Intermezzo #29 Timestamp

"A timestamp is a sequence of characters, denoting the date and/or time at which a certain event occurred. A timestamp is the time at which an event is recorded by a computer, not the time of the event itself. In many cases, the difference may be inconsequential: the time at which an event is recorded by a timestamp (e.g., entered into a log file) should be very, very close to the time of the occurrence of the event recorded." (Wikipedia)

When was it I heard this song for the first time?

In 2002 Casio came in Japan with the First Tough Solar Waveceptor model, the GW-300. Soon a new generation of these watches followed, like the MTG-920D, MTG-930D, GW-700, etc. Although there were many different models and versions, they all had the basically functions. One of the new functions on these models that appeared was the “Time Memo” function.

I think this is one of the strangest functions that could be found on a watch. So what does the Time Memo function do. When you press the upper right button (you can’t miss, it’s marked with “Time Memo”). At that moment the time and date are stored into a memory. The memory of the watch can store up to 30 “Timestamps”.

It sounds good, this Time Memo function, but what can you do with it? For myself, I didn’t had any idea when I got my first. The Time Memo also replaced my so loved Count Down Timer function. When you work on a lab, a countdown timer is a very useful instrument when working on several experiments. The alarm at the end of the Count Down time is pretty essential. The Time Memo doesn’t give a signal. It is just a number, a date and a time. After about 8 years, I still didn’t have a use for this function, though I have read several suggestions over the years.

What to think about: Record the time you start and end working, or when you go to work and get home, start sporting and stop, etc. Hmm, nice, but the watch got a 24h stopwatch. You don’t have to calculate the elapsed time and also, you don’t have to remember what number your Timestamp has.

Somehow the Timestamp does make me think of hospital series like ER. The birth or death of a human being is often recorded. I remember when Bram was born, the doctor said, please write on the documents 10 minutes before 11 (10:50 a.m.). When you see someone die in a hospital in a television show, the doctor always says “Time of death, ….” Or in forensic series they always talk about “Estimated Time of Death”. Right, maybe that are good occasions to use a Timestamp, but be honest, unless you are a doctor with a high birth or death rate, how often will you use this function?

 Some of my Tough Solar Waveceptor models that have the "Time Memo" function.

Over the years, members on the G-Shock forum came with some ideas for the Time Memo Function. Freediver told once he used it to record the time he gave his children medication when they were seriously ill. There had to be a certain time span between the medications, to prevent medication poisoning. A good idea, but why not use the 24 hour Stopwatch, unless you want to record more than one “Timestamp”.

The most funny use for the “Timestamp“ came from Leewmeister. This is the text he posted on the G-Shock forum: “My '86 Toyota Tercel wagon clicked over 210,000 miles this morning at 08:04:11 AM!  My last legitimate use for the timestamp was on 06 May 2005 at 12:32:55 PM when she made 200,000 miles”. Well, I can’t argue with that. That’s a useful function. The use of the Timestamp is good for rare occasions, like these.

Just over a month ago Mickeymoto posted a very clever use for the Timestamp. “I listen to the radio often and I use the timestamp feature on occasion to mark the time I heard a new song I liked so later I could check the playlist and find out what it was.” That’s a real useful idea. I often listen to the radio station called Studio Brussel. This radio station is known worldwide for it’s music. They often play music that can’t be heard anywhere else or months before other radio station pick up the music. Studio Brussel also have an on-line playlists. Using Shazam is not an option. The music is sometimes so new, it has not even distributed on any source yet. I think this is the only real good use I have seen for the Time Memo function (although, I still like Leewmeisters idea too) up to date. In fact, Mikeymoto’s post inspired me to make this small article. Do you think you have a good use for a “Timestamp? Well, share it with us by writing a comment on this article. Meanwhile, enjoy G!

