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Casio-F-91W die-shot

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Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#71

Post by mmaunder »

nickdothutton wrote: post #53

Casio is an under leveraged brand. One of the few that could, I think, be taken into more product areas than it is currently. There's brand equity there they are not fully leveraging.

Casio has leveraged the love for the G-Shock with watches like the $4,000 MRGB5000BA-1 as others in that line. Keep in mind that the Casio brand sells everything from instruments to label printers and calculators, which presents a challenge when it comes to targeting e.g. it can't be a luxury watch brand like Rolex because it's too broad (Rolex just sells watches). You also can't narrow the brand focus to watches because you may harm other lucrative business divisions like musical instruments. Casio means many things to many different markets.

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#72

Post by kube-system »

vasqw wrote: post #12

I bought one of those recently and I was surprised by how inaccurate it was. It drifted like 15 seconds every month. From what I've been reading, that is normal, but I was surprised - with all the technological advances that we have it is odd to think that cheap timekeeping is not a solved problem yet! Also: how is the software of these watches without a CPU designed? Is it something like Verilog or whatever?

While 15 seconds per month is within Casio’s spec for this, it’s also worth noting that there’s reportedly a lot of counterfeits of the F-91W floating around. I got one once from a major marketplace.

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#73

Post by TheRealPomax »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #69
TheRealPomax wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a somewhat weird: do you judge Sony headphones by how good Sony cameras are, too? Or Samsung phones on how good their TVs are? Because how good a Casio calculator or rice cooker is, is entirely independent of how good their watches are? This seems to be backwards: you judge a brand based on how all its products perform, and if the balance tips towards "most are shit" then it's a shit brand. A brand making lot…

Well.. yeah. If you bough a samsung phone, and it was full of shitty adware and preinstalled apps, would you expect their tablets, smart tvs and fridges to be any different? And are they?

Yes? And yes? You're asking this like it's a bizarre thing to do, but that's how you think about consumer goods as adult: if you dismiss an entire brand conglomerate because of a single product line, that's an incredibly weird way to think about products.

If Samsung phones are bad, don't buy (another) Samsung phone. But when you need a dish washer, and reviews say that Samsung's is the best bang for your buck, their adware-laden phone has literally nothing to do with the decision to buy the Samsung dish washer. They are completely different products, made by completely different factories with completely different QA processes, and completely different target demographics.

Don't judge brands, judge product lines by brands. Because quite often, the people making one thing have nothing to do with people making another thing, they're completely separate "we can't call them companies on paper but in practice that's exactly what they are", and the owning brand itself has barely anything to do with the products they make, unless it's their major brand-recognition product.

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#74

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #51
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> F105W which is basically the same watch with a vastly improved backlight Can’t stress this enough. The F-91W is useless at night because the backlight brightness is terrible. The F105W has an indiglo-style “EL” light that is very effective. The two watches are nearly identical from an aesthetic perspective. The functions are identical as are the buttons.

How does the brighter backlight affect battery life? Doesn't the original model have a 7-year battery life?

I think EL uses less current than an incandescent, which is what the F-91W has. Anyway, the battery life always lasts longer than the band for me. Years. I replace it when the band tears, which is before the battery dies.

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#75

Post by galangalalgol »

Tor3 wrote: post #25
vasqw wrote: post #12

I bought one of those recently and I was surprised by how inaccurate it was. It drifted like 15 seconds every month. From what I've been reading, that is normal, but I was surprised - with all the technological advances that we have it is odd to think that cheap timekeeping is not a solved problem yet! Also: how is the software of these watches without a CPU designed? Is it something like Verilog or whatever?

