Last summer I made some pics of my AChS-1V aviation clock that I keep at my country log cabin. As a backdrop I used the dashboard of my 2008 Second Gen Ford Focus II face-lifted (European).
I thought it looked good in that setting. The idea crossed my mind of how interesting it would be to install it in or on the dash kind of permanently.
Turns out I am far from the first who has ever had that idea.
A week back I was watching on Youtube a 1972 Russian film Gonshchiki (Rally Racers) featuring rally driving in the Moskvich 412 one of my favorite cars, like this one (Internet pictures).
Interior
Nice interiors! Check out the bordello-red (vinyl -- no animals were harmed etc.) seats and upholstery, nicely combined with the black dashboard & central stack.
And in some of the rally cars shown in the film, they definitely had an early version of AChS-1 installed on the dashboard in the center.
Here is the film but it's in Russian and no English subtitles. Good film.
I have this post about my 10+ year-old Casio calculator watch -- Casio CA53w-1z.
But now it appears that Trevor Phillips of the GTAV fame (the less said about him the better wink wink) wears the exact same watch as you can see in pictures posted on the internet.
Well, what's good for Marty McFly is good for Trevor Phillips, no? Not that I think they have much in common. Or maybe all that travel back to future, forward to the past and present didn't do him much good, he grew up... and became Trevor?
A Leader 10 old-school digital watch from Belarus... Actually it's from my collection but is made in Belarus by the Kamerton factory located in the city of Pinsk. In fact, it is none other than the Electronika 5-29367 in disguise, i.e. with a new name and on a wrist strap, whereas straightforward Electronikas were mainly attached to bracelets, stainless steel or not so stainless.
There is also a video review available on my channel.
So, Leader 10 (Лидер 10), bought by me for my collection for RUB 400 which is about US$13 in the month of February in 2012 -- almost two years back.
It shows time -- hours, minutes and seconds, date, weekday, has a stopwatch, an alarm, an hourly chime/signal, plays two simple melodies which can also be used to sound the alarm or, somewhat truncated, for the hourly signal.
Some interesting points about this watch. You can turn off display indication -- you use button one (upper right), press and hold for two seconds -- with the display turned off the watch continues to work, the hourly chime and the alarm are sounded if turned on. This function harkens back to the early days of digital watches when, in fact, you had to press a button to bring up time indication. No Casios or Seikos have anything similar. Apparently this function allows you to conserve some power and make the battery serve longer. As far as I know no-one has yet tested how effective this function is. But it is a thirsty watch; it likes its (electrical) juice and is the fastest to drain the battery of all Electronika watches in my collection, usually in about a year, faster with chimes and alarms on.
Also interesting is that many operating modes and functions in this watch are activated not just by pressing buttons but by pressing and HOLDING them for 2 seconds.
The watch uses a curious method for turning on the hourly signal -- you just press button three (just pressing not holding this time) (lower left) and the indication switches between showing seconds and the date. When the date is shown on the display in normal time mode, the hourly signal is off, but when the seconds are on the display, the hourly signal is on. The hourly signal can just be a beep sequence or an initial fragment of one of the two melodies that the watch can play.
It so happens that the battery has run flat and it's now time for a battery replacement job. The back is a snap-on (pressed) back, you pry it open gently with something, like, a screwdriver or a pocket knife blade.
Under the upper case back there is another flat back which is pressed on by the upper case back to the module and holds it where it should be in the watch. Underneath is some sort of a basic rubber seal.
The battery is in its place, just move the contact leaf away to get it out or to install a new one, no need to remove the little screw.
This photo borrowed from the Internet shows re-issues (replicas? copies?) of the famed Urofa-based chronographs made during WWII by Tutima, Glashuette, and Hanhart and then by the First Moscow Watch Factory after the war. The re-issues utilize the Poljot 3133 chronograph movement which is also a great movement in its own right whose production may have been now discontinued.
The legal question as to who owns rights to this chrono design (if anybody does) is rather complicated. The difficulty is that both Tutima- and Hanhart making equipment went to the victors as war reparations. The Tutima workshop ended up in Moscow as part of the aforementioned First Moscow Watch Factory where up to 3,000-5,000 such chronographs (1MWF above) were made in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, while Hanhart's equipment went to France, having been in the French zone of occupation.
I believe these 3133-based re-issues (replicas, copies) can still be found on the internet but quality varies, some issues have been reported.