#6 A visit to St John: Georgia on my mind

I'm going to take you on a special trip today. Saint John is was an important saint in the history of our city. Centuries ago my city was with Amsterdam and Antwerp a very important city in the Netherland (which in that time also included Belgium). Several crusades started from the abbey of Middelburg. The name Sint Jan (Saint John) is found back in street names and buildings. Just over a decade ago I lived in Sint Jansgang (Saint John's alley). Above and below you see the fish market view on the Sint Janstraat (Saint John street). A good friend of me (he visited me Saturday night coincidently) lives in this street, so no wonder the beer we produced over 15 years ago was called Sint Jansbier (Saint John's beer).
In the Sint Jansstraat there is another special place to visit. A real coffee shop. Well, for the Dutch readers, it is not the place to go for a marijuana joint. No this place serves all kinds of terrific coffee.I visit this coffee shop since I was an 14 year old pupil around 1980, which is not strange at all. This coffee shop is a favorite place of young and old. Many older people started visiting St John since their Pupil years. Well, today I took a walk into the city with my son Bram. Bram is already a big fan of St. John. We were very lucky. Two customers were just leaving the biggest table.
I think it's not a big leap to the main topic of this week. It has one of the largest model numbers I know: GW-300LVJGRG-7JF, better know as the Georgia Coffee G-Shock. I got this very rare model as a gift from my friend Elliot (Ozzie). As you can see on the picture below, it was a gift with a mission. The GW-300 has the infamous CLT1616 on board. The first batches of the Panasonic CLT1616 had a very high error rate. So had the battery on this one. The watch went into Recovery mode, which is the first sign of a CLT1616 to fail. Luckily Panasonic had discovered the fault inthe CLT1616 and replacement batteries were free of faults. Theh so called "Recovery blues" mainly hit the GW-300 and G-5600 models. If your watch is suffering this recovery blues, I recommend to let the battery replaced. After that I am for 99% sure your watch will be cured from this blues. If you do not have a proper Casio Service centre in the neighbor hood (Please don't sent it to Casio New Jersey, I have heard many horror stories about that service center!), you can find these batteries on-line and replace it like a normal battery (like on one of my tutorials on WUS or G-Peopleland).
I actually don't know when this watch was released, but I think it was in 2003, as GW-300's were only released between November 2002 and autumn 2003. Bram and I make us as comfortable as possible. Bram had ordered a Hot chocolate and a "Bolus" (a specialty from Zeeland). I have a "Sjors Coffee" and a tosti "Siwa". Actually this article is a lot about coffee, but unfortunately I can't drink coffee.
There were different times. As a small boy I already drunk coffee as soon as I got up. I still remember how my father got up around 7:15 and went downstairs to put the kettle on. We are talking 1969/1970. Coffee machines still had to be introduced in the Netherlands. My father ground coffee beans and poured small amounts of cooked water from the kettle over the fresh ground coffee in a filter. I even had a special coffee cup already. I still remember the print. It were seven dwarfs with a lantern.
I drunk a lot of coffee since then. When I was a student coffee held me awake at night. Nights were the ideal time to study, since my student house was uite noisy daytime. Somewhere around winter 1995 I got heart-rhythm problems. First mild, later pretty serious. At the time I thought it was time to visit a doctor, I heard a friend talking about similar problems. He went to the doctor and he was advised to stop drinking coffee. Well, I thought I could try and, Hurray, I had no heart problems at all.Then came the little investigator in me above. There was a voice saying:"It's all between your ears, you have drunk coffee your whole life!" About a year after I stopped drinking coffee I thought I was pretending all this. Why should I let one of my favorite drinks for this. I went with Eva (my girlfriend) to St John and I ordered a "Satan's Coffe". It was delicious. When I was at