At around 1976-1977 I bought one of those fancy new LED wristwatches, where you pressed a button and the time lit up in red. Straight out of James Bond, as I recall. As I was studying electronics at the time I brought the watch to the lab and opened it and connected a frequency counter to the oscillator, you could clearly see the crystal and a little trimming pot (I don't remember by now if that was a pot or somethin…

My f-91w gained less than a second over several years... While it was sitting on my desk in a giant climate controlled building within a degree of 22C year-round. When I wore it, it deviated quite a bit more, but still far better than the 30s per month quoted. I was very excited with my experiment at first comparing it to a friend's HAQ that he did wear. Then I realized the flaw in my method.

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#76

Post by userbinator »

bmurray7jhu wrote: post #7
Ecco wrote: post #2

Dumb question: is it legal to share a die shot like this one? What does copyright law say about this? I mean, yes, the author took the photo himself but what about the underlying material? Can I share a photo of an entire book? Do I own the copyright to a photo of a painting?

In the US, semiconductor mask layouts are not eligible for copyright. Instead, the mask layout is protected under the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984. The Act grants rights similar to traditional copyright, but with a shorter period of protection and a more permissive framework for derivative works.

Notably, the "shorter period" is only 10 years.

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#77

Post by kube-system »

daviddaviddavid wrote: post #62
nickdothutton wrote: post #53

Casio is an under leveraged brand. One of the few that could, I think, be taken into more product areas than it is currently. There's brand equity there they are not fully leveraging.

Though not a move into a completely different product area, it's been interesting to see them step up their digital piano game. For a long time it seemed like Casio had a reputation for not making serious keyboards that you could gig on. But they have been churning out really nice keyboards recently - most notably, the Privia line. The ones I've played have a really nice feeling action, pro-level sounds and they're v…

I am always attracted to the design of Casio keyboards when I see one at a store somewhere. Then I play them, and realize that many of them (the low end models) still often lack velocity sensing. Both the best and the worst thing about Casio is that they’re stuck in the 90s.

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#78

Post by Taniwha »

addaon wrote: post #21
Ecco wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well a die design, just like code, is definitely some form of intellectual property and covered by copyright law. So I think a more fair comparison would be a photo of an entire book.

> is definitely some form of intellectual property and covered by copyright law I'm not sure if you meant to suggest that "some form of intellectual property" implies "covered by copyright law", but this is untrue in general, and untrue in this specific case. Copyright does not cover mask works; see [1] for discussion, from which quote: "Copyright law ONLY protects an original work of authorship IF the work is non-fu…

Chip dies are covered by a special mask copyright law - you can actually see the M with a circle round it in this die photo (rather than the more traditional C with a circle)

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#79

Post by foota »

bmurray7jhu wrote: post #7
Ecco wrote: post #2

Dumb question: is it legal to share a die shot like this one? What does copyright law say about this? I mean, yes, the author took the photo himself but what about the underlying material? Can I share a photo of an entire book? Do I own the copyright to a photo of a painting?

In the US, semiconductor mask layouts are not eligible for copyright. Instead, the mask layout is protected under the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984. The Act grants rights similar to traditional copyright, but with a shorter period of protection and a more permissive framework for derivative works.

Interesting, I imagine under normal copyright this would fall under fair use, does that exist for this as well?

Re: Casio-F-91W die-shot

#80

Post by daviddaviddavid »

leetrout wrote: post #65
daviddaviddavid wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though not a move into a completely different product area, it's been interesting to see them step up their digital piano game. For a long time it seemed like Casio had a reputation for not making serious keyboards that you could gig on. But they have been churning out really nice keyboards recently - most notably, the Privia line. The ones I've played have a really nice feeling action, pro-level sounds and they're v…

I was shopping around for a digital piano and the Privia does look really nice. I haven't experienced one in person yet and I am a bit scared to buy any keyboard or digital piano without trying the action.

I like the action on the Privias (and the similar CDP360s, which I played recently). My only complaint about the action is that if you're playing at low/practice volumes, you tend to hear a lot of mechanical plastic sound as the keys spring back up. I'm a big fan of Roland's actions. I'd check out the FP30. I also used to practice on a Yamaha P125B and they are great.
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