Casio DW-5000C

The Casio DW-5000C was the first Casio watch produced under the G-Shock product line.

In 1983 Casio Computer Co., Ltd. launched its G-Shock series of durable, water-resistant watches. The genesis of G-Shock was the idea of designer Ibe Kikuo to create watches that would not break when dropped. Ibe formed Project Team Tough, an eight-member unit within Casio, with the aim of achieving a “triple 10” watch: one that could survive a 10-meter free fall, that was water resistant to 10 bars, and whose battery would last for 10 years.

The team did not have smooth sailing at first. Ibe’s testing procedures included him leaning out of a bathroom window on the third floor of an out-of-the-way Casio building, away from prying eyes, to drop prototypes onto the pavement below. Despite going through more than a hundred test models, he was no closer to a successful design.

It was the sight of a child playing with a rubber ball that gave him the breakthrough hint he needed. He saw the possibility of encasing the module—the internal case housing the functional parts of the watch—in a cushion like the rubber ball, allowing it to float in a substance that would absorb the impact of external blows. Until then he and his team had focused on protecting the module with rigid armor, but now he had a new solution: the module would be supported at a limited number of points, suspended in an empty space in the watch housing. This “float” construction would become the fundamental structure of G-Shock watches for decades to come.