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Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

  It’s a statement of cool detachment and a brilliant
  way of blowing up explosives.

I've never heard anyone give a satisfying explanation of why the F-91W is any better at blowing explosives than any other cheap digital watch with an alarm. Surely all you have to do is take the signal from the beeper, amplify, and connect to your trigger circuit - which you could do with any watch with an alarm.

Is there some reason the watch is "a brilliant way of blowing up explosives" compared to any other watch on the market? Or has the journalist just made that up?

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Could be reliability or voltage related, more likely just availability Japan didn't participate in most sanctions and Asian goods are more readily available in the Middle East.

>Japan didn't participate in most sanctions and Asian goods are more readily available in the Middle East.

As opposed to watches made in the US or Europe? Aren't most electronics made in China/Japan anyways?

Yes but the brand and parent company are what affects the distribution not the place of manufacturing.

Timex being an American company is less likely both historically and now to sell in say Iran, Iraq or Syria than a Japanese or even a European company.

Historically as far as electronics, cars and similar things go Asian and European brands are more common in the Middle East than American ones.

My guess is ubiquity. That is, its no better than most watches technically. But bomb making is also about supply chains and training.

When you make a detonator, you really, really want it to work.

If you show someone "the wires go here and here" on a specific model you don't need to teach them "real" electronics, and theres less uncertainty that the final product will function.

e.g. Arduino is rarely the best mcu for any given application, but it's popular because a) its easily to source and b) there are plenty of "recipes" to follow which don't require much expertise.

Yep, I agree with your argument. I can't see how this model Casio is any better than the equivalent Timex, Armitron, etc. Is the beeper signal approach you suggest viable?

In every walk of society, there are hipsters chasing cachet brands, maybe?

I haven't disassembled one before, but perhaps the F-91W features a circuit with an especially easy to break out pin for the beeper, or perhaps it's already exposed in some vital way so as to allow easy access without much prep in the field?

My personal guess as to popularity : volume. Those watches are everywhere.

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