fryback@nlm-vax.ARPA (Dennis Fryback) (08/03/85)
When I bought a casio watch I only glanced through the instruction booklet rather casually. Of course when I saw the "50M", "100M" and "200M" labels I thought the "M" referred to "Meters". No doubt whoever invented the labelling had me in mind.... Since I primarily snorkel and sport dive only when on vacation where a professional divemaster leads the group and rides *very* careful herd on bottom time for everyone in the group, I did not really need a watch I was going to bet my life on. Good thing. Reading the documentation carefully (as I did just before heading off to St. Croix) one notes that the "M" has no relation whatever to "meters". It is much more accurate to think of it as just a catchy label (like numbers used for names of car models -- "Z-300", etc.). I don't have the booklet any more, but as I recall the 50M is water resistant only in the sense that you can splash it and not worry; or you can shower with it. Snorkeling in less than 15 feet is the recommended limit for the 100M. Shallow sport diving (e.g., 50 feet) is all the further Casio recommends pushing the 200M. (This is all from memory, so recheck the figures.) So read carefully and don't presume the "M" has anything to do with "meters". Better to think of it as "model": 50M = "model 50"; 100M = "model 100"; etc. Readers are left to draw their own conclusions about whether Casio intended to suck casual shoppers in with the misleading label or whether it was just an unfortunant coincidence.... BTW, I'd appreciate hearing about similarly misleading labels on equipment designed for diving. I enjoy my limited experience enough to start thinking about accumulating some of my own stuff. Dennis Fryback National Library of Medicine Bethesda, MD (fryback@nlm-vax.ARPA)
chris@scgvaxd.UUCP (Chris Yoder) (08/09/85)
[ Go ahead bug, make my day. ]
Funny, I've taken my 50M Casio down to 70ft w/ no problems. I
dive, surf, sail, etc. with it all the time (exposing it to all that
nasty water that they tell you to keep it away from) and I've never
had a problem with it. I have many friends with similar experiances,
but then we were diving and surfing in warm water (wet-suit, what's
that?) and I never use the buttons underwater. It keeps a h*ll of a
lot better time than my analoge Seko ever did (it gained 2 min. a day!!),
is a lot lighter, and (relatively) cheap to replace. Alas, I haven't
been down since Christmas because I haven't bothered to get a wetsuit
yet and I find it repulsive to spend over $15 a day (including gas and
air) for diving.
--
-- Chris Yoder
UUCP --- {allegra|ihnp4}!scgvaxd!engvax!chris
<Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you...>
{ The opinions here are representative of Huge Aircrash, not me and
*especially* not of my poor little keyboard. 8-)=
}