John Bergey headed the team that invented the first digital quartz watch.

In 1966 John Bergey and engineer Dick Walton transferred from the military products division at Hamilton Watch Company to head up research and development at the firm's watch division. Bergey had been working with Walton on an electronically timed fuse and the company wanted to explore the possibility of applying their work to a commercial product, the quartz watch.

Hamilton announced the Pulsar on April 4, 1970.

Although Bergey and his team originally planned to develop an analog-dial quartz watch, they soon decided to collaborate with George Thiess and Willy Crabtree at Electro-Data, Inc., of Garland, Texas. Thiess and Crabtree had been working to develop a digital quartz watch with a light-emitting diode display. The Hamilton/Electro-Data joint enterprise had their first prototypes in 1970 and the world's first electronic digital watch, the Pulsar, was introduced on the market in 1972.

Bergey became the president of Time Computer, Inc., created to develop and market the Pulsar. He holds twenty-six patents either alone or jointly for virtually every aspect of the watch. As president, Bergey led an effort to stay on top of the market, introducing a series of new Pulsars with more numerous and complex functions, including the first calculator watch and the first watch to take the wearer's pulse.