As many of you know, I'm into flip clocks in general, but I like the historical, pivotal clocks. So it is that my brain keeps telling me that I need a Sony Digital24 flip clock radio.
For a while (from 2008 to 2018 as far as I can tell), on the history portion of their website, Sony asserted that in 1968 the Sony "Digital 24" was the "world's first digital clock radio."
I knew that I had seen this before, and the link is still out there on the internet
https://www.sony.net/Fun/design/hist...60/8fc-59.html
But they've taken it down and so I had to use the Internet Archive WayBack machine to see this page.
The full text read:
"8FC-59 Product Design
The world's first digital clock radio, nicknamed "Digital 24." In a horizontal format for bedside use, the unit came in black, white and red. Individual panels with printed digits flip over to show the time, and users can wake to music or a buzzer by setting the alarm or sleep timer. Users also appreciated the convenience of the auto-off feature. "
The world's first digital clock radio, nicknamed "Digital 24." In a horizontal format for bedside use, the unit came in black, white and red. Individual panels with printed digits flip over to show the time, and users can wake to music or a buzzer by setting the alarm or sleep timer. Users also appreciated the convenience of the auto-off feature. "
Code:
https://www.sony.net/Fun/design/history/product/1960/8fc-59.html
From pinterest:
Product Design 8FC-59 |1968| World's first digital clock radio AKA digital 24
to reddit:
The world's first digital clock radio, nicknamed "Digital 24." Sony 8FC-59
to The Verge (a technology review website/company) on a very cool 2016 "Toyko Thrift" column:
TOKYO THRIFT SPECIAL: ‘IT’S A SONY’ EXHIBIT SHOWS OFF DECADES OF DECADENT DESIGN
(this is a cool article - worth a look)
I recall about that time there was a an ebay seller found a 8FC-59WA - (actually a Sony Digimatic) and asserted that it was "the world's first." He got pretty mad when I advised him that he was wrong. But he persisted. He started at $1500.00 and eventually got down to $900 on his blog before he did a no reserve ebay auction. It sold for $3.25 plus shipping (ouch).
For some reason the New York Times online edition wrote an article
The internet breathes new life into the clock radio
that stated
FOR many people, the dawn of the digital age - or at least the first recognition of its advent - probably did not come with utility bills on punch cards warning never to fold, spindle or mutilate. Most Americans did not wake up to the new era by reading ads for do-it-yourself Heathkit computers in Popular Mechanics magazine.
No, it might have been the little bedside box soothing us to sleep at night and jolting us awake in the morning: the digital alarm clock radio. Instead of the hands of the analog dial, here were numbers, straightforward and direct, that flipped - the glowing came later - to tell us a new era in consumer electronics had arrived.
It was 1968 and the Sony Dream Machine, model 8FC-59, suddenly upgraded the real estate next to the bed. There were other digital clock radios, but it was one of the most coveted. At one point, the company’s clock-radio resided in a third of American homes, Sony says. But over the decades, there has hardly been a duller category of consumer electronics. In the 1980s and 1990s, a clock radio would have vied with underwear as the most boring gift.
No, it might have been the little bedside box soothing us to sleep at night and jolting us awake in the morning: the digital alarm clock radio. Instead of the hands of the analog dial, here were numbers, straightforward and direct, that flipped - the glowing came later - to tell us a new era in consumer electronics had arrived.
It was 1968 and the Sony Dream Machine, model 8FC-59, suddenly upgraded the real estate next to the bed. There were other digital clock radios, but it was one of the most coveted. At one point, the company’s clock-radio resided in a third of American homes, Sony says. But over the decades, there has hardly been a duller category of consumer electronics. In the 1980s and 1990s, a clock radio would have vied with underwear as the most boring gift.
I've started noticing that there are other varieties of the Digital24s out there. This seems to have been primarily a Japanese brand name because it seems to have morphed to "Digimatic" once it came to the USA. And they came Very early - by late 1968.
It's interesting to me that the wooden cased (8FC-69) Sony's actually came out after the Digital24 - they look older to me by nature of the real wood. Sony considered these to be their "Deluxe" models. And actually, it's pretty classy to have a real wood clock - although I personally love that red plastic.
In spite of Sony's assertion. Many of you probably know that technically, the Digital24 was NOT the first digital clock radio. The very blunt Reddit users were quick to point that out on the post I referenced above (gotta love reddit). But their information was also a bit fuzzy. I have found via newspaper ads that it was 1967 when a Penncrest digital clock radio was on the market. Not much to look at - but you can't deny it's "digital."
From Chillicothe_Gazette Wed Dec 20, 1967
It's funny that Sony would even assert that they were the first (and the people kept repeating it).
I think it might be fair to say that the Sony Digital24 was the first of the "modern era" digital clock radios. ... On second thought .... No. (probably why Sony nixed that page). But you and I know that more properly, it was possibly the world's first flip clock radio in 1968 (followed very quickly by all the others). That's probably what the history writer meant ... or he / she was didn't know. I've said this before, as far as flip clock radios, I think Sony was just first to market. The Panasonic RC-6479 was out as early as 1969. But the Sony Digital 24 was still the first.
With more research and consideration. I think the "first" label got attached as Sony promoted these clocks (both the Digital 24 and the Digimatics) as the first 24 hour clock "the clock you don't have to set the night before." Hence the emphasis on the "24". The next post has ads that seem to back this up.
Regardless, even if it's not exactly what everyone said it is, it was said and by it's very nature, it is what it is "the purported first flip clock radio."
Just because it is what it is, or what some have said it is, I think I need one. And a red one too!
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