home I was sure it was all between my ears. Not a problem at all... Until I was asleep. In the middle of the night I woke up with a heart rate around 200 bpm. Soon the heart rate became variable between 20 and 220 BPM. I was bouncing around the bedroom, I never felt that bad. This state continued actually for about two days, before my heart was acting normal. This "Satan's Coffee" was the lst coffee I ever drunk my life. I once had milder rhythm problems. It appeared I had drunk a liquor with coffee, without knowing it. Still I missed my favorite "Satan's Coffee". At a day I asked the owners of St John if they could make me a "Satan's coffee" with surrogate coffee (made of grains). Since then this coffee is called "Sjors Coffee". I is kind of funny when I visit St John with other people and order my coffee. You can see them think: "Has this popular spot a drink named after him?". Yes it does, but I leave the whole explanations for myself.Back to the watch again. So what is Georgia Coffee. Maybe in the US it might be known, but here in the Netherlands, we don't drink cold coffee out of a can.
In Japan canned coffee specialties are very popular. Georgia is a famous brand, produced and distributed by Coca Cola. Well, that's a known name! Well, recently (two years ago to be exact), I got similar heart rhythm problems during a bicyle ride after drinking Coca Cola regular... Exit Coca Cola.
In Japan Georgia canned coffee products are very popular. There are at least 17 variations available (several are seasonal variations). The Georgia G-Shock has a special shade of white. It has a kind of coffee cream color.
The buttons and the metal ring have coffee gold finish. It makes this watch look very good. The back plate, with the "Enjoy Georgia" engravement is actually silver. The lamps of St John actually give it this gold shine...
That also reflects here in the display. This GW-300 unfortunately only receives the atomic time signal in Japan and the US only. It had been for over a year in the box.
Due to the Power Save function, the battery was still (surprisingly) full. The time is just 25 seconds fast! So without the Waveceptor function, this watch is very accurate.
While taking photo's, I had to encourage Bram to eat his bolus. I already have finished my tosti and also my "Sjors Coffee". Bram still has three quarter of his Hot Chocolate in his cup, so I ordered a Hot Chocolate with whipped cream.
Look at the buttons. They are dark gold metallic, but they seem to change from different gold shades when light plays with it.
Everything says coffee in this model. Is this the G for G-Shock, or that of Georgia...
Look at the light playing with the gold colored ring. I would like to order a cup of coffee now. I better don't of course. I still can dream about it...
Does it look good on my wrist? It's winter now, so my skin can use sunlight. In summer white G's suit me much better. Uhm, how long was it ago I ordered my Hot Chocolate?
"Didn't you forget my fathers hot chocolate?" Bram can break a leg here. Within one minute I had my chocolate with a lot of apologies. Actually in all the years I have been a regular customer, this is the first time I can remember hey forgot an order. With such friendly hosts, I can see this easily through my fingers.
Well, the EL shot's I took at home. You can see it on the time of course. There was just too much light in the coffee shop. The EL backlight lights pretty short. I think 2 seconds. This makes it a little bit harder to make good pictures. Also the GW-9000 Mudman has a short EL backlight time. Note the empty RecieveIndicator. Maybe I should take this watch to Japan some day. In the backlight you see the logo of Georgia coffee. I'm not sure how one could obtain this model. I guess it was a giveaway price at a contest, or maybe it was given away as promotional material to relations. I have also no idea how many of these were made. All I can tell, this is a very good color scheme.
The statue in the first photo is located on the fish market and is called Sophie. Sophie is kissing Bram on Valentine's day. Funny detail, if Bram had been a girl at birth, we would have called her Sophie. I hope you enjoyed this weeks article, which blends a G-Shock, some personal feelings and a little sight seeing together. See you next week with another G.

