use the included (or available separately) rom packs to expand the capabilities of what the watch had to offer. One rom pack contained the Basic programming language, another had an English-Japanese translator, and the third (the best, obviously) contained four games, including a basic Space Invaders.
The name UC-2000 referred to how much data could be stored – two Memos with 1000 characters each. It’s also known as the Data-2000.
It was expensive to buy, but missed the mark with the average consumer, so within a year was available in bargain bins for vastly reduced prices, as was the UC-2200. Spectacular, but beyond the reach (technology-wise) of most, it could have languished as part of Seiko’s digital watch history.
Fast-forward to today, or recent years, and enter a Russian programmer who has done wonders with this watch and its capabilities.
Alexander (aka Azya) reverse-engineered the watch, built his own transmitter, created an emulator for the UC-2200 that runs on (some) Android phones and wrote some excellent software of his own for the watch — including a collection of different watch faces, Tetris and an amazing multi-level scrolling platform game too!
You can find his YouTube channel here – it’s definitely worth a look; and if you have the time, patience or enthusiasm to get his software running on your watch, you’ll love it!
Here’s a video of my Data 2000 running the platformer game (I’m not very good, can you tell?)…