Megaquartz technology

While putting together this fairly rambling account I found myself including quite a bit of the
background to quartz watches in general, and so it therefore seems appropriate to begin by just
setting the scene:

In the late nineteen fifties it was becoming increasingly apparent that the on-going advances in
technology as brought about by the space (which was in reality the arms) race might eventually
allow the considerable amount of electronics required for a quartz clock to be miniaturized
sufficiently enough to fit inside the case of a wrist watch. Large quartz clocks using vacuum
tubes had been developed in the nineteen twenties and had already replaced high precision
pendulum clocks as standard time references. These were themselves then in the process of
being replaced by Cesium beam 'atomic' time standards. The transistor whose working parts
were perhaps a thousand times smaller than those of the miniature vacuum tube that it replaced,
was about to be introduced to the wrist watch in the form of the Bulova Accutron. Miniature
Mercury power cells that were most likely developed for a mixture of military and domestic
hearing aid use, had for some time provided a reliable power source for various hybrid electro-
mechanical watches. The development of the monolithic integrated circuit during the mid 1960's
would provide the complex low-power 'nano' electronics needed for a practical quartz
wristwatch, and various technical spin-off's from semiconductor manufacture itself would bring
new and highly cost effective ways of fabricating sub-miniature comparatively low frequency
32kHz quartz crystals. And so within this emerging and successful environment of what might
be thought of as general technological positivism, remarkable implications for the future of
wrist watches (and of course most everything else) were being drawn by those people with
sufficient imagination. Indeed a viable quartz watch was definitely on the horizon by 1969, and
Seiko's Astron was of course by a very narrow margin the first example to arrive. But while the
Seiko watch was the first, a number of worthy competitors were well on their way as well.

The conservative Swiss watch industry did just realize that this new and very alien technology
might be a threat to the bastions of their mechanical supremacy. And as they had done with the
American development of component interchangeability in the past, they decided to study and
evaluate these new developments. By 1960 the Swiss had already formed a cooperative
research laboratory based at Neuchatel. This became known as the Centre Electronique
Horloger, and was a consortium of some 20 organizations all with the intention of eventually
producing various types of electronic and quartz watches. At the time it is likely they had no
idea of how important a move this was to be in the face of the impending but completely
unsuspected technological storm that was soon to arrive. Indeed some thought the 'new fangled'
electronic watch was just a mere technical novelty and a passing fad. However, after five or so
years of what looks like a period of rather sedate development work, the first prototype Swiss
quartz movement was exhibited at the 1967 Basel watch fair. Known as the Beta 21, this home
grown effort was brought to market in April 1970 and would eventually be offered for sale by
some 16 'manufacturers', including Omega. C.E.H. would supply the integrated circuit
(probably using bipolar technology), Ebauches S.A. manufactured the plates, gear train, motion
work and the quartz resonator, while Omega produced the vibrating electromagnetic
micromotor. According to the Smithsonian Institute: 'The watches were assembled by three
separate shops that produced the final products according to the design requests of the Swiss
watch companies that placed orders'.

Just after Seiko introduced their rather premature and ill-fated Astron quartz watch on
Christmas day 1969, things were moving sufficiently rapidly for Richard Good to write in the in
the Horological Journal that 1970 was the 'Year of the Quartz Crystal Watch', and proceeded to
describe the Seiko as well as watches with the Beta 21 movement and other offerings by
Longines, Bulova and Girard Perregaux. Interestingly, Mr. Good writing in the UK had not
actually seen any of these exotic watches in person and was just relating third party reports and
promotional literature. Indeed I suspect that many of these new electronic marvels only existed
as prototypes or mock-ups, and I recall images of the very unlikely interior of an early
Perregaux. (Though later they did produce production watches with electronics by Thompson
CSF.) While Bulova initially employed a modified quartz governed Accutron tuning fork
movement, the Longines's 'Ultra Quartz' seemed to have been a remarkable combination of
micro-engineering and miniature knife and fork electronics. This looks to have been an absolute
nightmare to manufacture and to service. It used an 8,500 Hz quartz crystal to drive a tiny
vibrating magnetic arm by means of a discretely wired 'cybernetic circuit'. I am not sure exactly
how this movement functioned, but it used a lot of very small discrete (that is separate and
individual) electronic components probably sourced from the hearing aid industry. The
electromagnetic motor was a torsion-wire suspended arm that resonated at 170 Hz (which is
one 50th of 8,500 Hz).

