Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

1y ago

What's the oldest piece of tech you still have running?

And tell me how proud of it you are.

373 comments

Me. 62 years. As long as it keeps on ticking, I'm proud.
- Seriously? No upgrades, augments, removals or additions?
  I'm 45 and I don't think my knees or hips will last that long. And my memory will probably degrade over the next twenty years.
- You go girl!

I've got a Miele washing machine that's the best part of 40 years old. It's required some maintenance over the years. However, it was designed with maintenance in mind, so all the repairs have been fairly painless.
My 5 year old dishwasher, on the other hand, has cost me more time, money and stress than the (very overworked) washing machine.
- Miele shit just continues to exist inexplicably. Literally unbreakable (permanently). And according to what I've read, at least, their modern stuff has not dropped in quality
  I honestly can't think of any brands that have anything close to that longevity
  
  It's the little things that count.
  The drain pump is just 3 bolts to take off (pump came back to life after I tipped it. The new one is still sat in the cupboard a decade later).
  The electronics are mounted on their own door. They swing out, and are VERY easy to service.
  The wiring diagram was in a plastic wallet inside the machine.
  The shocks are easy to access and come off with an M10 spanner and are easy access.
  Those are just the ones that have noticed explicitly, the whole machine was built with that mentality.
  
  I used a Miele hoover as a shop vac, hoovering wall plaster, muck and sawdust etc and pretty much abused it - replaced all filters and gave it a good clean and it still works like new. That was 5 years ago and it's still going fine.
- IMHO, if a dishwasher isn’t under warranty, and it’s a mechanical or electrical issue, you might just want to replace it. The cost of technician and parts can add up, and a new machine with a good reviews is only around $500 usd.
  
  It's a bit crappy that manufacturers have managed to essentially force us into a subscription for our home appliances, by making self repair uneconomical and expensive, almost guaranteeing a replacement every 4-5 years.
  The repair contract on my washing machine is about to run out, and that thing has been serviced many times at this point. Once for a blown mainboard, burnt out motor, and other miscellaneous issues that some of the techs haven't been able to identify, having to return again with more bits.
  At least I have a spare mainboard now and the last tech fitted a brand new motor, which is way quieter than the horrifically loud original one
  
  It's fixed now. It was a 10p sensor embedded in a £65 piece of plastic. The error message had me barking up the wrong tree. It's fixed now, at least.
  I dislike being wasteful. When my last TV died, while I replaced it, I then fixed it, and gave it to a friend. £10 backlight, and an hour or so of effort.
  
  Why? Mine went error 17, that's water in the bottom, turns out the seals had become damaged over the years. 1€ replacement part, 25 Minutes of time and a YouTube video and the thing has been running for 3 years as of now, again (total age 12 years).

My original NES and game cartridges. Still work great, although retired as collectibles in favor of emulators now.
- I got lucky with mine. I started having issues with mine around 2000. I lived in Washington, only like an hour from Nintendo of America. At the time, Nintendo still serviced all their old consoles up to and including their current consoles. (This would change in 2006, with the Wii, when they started releasing old games digitally, it was game-over for their long-term servicing of old consoles.) So I took mine in, and if I recall correctly, it was about $50 to get all my games professionally cleaned and for the console to be cleaned, fixed, and sent home with new power supply and controllers.
  It's been a champ ever since.
  
  I wish I had known about that. The cleaning accessories I’ve found over the years have kept it going without issues, but I definitely would have sent mine in for a preventative professional cleaning and refurbishing if they found anything wrong with it.
- Neat.
  I have a hand-me-down NES from a relative that sadly passed away, console works a treat but at some point within the past decade the cartridge batteries went flat. Finally have the gamebit driver to replace them but the gear is all packed away at the back of my storage cupboard...
  
  Could always do the melted pen trick (outside; burning plastic is not good for you). Could risk melting the game cart plastic, though if you get the pen too hot.
- Same here. It's been a while since I've owned an actual TV to hook them up to though.

