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[i]Harold Johnson, one of the STG engineers, came to our office one day with eight wristwatches-one for each of us and one he would wear. They were analog watches with numbered dials, but the numbers went from one to twenty-four. Six o'clock in the morning appeared as three to anyone who had used an everyday watch; noon was six, and midnight twelve. Johnson said we'd better become accustomed to these watches, because the world-wide tracking network was soon to go on twenty-four hour time. They were confusing to say the least. They were also completely unnecessary, since on our spacecraft clocks we would be reading digital time, as would the flight director and his crew in Mercury Control. Two weeks later Johnson came by again, and we pounced on him. I led the attack. 'What time is it Harold?' He looked at his watch on his left wrist, the one with the twenty-four hour dial, and hesitated. Then he tugged at his right sleeve and glanced at a watch with a standard dial. 'Three P.M.' The seven of us, by the numbers, unstrapped the Johnson watches, as we called them, and placed them on our desks. We would not wear them, and that was that. There was no discussion, and Johnson beat a hasty retreat.[/i]
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