The seemingly rather more developed Beta 21 movement as used by Omega et all, employed a
combination of low frequency bar form 8,192 Hz quartz crystal and a single integrated circuit
giving an output pulse rate of 256 Hz (which was 8,192 Hz divided by 32). This drove an
Omega manufactured electromagnetic vibrating 'motor'. This beautifully made component
consisted of a pair of laminated core electromagnets which were connected to the electronics
by a flexible printed circuit. These electromagnets acted upon a tiny horizontal 'pendulum' that
had an adjusting screw to bring it to a resonance of 256 Hz. This 'pendulum's' oscillations drove
the hands by means of a tiny ratchet and index wheel rather similar to those used in the original
Bulova Accutron and possibly sourced from the same supplier. Therefore the Beta 21's hands
also moved smoothly around the dial. The movement was quite modular in concept, with
electronic timebase package, motor, and motion work all being separate de-mountable sub-
assemblies. Mr. Good commented that the integrated circuit used in the Beta 21 contained the
equivalent circuitry of five transistor radios. This was high technology 35 years ago and might
equate to perhaps some thirty transistors and a hundred or so other passive electronic
components. Some 14,000 of these movements were manufactured.

The Beta 21 was a cornerstone of the first generation of quartz watches, all of which show
aspects of heroic engineering that is common in the early days of any newly emerging
technology. (That is, before the manufacturers learn how to throw out half the components and
make the rest out of plastic!) All these watches were exotic, rare and very expensive, and a
very far cry from what the quartz watch was to rapidly evolve into. Many were also short-lived
joint ventures between old established Swiss firms and young aggressive American
semiconductor manufacturers anxiously looking for mass market applications for their emerging
technology, having won the arms race for the US military.

It must have been towards the later stages of development of the Beta 21 that Omega got
together with the rather well respected Battelle Geneva Research Institute (still extant). This
resulted in the what was to prove a unique series of high frequency quartz watch movements; the
calibers 1510, 1511, 1515 and 1516, which are only to be found in the Omega 'Megaquartz
2400' and Omega 'Marine Chronometer' series of watches.

While first exhibited with the prototype 1500 movement at Basel in 1970 (though oddly not
mentioned by Good at the time), volume production of Omega's Megaquartz 2400 did not start
until some three or four years later. This seems to have been a remarkably long time, though as
Hamilton demonstrated with their Pulsar, it is one thing to build a few hand made prototypes
and quite another to gear up to build many thousands economically. But this was a significant
delay, and in the then far from tranquil world of watchmaking things were already moving very
rapidly. Consequently these models were to have a rather short life span of only four years,
with production ending in 1978.

As with the Beta 21, the CAL1500 series of movements were of rectangular form, used a single
1.5 Volt type 344 Mercury power cell, and demonstrated technology that was both state-of-the-
art and that also perhaps harked back to slightly earlier times. Again of modular construction,
with separate and de-mountable electronics package, motor and motion work, general
influences of the Beta 21 movement may readily be observed.

Alas, circumstances rendered the Megaquartz 2400 the last of the line in Omega's long and
distinguished 'quest for precision timekeeping', for much simpler and cheaper ways were soon
found to make perfectly satisfactory quartz watches for the largely un-decerning watch buying
public. I am reminded here of how Maserati found themselves producing rather basic 'cart-
sprung' supercars in the 1970's, it has always been of course all in the 'designer' name. Perhaps
I am being unfair here, but even today how many of the general public know or indeed care, for
instance, what the difference actually is between a 'Chronometer' and a Chronograph? Omega
Speedmaster 125's excepted of course.

The CAL 1500 also seems to have been Omega's first in house quartz movement, as while they
would later offer 32kHz Megaquartz branded watches, is obvious that the modules in those
owed a lot to and were probably made by ETA, of which Omega were fellow Societe Suisse
pour l'industrie Horlogere (SSIH) members. Various other ETA modules were already used in
a number of Omega watches by this time and after the general Swiss meltdown in the early
1980's Omega would source all their movements from ETA, becoming in effect just another
Swiss marketing house. These days Omega's introduction of the coaxial escapement is a
welcome change of direction perhaps, but there again Mr Daniels 20 year old inspiration seems
just to have been integrated within yet another version of the ubiquitous 2892.