A pocketwatch manufactured in 1889. I keep it running as a memento mori: the watch may outlive the watchmaker. Build things well -- they may be all people remember you by, one day.
I also have a slide rule at my desk at most times, to remind me of false-precision.
I guess the oldest though, is a Wu Zhu coin from the Three Kingdoms period (currency is a technology, too?). I keep it to remember that all empires arise from chaos, and must return to it; that all assets eventually have no value. That the things that endure, are stranger currencies still.
- You're the badass stoich character from fantasy stories!
  "I keep the relics of my ancestors to remind me we all die"
  
  Certainly, no one would accuse me of insufficient gravitas.
- A pocketwatch manufactured in 1889. I keep it running as a memento mori:
  And to think I almost typed in my Lumia 1020... 🤣 🤣 Hats off mate!
  
  If you happen to want one, they are surprisingly affordable (I think I paid ~100$). So many were made, for so many years, that they are not exactly rare! Some antiques are fun like that.

A 1940s era Sterling Siren Model "F" factory siren. This siren spent decades outside of a Long Island, NY firehouse, acting as a street clearing siren to allow fire engines to exit the station unimpeded during an emergency. It was decommissioned a few years ago and popped up on eBay, and I was able to get ahold of it for cheap as the seller didn't know its worth. Model F sirens are very hard to find, as they haven't been made since the 1960s, and the need for street clearing and fire sirens have lessened with the advent of pagers. I believe there are less than a dozen left in service across North America.
Mine is in very good running shape, despite its age. I lubricated the bearings recently (brass sleeve bearings) and let the motor break in. It isn't quite as loud as my Federal Sign & Signal Model "L" (built in the 1960s) but still packs a punch. I usually set them off with the city sirens every Monday. It does need cosmetic restoration, as the paint is badly weathered and the projector has some dents in it, but it won't be hard to fix up.
https://youtu.be/KvsGiL15g1k?si=ZgheNIH-fqOHJXnJ
My Model L is on the left, and my Model F is on the right.
- Your neighbors must love you.
  
  They've never complained, and I'm respectful with them. So I think them and I are cool lol
- Your city has sirens that go off every Monday?
  
  Yup! A weekly 30 second test.
  
  That was common in the town where I grew up. The sirens were used as tornado warnings, so they made sure they were in good working order.
  
  It's relatively common in small towns. Some towns with volunteer fire departments will have a siren they use both to call all available volunteer firefighters and to announce the need to shelter for a tornado. They used to sound it at noon every day and my wife (then girlfriend) used it as an alarm clock when she worked 2nd shift anytime she slept in too late
  About 5 years ago they stopped sounding it at noon, and honestly I'm not sure when the last time i heard the sirens was since tornadic storms are becomes much less common here and the firefighters have become increasingly reliant on their radios instead. I kinda miss it. There's a quaintness to just listening for the noon whistle to tell time
- But why do you have sirens?
  
  Because it's a hobby of mine, has been for years.

My paternal grandmother's KitchenAid model K mixer she bought just after my grandfather returned from WW2. She gave it to my mother in the late 70's because she wanted a new one and the damn thing showed no signs of dying. My mother gave it to my wife about 15 years ago for the same reason.
We've bought some new accessories but that fucking zombie mixer will outlast the roaches.
- Might be worth regreasing it, iFixIt has some good guides on that.
- Those old KitchenAid mixers are beasts. I think they were still made by Hobart at that point and really built to last and easy to fix.
- Those are the mixers of legends 💪🧑‍🍳💪

I still listen to my music using a 160 GB iPod Classic. Apple struck gold with that clickwheel. Carrying around a dedicated device for music just for that elegant one-thumb control I don't even have to look at to use is still totally worth it to me.
- I could use it through my back jeans pocket. It was great!
  
