Digital watches are generally thought of as a product of the electronic era and of the microchip. However, there is a form of digital watch that predates this. The movement for the “jump-hour”, or “jumping hour”, mechanism displays the hour in a digital format rather than using a more conventional system of dials and pointers. While this concept is similar to the display in an electrical digital watch, the movement is actually based on a complicated mechanism that uses a rotating disc engraved with numbers. A small window on the dial reveals a single digit of the wheel behind and with every hour the mechanism rotates the wheel, making the visible number jump to the next hour. Depending on the design and model of the watch, the minutes and seconds are either shown on separate dials or by using analogue dials and pointers.
The original mechanism was conceived by the Austrian engineer Josef Pallweber and patented in 1882. However, owing to the intricate complexity of the movement, it was produced by only a handful of select watchmakers. While Pallweber’s movement was initially used only for pocket watches, in the 1920s the Swiss manufacturers Cortebert obtained the licence and started to produce what is considered to be the world’s first digital wristwatch.
The “jump-hour: mechanism resulted in an unusual clock face and display and ensured that this was the first popular watch movement that did not rely on a traditional combination of dial and hands. This particular example, by Cortebert, was produced in Switzerland in 1932.