The 1970's were of course quite extraordinary times in the watch industry, and during this
dramatic Quartz Revolution Omega found themselves offering such a wide range of vastly
different watch technologies that in reality could not be sustained for very long.

Then as now those times of turmoil seem highly confusing. For during that brief period Omega
sold L.E.D. digital watches containing Hamilton Pulsar modules (SSIH had bought part of the
group that owned Hamilton's digital technology). They sold watches with Bulova licensed ESA
tuning fork movements, with optional modular chronograph work from Doubois-Depraz. They
(Omega?) also produced their own quite stunning tuning fork watch, that used a magnetically
coupled 'micromotor' with sapphire 'springs' (by this time Max Hetzel was working for Omega,
and also on ways to get around the Bulova patents). Omega also offered 8 kHz analog quartz
watches with E.S.A. (E.T.A.) sourced movements, as well as soldiering on with a range of
conventional mechanical watches and chronographs. To mark the 1976 Olympic Games they
produced the World's first quartz analog watch with built-in digital stopwatch (see below), and
they even introduced a new self-winding mechanical 'chronometer'/chronograph to celebrate
their 125 anniversary. This, the collectable Seamaster 125 with its unique movement, had a
reputed run of just 2,000.

This wonderfully creative nightmare lasted for just over a decade and in the end all this
apparently heroic effort was to little avail in the face American and Japanese competition.
Japanese watch production increased by 10 times between 1974 and 1978, and so by the early
1980's it became just a case of finding a financially safe haven or sinking below the waves.
Omega was already part of the much larger SSIH group, which evolved into SMH, which these
days calls itself Swatch.

Back to the Megaquartz 2400:

There seem in the end to have been five versions of the 1500 movement. The 1500 itself was
the prototype, of which a few were quietly exhibited at Basle in 1970. Production started in
1974 with the 1510 movement fitted to the 'standard' Megaquartz 2400 range of watches, and
the chronometer certified 1511 version fitted to the Marine Chronometer watch. During the life
of the 1510/1511 movement, improvements were made to the integrated circuit which resulted
in the deletion of the out-board first stage dividing transformer, together with what looks like
some other minor mechanical revisions. In 1976 (?) this resulted in revised type 1515
movements being fitted to the 'standard' constellation 2.4 Megaquartz watches and 1516
versions to the Marine Chronometer. It does though remain rather unclear what the exact
differences there were between the various versions of this movement. The 1500 and 1510
would seem to share mounting arrangements, first stage analogue division transformer and
associated chip capacitor, as well as a sweep seconds friction spring and capacitor in parallel
with the battery. The chronometer certified 1511 version shared mounting brackets with the
previous movements but did not have the sweep seconds friction spring or the parallel battery
capacitor (though the cut-out for this item remained in the plastic cover). In addition, because
the 1511 did not have an additional cut-out for the dividing transformer's associated capacitor,
it looks as though it had the updated chip first divider stage. The 1515 and 1516 had the updated
electronics, revised and incompatible mounting arrangements, and no battery capacitor or cut-
outs for these in the plastic insulating cover. The Marine Chronometer's case and bracelet
remained essentially similar throughout the life of the watch, but with slight changes to the
'slope' of the watch case and the width of the bracelet. (Folded link bracelets are probably a
later replacement.) According to Bill Schone, the 1511 and 1516 movements were the only ones
to be fitted to the Omega Marine Chronometer watch. It might though be quite possible to
interchange 1510 movements with 1511s, and 1515 movements with 1516s, so if you are
looking for a watch that is correct check at least that it has the right movement...

All these Omegas were very expensive, but The Marine Chronometer was even more so. Only
available in stainless steel with bezel and engraved serial number plate in 14k gold, the 1974
SSIH press release at the Science Museum quotes a UK price of �680, or about �3,500 in
modern money. This was apparently around 3 times the cost of a 'basic' Megaquartz 2400
watch, and was at a time when UK inflation was running at about 25% per year.