  In public would it just look like you're caressing your own ass?
- The click wheel also works through fabric. I miss changing songs and adjusting volume without removing it from my pocket.
- I still keep mine in my car. Have you seen Dankpods mod them with terabyte micro SD kits? Stuff is amazing.
- It's currently not working, but I'm going to replace the battery soon on my 80gb Zune. I fucking loved that thing back in high school. I want to make it my dedicated music device for my stereo set up, as a digital parallel to my turntable

I am the oldest piece of working hardware I own and I am constantly disappointed by it

You probably mean electronic not technology. But I have a mechanical singer sewing machine from the 1800s that's still in working order.

Not at all impressive, but to maximize interactions on a newborn thread:
It's probably my PS3, which I would have gotten Christmas 2008 (or maybe it was 2009?). I recently started sailining the seas, and the most convenient way to watch those videos is to burn them to a disk, and so the PS3 is really just a glorified DVD player (can't even be bothered to use it's blue ray functionality)
- Hey, keeping a first gen PS3 running after all those years is more impressive than you might think. Wayyy too many of those cooked themselves on 12+ hr gaming sessions back in the day
- Similarly, my PS2 which I got for Christmas in 2003 is still running strong, I replayed Simpsons Hit & Run recently and it the console plays as well as it did when I first booted up.
  It also has the honour of being the last device I own capable of playing DVDs since my PC's optical disc drive died.
  
  Our wii is still hanging in there, though there DVD drive doesn’t like to fully latch and I have to keep the side cover loose too hello it Fully load.
  But I also have a working PS2, PS1 with GameShark that can load pirated games. And a battery working finicky NES.
- Same here. While mine is connected, I have no reason to use it with newer consoles in the same cabinet.

I have my grandparents gramophone.
We pull it out each year to listen to their old Christmas records.
It's become a tradition that my university age kids still look forward to.

I have a General Post Office model 711 telephone. I installed a microcontroller into it and it's now the keypad for my home alarm system. It's also hooked into Home Assistant so I could have it for other things if I wanted.
- That is just brilliant!
  
  Thanks. It has occurred to me to add a voice assistant to the phone as well but I'm not sure I'd ever actually use it.

I got a fountain pen with my initials on it from my grandfather. We have the same initials.

Depending on what you consider technology:
I have several firearms well over 100 years old in perfectly operational condition.
Quite a few kitchen appliances from the 70s that will never die.
And a working Apple IIgs.
As far as use on a daily or near daily basis, I have a 1974 Fender guitar amp, and a few other speakers and musical instruments that are vintage that are also going to outlive me.
- What's amazing to me is that for guitars / basses, even amps, the value often goes up for the truly old stuff. Even (sometimes especially) if there's visible wear and tear. The bass I own was one I bought new, so it's only about 15 years old. But, I was just curious the other day so I was searching for basses on Ebay, and they're selling basses that are $50k and are 40+ years old.

Polaroid Land camera, ~1950. Found it after my grandparents passed. Never tried using it, it's just neat.
- They're a lot of fun if you can get the film. Some company reverse engineered it and then went out of business, but I think there are still options if you're willing to pay $2 a photo.
  
  Polaroid is making a comeback. You can get film in Walmart now.
- Think my dad has one of those.. he has a bunch of old cameras his father used to use.
- I have a Kodak Brownie here somewhere. I've never tried using it, but it should work - the shutter spring is in place and functional. The mirror for the viewfinder is messed up, too, so I might not be able to frame the shot correctly either.

I have a wheel on my bike.
- I have cosmic dust from the moon and stars in my body
- My bike is made from an element that has been shaped by man into a more useful... shape.
- How old is that wheel?

I have a beard trimmer from like 2008. I have literally no feelings about it.
- Lmao

1959 mechanical cameras. An electronic camera from 1969. Polaroid SX-70 from 1976. A calculator from 1988: FX85P from Casio. And then the Atari Lynx from 1991.

