Day eight on my quest to write a story on Publish0x every day for a year. So far, I've covered the important topics of peanut butter, the word 'whoa', frogs, the difference between BTC, BCH and BSV, Croatia, coffee,and the movie Drive, and content as currency.

Today I want to write about the history of G-Shock, as in the watch brand.

The story of the G-Shock starts in the early 1980s with Kikuo Ibe, a Casio engineer who basically turned his own personal necessity into a multi million-dollar line of watches.

One day, Mr. Ibe accidentally dropped his father's mechanical watch and broke it. Mr Ibe was so disappointed and angry (presumably at himself) that he decided he had to do something about it.

He came up with the G-Shock concept, which stands for Gravitational Shock, and he set up working on prototypes for watches that could withstand just about anything.

He set the bar high. He told his engineers that the watch should have a battery life of at least 10 years, it should be able to survive 10-bar water pressure and, crucially, it should be able to survive falling from more than 10 feet.

In 1983, about 200 prototypes later, the original DW-5000C was born.

Over the years, Casio has produced several different versions of it but in general terms the G-Shock, any G-Shock, is robust and durable chiefly because it is built with 10 layers of rubber, stainless steel and hardened minerals protecting the quartz module.

The traditional DW style has been offerend in several variants and it still G-Shock's best-selling model. The GA, now GB, line is also very popular.

I bought a G-Shock GA2000 (pictured) a while ago and I love it.

This particular model uses something called 'Carbon Core Guard', which is a material that Casio invented and patented. Technically, it's carbon-reinforced resin; in practice, it's a fancy term for reinforced plastic. It only weighs 64 grams, though.

When you consider cost, flexibility and usability, and even its heritage (G-Shocks have been to space), the word "bargain", doesn't even do it justice.

There's another, hugely popular Carbon Core Guard G-Shock available at the moment, the much coveted GA2100, which most people refer to as "Casioak" because of its similarity to the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.

Casio even launched an all-metal version of it. But there's a problem: it costs $500. A bit much for a G-Shock.