Occupying some forty percent of the movement's real estate, the self-contained electronic
timebase package is attached to the movement's pillar plate by three gold plated screws and is
protected by a moulded plastic cover. The single integrated circuit (probably using bipolar
transistors) is soldered within a central rectangular cutout in the glass fibre printed circuit
board, and appears to be encapsulated in a standard commercial quality unmarked plastic 8 pin
'flip-chip' package. To the left of the integrated circuit, within an oval cutout in the plastic
cover, is a most unusual rate adjuster. I first thought this item was the quartz crystal itself, but it
is in fact (well is probably!) a screening cover for the R.F. oscillator's trimming capacitor. This
item is a machined and slotted hollow copper-plated cylinder, located by four pins and held
down by a gold-plated annular ring and two stainless steel screws. This 'regulator' is un-
calibrated, but can vary the going of the watch by about plus or minus 2 seconds per day. The
quartz crystal itself is actually mounted directly under this trimmer on the underside of the
printed circuit board, just behind the 7 ' baton of the dial. This crystal is unusual for a wrist
watch in both type and frequency, and takes the form of a shallow lens-shaped (bi-convex)
quartz disk about the same diameter as the watch's power cell. Sealed within a specially
developed button-shaped flanged and cold-welded metal can, the crystal is cut to resonate at
2,359,296 Hz. This is some 73 times that of a normal 32 kHz quartz watch, and is actually
within the 120 meter High Frequency radio waveband.

The trimming capacitor and quartz crystal are mounted above eachother in very close proximity,
and this indicates good practice both in terms of minimizing stray capacitance and good thermal
tracking. It is probable that the designer (The Omega site states that the project was co-
ordinated by a Mr John Othenin-Girard) would have selected capacitor and crystal with
opposing temperature coefficients so that to some extent they would cancel each other's
relatively slight temperature drift.

Before my visit to the Science Museum, my assumption was that while the Marine
Chronometer's timing crystal was of a very high frequency for a watch, it was still conventional
in form. Flat disk type quartz blanks being the most common type to be found in frequency
generation and filtering circuitry. These are fairly easily ground to specific frequencies by
diamond lapping machines. Indeed in the very early days (WW2), crystal holders were made to
be opened. This would allow the user to remove and grind their crystal to the exact frequency
by using nothing more advanced than a fine knife sharpening stone! Later, quartz crystals
evolved into those typically to be found in the HC-XX/U type of flattened, sealed, metal can as
used in computers and model radio control equipment. As is well known of course, watch
crystals are either of bar or of tuning fork form. This allows for the relatively low (ultrasonic)
frequency quartz crystals to be made small enough to fit into a watch case. Unfortunately as is
also well known, that the temperature stability of quartz depends on the shape or the 'cut' of the
crystal itself, with the shapes and cuts used to make low frequency tuning forks and bars being
something of a compromise. Frequency is also significant, with the higher frequency providing
better stability. The best and most stable timekeeping quartz crystals ever made were Mr. Louis
Essen's large flat rings (which may also be seen at the London Science Museum), but that's
another story. The point I am rather laboring here, is that quartz crystals are usually tiny tuning
forks, thin bars, or rather larger flat disks.

The quartz crystal used in the Omega Megaquartz 2400 movement, is a lens shaped disk...

The documentation that can be viewed at the Science Museum (Omega technical folder 0-1510),
describes a 'wafer thin lenticular' quartz disk having an almost flat temperature curve between
10deg C and 50deg C. The watch's rate being set at an ambient temperature of 28deg C, which
is apparently the average temperature of a person's wrist.