G-Shock #31: The first Heaven Controller in Europe.

Somewhere in the beginning 2002 I discovered the Antman. At that time an unreachable G-Shock, unfortunately. I had this great idea. I was dreaming about a G-Shock that combined the looks and features of the Raysman and Antman. At a day at school I wrote a contact form to Casio Europe.
In that contact form I complained there was no Antman for Europe (it is restricted to one transmitter Japan only). I suggested if that it would be great if there was an Antman released that was Tough Solar, like the Raysman.
I actually didn't expect a serious answer back, but I soon got a reply. The consumer service wrote me Casio Europe was very enthusiastic and very interested in my idea. They thought it was a great idea and they had sent my suggestion to the head office of Casio in Tokyo. Too bad my old computer crashed, so I actually don't have that e-mail anymore, but I think you can understand how proud I was.
For a long time, nothing happened. Than, in November 2002, Casio presented a now revolutionary model. It was the first watch that combined Tough Solar with Waveceptor technology. Cool I thought, until I saw the model. I wanted a BIG watch, like the Antman. This was not what I had in mind. Proudly Casio presented the GW-300 as the synergy of the Raysman and Antman in an advertisement. Unfortunately for me, the technology of miniaturization was improved and a G-Shock of a "normal" size could hold gadgetry. This was not the only deception. The big plus was that it could receive 3 transmitters, the down side was, the three transmitters were in Japan and the US.
Soon the watch became available for the US market. That sounds logical. It could also receive the US transmitter in Fort Collins, Colorado. The prices dropped dramatically. A little bit like what you now see on some of the 25th anniversary models at the JC Penney stores. In Japan the retail price was 24000 yen. ( $200.-/€180.-), in the US you could buy them for around $65.-.

Since 2001 I often bought G-Shocks from a jeweler in Germany. I had good contact with the shop owner in Augsburg. I even had his private cell phone number and could call him any time. Sometimes he asked me if I was looking for something. When the GW-300 was released in the US, I had asked him several times if he knew something about a similar model for Europe.
March 2003 I got a phone call from him. Very unusual, but he had great news. He had been to a big watches convention and got his hands on the first GW-300 "Heaven Controller" for the European market. Well, that was the good part. It was not really cheap. The suggested retail price was €130.-. I paid €110.- shipped to the Netherlands, double the price of an US version. In exchange I would be the very first owner of a GW-300 in Europe.
I still do not know what to think about this watch. I was expecting a huge watch. On the other hand, the red accents are great. I'm not sure what to think about the silver ring. I am a real resin lover and a tough shock resist watch does not have to bling for me. Also the watch missed the one of the best functions besides timekeeping. There is no countdown timer on board. Instead Casio invented a Time Stamp. You can memorize time and date by holding the TIME MEMO button for some seconds, but without description I don't think this is a strong feature.
For the rest, this watch has world time, a stopwatch and 5 alarms (one is a snooze) on board. So the watch is pretty basic, but you always have the correct time. I live around 500 km from the Mainflingen transmitter and never had problems with receiving the signal.

This model unfortunately is also known for it's high failure rate. I have three GW-300's and all three have had the "Recovery Blues". Somehow a batch of faulty Panasonic CLT1616 were placed in this model. After a period (which can take up to 3 years) these batteries work perfect. Suddenly, without warning it fails. Often when the EL light is turned on. From battery level HIGH, suddenly the recovery triangle blinks in the screen. After a while it shows HIGH again, but when using the light or even without anything, it goes into recovery state again. A battery change of around €14.- (and a week waiting for the battery) solves this problem. Casio had reported that there was a bad nbatch of CLT1616's. Now the Panasonic CLT1616 battery is even improved according Casio.
It seems that NASA has bought a batch GW-300. Many NASA astronauts have been seen wearing a GW-300 while diving to practice for their forth coming missions. Above you see Nicole Stott wearing a GW-300 after a dive session in 2006 (PHOTO CREDIT: NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

Does my perception of this watch changed? I wore it today, while I made a large bicycle trip over some former islands of Zeeland. Over the years the Waveceptor function is found on many models. The GW-300 seems even a bit a forgotten model. It isn't very popular anymore, apparently due to the Recovery Blues. I must say that the watch has a nice sporty look. It doesn't even look small on my wrist anymore. I guess it's because I wear a lot of smaller G's these day's, not only classic Master of G's. Yes, I might even write that I like it's look actually cool. Ideal for a day cycling.