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Claude Shannon defined information in part by its ability to distinguish from noise.

Certain objects are so ubiquitous and their signaling so minimal, it’s to the point of background noise and contextlessness.

The Casio F-91W is one such object.

The monobloc chair is another[1].

The community jokes a CIA analyst looking at a gritty Polaroid of a monobloc will have no ability to discern if the picture was taken in Djibouti or Denmark.

In a certain, Cayce Pollard / William Gibson “CPU” aesthetic, there is cachet and delight in signalling contextlessness - and a small cult has grown around these objects. They collectively call objects that share this anonymous property “monoblocs“ for short and their is a bit of fun in acquiring the most base form (counter to our every instinct!)

I liked your article’s tangent on incompressibility. As, like fluid, noise is incompressible and by reinforcing your F-91W, you have made it doubly so.

[1] http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2011/04/06/those-white-pl...

This is an awesome comment, thank you!

I had no idea of this new "monobloc" trend, but I feel like you're on to something. When I wear, say, my Longines Diver and I look at my wrist, I feel that my watch is communicating: it's an intricate, hand-built machine telling me the time. I need to wind it and breathe new life into it. I get complimented on it: "new watch?" or "nice watch, what is it?" It's an accessory. A deliberate choice.

When I look down at my F-91W, it's as if it's not even there. I'm the one telling the time. Everyone ignores it, no one mentions it, no one brings it up: it's there but it's not. Just like a monobloc chair or a #2 pencil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayce_Pollard#Apparel

There is a YouTube channel called Bryan Ropar's Plastic Chair World[0]. Bryan is an expert when it comes to these monobloc chairs, and can name every model by sight and tell you where it was produced.

I think we often underestimate how much depth there is to subjects we are only casually familiar with, and I'm sure a CIA analyst could glean a great deal of information from a still of a plastic chair.

[0]: https://youtu.be/yCotpBAqJho

I LOVE Bryan Ropar's Plastic Chair World. I never thought I'd see it called out on hackernews!

New fan here. I'm always really happy to see real people with real niche interests publishing online, in a totally non-commercial context.

That's the kind of video countdown I like: quick and over in less than two minutes. No long, overdrawn filler in between each item.

At the same time, I'd like to see an article that explains why he considers one plastic chair superior to a different one, or what was the basis for ranking the chairs in the order he did.

I've been trying to refind this channel for years. Thank you.

Great comment and a great link. One question - what do you mean by "Cayce Pollard / William Gibson “CPU” aesthetic" They're both cyberpunk authors, yes?

Cayce is a Gibson Character. Part of the characters thing is not wearing any clothing that has branded logos, amongst other constraints.

Not the OP, but Cayce Pollard is the main character from Gibson’s Book “Pattern Recognition”. In the book, there is a subculture obsessed with a movie that has been deliberately distributed in small pieces. The fans try to discern the meaning of the movie and are foiled in determining the year or location it was shot due to the deliberate generic-ness of the costumes.

I don’t know what CPU aesthetic is, though.

"CPU" is a "Cayce Pollard Unit", an outfit she wears that is effortlessly cool and blends into the background, consisting of black, grey, and white.

Akshually, a CPU is an individual component of an outfit, eg. a black fruit of the loom t-shirt with the labels cut out.

Thank you for the comment.

>>In a certain, Cayce Pollard / William Gibson “CPU” aesthetic, there is cachet and delight in signalling contextlessness - and a small cult has grown around these objects. They collectively call objects that share this anonymous property “monoblocs“ for short

Do you have more information on this ? Searching for monoblocs doesn't turn up anything useful apart from the monobloc chair.

I don't know the specific community that uses that term, but more generally it has some things in common with "gray man", but Gibson filters it through fashion and otaku lenses.

Have you tried to buy a Monobloc chair? A quick web search only reveals clones rather than the classic original. The original is so ubiquitous that it is near impossible to buy. I would want one rather than a generic plastic chair because it is iconic much like the Casio F-91W, but, thus far, I haven't been able to find one (or four) to buy.

>> The monobloc chair is another[1].

I hate this chair with a passion. Didn't even know it had a name.

I'm a bit of a Casio watch collector; I think the count is currently about 10. Three of them are variations on the F91W, including the metal-banded A158W. I also have several MQ24's (analog face, ~$10). There's an F91W that has a "gold" case too, for just a couple dollars more.

If you watch Napoleon Dynamite closely, you'll note that Napoleon has an F91W, but his "classy" uncle has an A158W. It was funny to someone like me.

> If you watch Napoleon Dynamite closely, you'll note that Napoleon has an F91W, but his "classy" uncle has an A158W. It was funny to someone like me.

Hah, I definitely missed this detail, I must've last seen Napoleon Dynamite years ago.

Also a big fan of modding F91W's and other Casio's. My favorite is the Casio FE10-1A which doesn't look as good but whose face shows the numbers more clearly at a variety of angles and lighting conditions.

I like to replace the watch bands with a pair of elastic hairbands. It makes the watches much lighter and more comfortable in a variety of scenarios:

- Running (doesn't bounce around or get sweaty)

- Yoga/pushups (can bend wrist fully)

- Typing on a laptop (wristband doesn't hit the edge)

I do have to change out the elastic hairbands every 4 months or so as they stretch out, and there's about a week of breaking it in where the new bands are too tight. Otherwise it's so great I'd seek to commercialize it.

