The Japanese company Seiko, which translates variously as “exquisite,” “minute,” or “success” in English, began producing wall clocks in 1892. Pocket watches followed in 1895, and the firm’s first wristwatch, the Laurel, appeared in 1913.

Throughout its history, Seiko has been at the forefront of watchmaking technologies. It manufactured the world’s first quartz wristwatch, the Astron, in 1969, and in 1973 it produced the O614, the first quartz wristwatch with a six-digit LCD face. The first multi-function digital watch, the O634, followed in 1975, which was also the first year anyone had seen a titanium diver’s watch. The first watch with a TV in it, Seiko's T001, appeared in 1983.

In fact, the 1980s were an innovative decade for Seiko, whose M516 featured a sound recorder. But the jewels in Seiko’s crown were the series of wristwatches introduced between 1983 and 1985, which were designed to be used with a keypad. The first of these, the Data-2000, allowed to user to type short memos on the keypad, which were then transferred to the watch. The watch could also be used as a screen for calculator functions. The UC-2000, which was branded as the Wrist Information System, could be attached to a UC-2100 or UC-2200 keyboard, the latter featuring a small printer. Finally, there was the RC-1000 wristwatch, known as the Wrist Terminal, which could be connected to such early personal computers as the Apple IIe, the Commodore 64, the IBM PC, and the TRS-80.