High frequency (>1 MHz) flat quartz disks are common in the electronics industry. These are
though typically much larger than tuning fork watch crystal for any given frequency. In the late
1960's during the development of the Megaquartz 2400, Batelle/Omega worked with ITT STC
Quartz Crystal Division, at Harlow in the UK to design and produce the first high frequency
quartz crystals for their new state-of-the-art watch. They started at 1 MHz, which was the
highest frequency that C.E.H.'s integrated circuit could cope with at the time (as regards to
working frequency verses level of integration and power consumption). However, during the
life of the project C.E.H. were able to refine their IC while keeping current consumption
acceptable. This was difficult development work because monolithic integrated circuits were
not particularly suited to high frequency radio applications in those days, and the low 1.5 volt
supply was also a challenge. 'Old hat' now, but very cutting edge in the late 1960's. Eventually
they were able to increase the working frequency to 2.4 MHz, the whole thing being a trade off
between maximum frequency (for the best timekeeping stability), and what the electronics were
capable of in terms of working frequency and power consumption. All STC had to do now, was
to make a 2.4 MHz quartz disk small enough to fit the available space, and come up with the
most compact hermetically sealed package to mount it in. The problems being that a
conventional quartz disk to fit the available space would have a resonant frequency in the
region of 6 MHz, and thus be far too high for the electronics to cope with. In addition, a
conventional but bulky crystal mounting 'can' would simply make matters worse. STC solved
these problems by using an AT cut bi-convex crystal in their own specially developed housing.
Grinding the crystal into a lens form apparently reduces the resonant frequency compared to a
flat disk. This quartz lens was then metalized and soldered by its circumference into a unique
cold weld/resistance sealed, 'flattened top hat' only slightly larger than the crystal itself. The
mode of vibration of the crystal allowed them to use the strongest method of mounting and they
chose an AT cut because of its low thermal drift at a 28deg ambient 'wrist temperature'. And so
the ingenious and precise heart of Omega's Megaquartz 2400 watch (and the Marine
Chronometer watch) was actually designed by a (once) British company in deepest Essex.

I am indebted to Doug Dwyer for the above information and corrections (he was there), and his
authoritative contributions about quartz watches and atomic clocks, are well worth reading at
Howstuffworks.com.

It would seem that development work on the integrated circuit continued into the production
phase of the watch, as the first examples (according to Omega Folder 0-1510) used a
transformer in the 'front end' of the division circuitry. This was later deleted as the IC became
able to work with the 2.4 MHz crystal directly. Given time it is possible that we might have
seen even higher frequency Megaquartz watches, as the electronics were developed further.
RCA introduced CMOS (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) integrated circuits in
1972, and this now widespread technology had profound implications for highly integrated low
current consumption electronics, which of course continues today. Omega themselves went on
to produce a full sized 4 Megahertz boxed marine chronometer (deck watch) for the French
Navy, but by this time the quartz revolution had arrived and many priorities had changed.

Much later technology would bring temperature compensation or microprocessor 'tuning' of
relatively humble 32KHz quartz crystals (either by ambient temperature sensing or 'disciplining'
by an intermittent high frequency timebase) and one must give respectful nods in the direction of
Rolex, Seiko and ETA. But in those ancient and heroic times of the early 1970's, No one had
such options, and Omega had the courage (?) to do things rather more simply and arguably more
'elegantly' in the first place.

The Omega Marine Chronometer was an even more expensive and exotic quartz watch at a time
when all such things were expensive and exotic. It was though (probably) the most accurate and
advanced watch of its time, and arguably remains the most accurate self-contained wrist watch
ever made. My own example has achieved an average daily variation in rate of eight one
thousandths of a second and an annual rate of minus nine seconds.

There was nothing quite like this Omega before or indeed since, and in addition to its
timekeeping qualities I rather appreciate its unfussy and straight forward outer form. By modern
standards it could perhaps be a little thinner and less 'chunky', but it does have perhaps the most
ledgible face of any wristwatch. Unfortunately the World changed rather rapidly and Omega
didn't build upon this impressive early achievement. Indeed some say that the Swiss threw away
their early technological advantage, preferring to remain with their 'quaint' spring driven
mechanisms. But what else in reality could they have done? Happily for the few survivors, in
time the World changed full circle. How ironic that the old-fashioned became again fashionable
towards the end of last century? But nothing stays the same. As to wether the 'modern' wrist
watch has much technical merit is a diffrent question. Most Swiss 'manufactures' rely on common
mass produced quartz or mechanical movements, mostly designed years ago. The thought of old
wine in expensive new bottles usually comes to mind, and in some cases not particularly
impressive or costly wine at that. But all this is well known. There are of course a few notable
and even impressive exceptions mostly from the far east (and indeed from Switzerland if you can
afford a Ferrari or two), but in the quarter century since the exciting chaos of the quartz
revolution we do not seem to have travelled very far. If things had progressed the way they were
looking briefly in the mid 1970's, then by now we might indeed be telling time by our own
Rubidium or Cesium wrist watches. But we don't because we never did actually need or could
afford such precision in the first place. It's nice to own and to 'show-off' an expensive watch with
the 'right' name of any technology and that's about it. We might though sometimes remind
ourselves that the quartz watch was once a coveted and rather exciting object which many of us
perhaps naively perceived as one of the significant technological harbingers of better things to
come. Seiko proclaimed that 'some day all watches will be made this way', and they were
proved quite (and probably much to their surprise) correct only a few years later. But the new
technology proved only to be good in parts; the relatively easy things like making ever more
complex chips did indeed bring us many remarkably complex and remarkably affordable new
toys to strap on our wrists, but the difficult things still remained out of reach. Yes one can buy a
wrist 'atomic clock', but the real thing remains (for the moment at least - see below) a large and
unaffordable scientific instrument. And these days when I gaze in the watch seller's window I am
usually depressed by the booring, decadent and deeply unimpressive stuff on offer and my mind
goes back to a time when words such as Accutron, Pulsar and Megaquartz captured the
imagination and seemed to foretell of a bright technological future that didn't quite happen.