Photos: https://imgur.com/a/qNJ4MuG

If anyone wants to try it out and could use some tips let me know.

Modding the F91W was a nice Corona project that I did with my kids. Inverting the display, changing the led and inserting an nfc chip. Not too difficult, but it gives you something unique(ish) that is actually useful.

Just wanted to say that I read your blog post when it first went around last year, and it made me fall in love with the look and the idea of the f91w. Currently have three, all found in thrift stores. They are functional, aesthetically pleasing, and such an affordable collectable. So, thanks! :)

Thanks and that's awesome, enjoy your collection!

I enjoyed your blog post, that's an interesting mod.

> Some sources suggest heating the mineral oil to ~50° Centigrade, but I’m not exactly sure what the reasoning for that might be, so I stuck with room temperature.

I expect this is just to reduce the viscosity of the oil so that it fills the cracks more easily.

There was some discussion the last time it came up on HN [0]. The thought is it might also help prevent air bubbles.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20079488

Oddly enough the Casio classics are starting to have quite a premium here due to the retro look. I've seen as capable digital watches at 1/3rd the price at the local Decathlon. Casio is milking their legacy quite a bit.

Ha, still have my casio watch calculator from the 80's

Guess I should see if the battery has exploded and if not get it out of there :/

>I wouldn't go as far as calling it a "terrorist icon" -- it just happens to be literally the cheapest mass-produced digital watch ever made. It's very sturdy, relatively waterproof, the battery should last around a decade, and it even has a (terrible) LED for low light conditions!

Yes, the article even points out four chaplains also wore it. "Cheap, reliable and common watch is also popular with terrorists" isn't as sexy a headline though.

Thank you for that post last year! It inspired my friend and I to spend a day having fun modding a few we picked up. Still no water intrusion after over a year of near-daily wear...

I was inspired to replicate your hack for myself. It was a fun afternoon, and that watch keeps going (though I had to carve away plastic to get the band on). Thanks!

I hate the buttons on that watch. They are prominent enough to always get stuck with whatever I slip my arm through. Especially backpack straps.

Otherwise love it. The battery lasts longer than the plastics. Has this timeless 80s chic of the original Walkman and Thinkpads.

I would love the calculator one more, but that is critically missing a light, which makes it impractical.

Pretty sure my Casio calculator watch has a light since I remember using it. If I could just remember where I stashed it...

The CA-53W doesn't have it.

> There's something really strange about it: it fits so snugly on my wrist, so warm, yet spartan; it simply just feels good.

Totally agree. And it's great utility because of this. You can use it while playing, sports, music and it doesn't get in the way. There's no anxiety of busting and if you do it's cheap to replace.

This is exactly why I love the simple Casio designs too. The F91W is so light and simple, and I have ZERO fear of washing my hands with it or bashing it in to the wall while pulling cables. I usually forego the F91W for something like the WS1200 or the SPH-600, usually about double the price of the F91W but with a bunch more features AND still not scary to wear in any situation.

What oil soluble dye did you use? I was looking for oil dyes for another project and I found them hard to find.

Lamp oil dye, this is the exact pack I got: https://www.amazon.com/Firefly-Colored-Smokeless-Odorless-Pa...

I also have a few expensive watches and the F-91W is my go to watch where I don't care about breaking it. It has been through bike crashes, slapped on the sides of water slides and all kinds of abuse. Its just a great product for some use cases.

I've always been fascinated by mechanical things, steam-engines, analog watches, analog clocks, etc. (I've a few of each).

The only digital watch I own is the F-91W, and I think it makes a nice contrast between the watches I wear more regularly.

Terrible LED? I thought that blue illuminator was super cool. And it was actually an EL film, not an LED.

I think you're thinking of a different watch. The F-91W has a green LED[1] that's notoriously terrible (not to mention lopsided).

[1] https://www.instructables.com/id/Watch-LED-Light-Mod/

Ah yes indeed, I had the F-105W. I thought the F-91W also had this EL film, because it's also labeled "Illuminator" on the big picture at the top of the article, which was casio's branding for this technology at the time. But it doesn't have the blue branding. And I think that pic at the top isn't actually an F-91W.

The EL light was super, very bright and very well distributed (because the whole backlight film would light up). I'm surprised they managed to put one in such a small watch as EL film needs fairly high voltages, you could hear the switching coil whine when it was on :P Yet it still lasted a good while on battery.

The F105W is what you graduate to after you realize the F-91W is essentially useless is the dark. I've worn both since the early 90s. The band always breaks before the battery or watch itself dies, but i still get a few years before the band breaks.

The somewhat more complicated and modern Casio watch I had also had this EL whine. Now I finally found out why it occurs, so thanks for that! The silent F-91W was almost pleasant in comparison despite its uneven and (IMO) not very pretty lighting.

What mods did you make to your Casio?

I filled it with mineral oil and gave it a NATO strap, see my first link!

Very cool idea. Haven't had any leakage issues since doing it?

Nope! I was a bit worried about flying with it, but no leaks there either.

/r/F91Ws_on_NATOs/ is a subreddit specifically dedicated to modding F91Ws with NATO straps and other mod ideas.

https://www.reddit.com/r/F91Ws_on_NATOs/