History
The design was first conceived by Yoshikazu Akahane at Suwa Seikosha (currently Seiko Epson) in 1977, and patents were applied for in 1982. The movement was announced publicly in 1997, presented at the 1998 Basel Watch Fair and first appeared commercially in the Credor 'luxury watch' range as a limited edition in 1999. A version which included an automatic winder was shown in Seiko models at the 2005 Basel Watch Fair. The internationally available Seiko models were officially launched at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris on September 14, and went on sale the following day.
Swatch's research company ASULAB has developed a conceptually similar movement called the High Precision Mechanics movement. . Several proof of concept prototypes based on the ETA 2824 caliber were produced in the late 1990s.
Seiko's efforts with the Spring Drive predates ASULAB's HPM, since Spring Drive watches were already on sale in 1999.
Read more about this topic: Spring Drive
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)