Since starting this piece a couple of years ago some remarkable work has been going on at NIST
in America. It seems that their scientists have been able to build a prototype simplified atomic
clock physics package that is approximately the size of a grain of rice (!). By exciting Cesium
atoms with a semiconductor laser instead of traditional microwaves in a structure owing much to
semiconductor fabrication techniques, they have developed a tiny low-power timebase that is
over three thousand times more stable than the quartz crystal used in the Marine Chronometer
watch. It is expected that mobile phones, GPS equipment and the military will be the first
applications for these new 'nano' atomic standards, but one wonders if the likes of Casio and
Citizen are aware of these interesting developments as well. Possibly the Swiss also, though
how they are going to integrate this miniature physics packages into yet another version of their
self-winding mechanical 2892 movement remains to be seen... No problem getting the COSC
sales ticket, oh sorry; 'Chronometer Certificate' though!

Gino Mancini, May 2005

This stately 'electric ticking' is perhaps a less stressfull way of doing things than driving
vibrating pendulums or tuning forks at hundreds of Hz. Moving a sensitive flat electromagnet
once a second in a narrow, concentrated magnetic field is also very efficient (as demonstrated
by flat printed circuit motors), and the mechanical lock-impulse-lock action of this
'escapement' seems in a subtle way to exibit more 'precision' in its action than conventional
quartz watch 180 degree angle 'stepping' motors. Omega's mechanism does though remain a
complex and probably expensive way of driving an electronic watch gear train. Watch
repairers don't touch or like these movements simply because the mechanism is so alien and
unique in comparison to the normal spring driven clockwork they are used to, but this should
not in the slightest detract from Omega's overall achievement with this movement.

This jumping motor was I believe only used in the Megaquartz 2.4 series of watches, though I
have recently been advised that Rolex continue to use something vaguely similar in their own
but rather undervalued Oysterquartz movements. Omega would soon change to a miniature
rotary stepping motor which can be seen in slightly later watches such as the 1976 Chrono-
Quartz 'Albatross' (below right). I also have a slight though receeding suspicion that motor
used in the Megaquartz 2400 could have been something of a mixed blessing as regards shock
sensitivity. The jumping armature while probably of lower mass than a conventional balance
and perfectly well protected by its shock absorbing bearings, will though have a much higher
moment of inertia than a conventional stepping motor, and might be 'upset' by an external shock
occouring at the wrong time. This might happen with say the armature unlocked between a
beat, its arbor slightly deflected as the resilient jeweling absorbs a jolt and the anchor failing
to return to the next position on the escape wheel. No damaged caused at all and with only a
missed beat. But, with an old type balance electromagnetic or otherwise, the odd miss of a
beat would be hardly significant, but with the Marine Chronometer one missed beat will
represent a whole month's rate and be very obvious. And my suspicion is that this possibility
may have caused this movement to have been so specialised and short lived. It is a
fantastically accurate and well engineered piece of work, a tour-de-force and true state-of-the-
art even today, but catch it wrong and you may suddenly lose or gain a second. Of course this
is mere conjecture on my part (like most of this essay!), but it might answer some slightly
nagging questions. So perhaps one shouldn't play tennis while navigating one's yacht with it.
But for those of us without a yacht (or a tennis racquet for that matter), it may not be a
significant problem. Shame perhaps Omega didn't revise the movement to incorporate their
own stepping motor. But of course there may have been other issues to do with developing a
new chip, current consumption and who knows what else.