A very rare 1965 push button UK telephone, which I converted to work on DTMF.
Almost all UK phones from this era are dial based so it was very hard to find. It is our actual land line phone, not that our landline is ever used. Looks cool though.

My car. 1995.
- The most reliable car I ever owned was a 1998 Suzuki Sidekick Sport. I drove it for over a decade. It was the only car from my son’s childhood that he remembers. We got two more with identical parts to move stuff around when it broke.
  Now he’s driving it. It’s all to hell at this point, but it’s sentimental to him. It isn’t his daily driver, but he still takes it out pretty often to ride around in the mountains.
  That car is two years older than him.
  I barely ever changed the oil in it. Speed shifted one transmission too long and had to replace that. The harmonic balancer took a shit once. Otherwise just coil packs and a battery from time to time. Any other parts were minor and yanked from the identical one that sat right beside it. He still has both. I hit a deer with the old one, he hit a deer with the other one before we parted it out. The front is rigged together.
  I can’t believe it’s still going.
  
  Volvo 940, here. I'm replacing it this spring, though. But it still runs fine, and it recently passed inspection. The main reason why I'm upgrading is because I need an extra seat to fit the entire family.

A 12" Samsung TV that I've had since I was a kid. If I had to guess I'd say it's from 1989 or so. It still works perfectly except that it now has to warm up for a minute or so. I currently have a Roku box connected to it that I use for watching old shows in SD format lol
- If you've not done so, look into replacing/getting replaced the electrolytic capacitors in the TV. They are one of the only parts that truly suffers from aging. By the sound of it, some of yours are on their last legs. If you replace them before they go completely, you can limit the damage. A failed cap can often cause damage to other components.
  The caps will generally have their value and tolerances printed on them. They are ¢ each, so it's fairly cheap, parts wise.
  
  Read this first. CRT TVs have high voltage in them.

I absolutely cherish it.

I still use my Dad's old hifi from the 70s to listen to records. It's one of the only things I have that was his, so it has a lot of sentimental value to me.
- I don't still have my dad's whole 60s-era stereo but I do have the speakers and they're absolutely fantastic. Heavy as fuck with the giant magnets and solid wood cabinets. Modern stuff just does not compare, especially on the low frequency end.
- Those are the best systems. They can always be repared, not like the junk they have been selling since the 80s. Make sure to keep it, and maybe get a recap at some point.
  
  It desperately needs a recap and pot clean/replace, but I need to find someone who can do it.
  I could probably do it myself, but I don't trust myself to not screw it up.
- Dude, same with my fiance. Her dad passed a year and a half ago, but left her his Audio Technica SL1200 turntable, speakers, and all his vinyls.
  A little gift was in one of the Rolling Stones albums he had, when we opened it up a little piece of paper fell out, and it was a signed concert ticket by Mick Jagger. We were stoked to have that little piece of her dad like that.
  I miss her dad so much man

In terms of things passed down, I have the original Wii my parents bought for us on Christmas of 2008. In terms of consoles, I have a Nintendo 64 I got off eBay to play the collection of cartridges we had been accruing since the late 90s.
As for the oldest antique item, I have some mechanical slide calculators, two from Australia, one from Japan, and one from the US. No idea the exact years of manufacturing, but the US one is a Tasco Pocket Arithmometer, which I think ceased manufacturing in the early 1900s ( it's been a bit since I last researched it.)
- I have a couple of original Nintendos (NES) lying around. Including the one from when I was kids, missing its door because my sibling would toss controllers at it when they lost.
  Those controllers are solid.
  Also a few dozen cartridges to go with it. Nothing of value as far as I know but future family heirlooms.
  
  I wish I still had the original N64 controllers. The nintendium shells they were made out of were thicker, heftier. Now I've just got these off-brand ones that don't feel as good.
  Tell you what, though - the joysticks are just as floppy as the originals we had. I'll eventually get those GameCube joysticks to upgrade them.

I still use a nearly 20 year old DSLR as my primary photography camera. It’s all personal stuff so the lower resolution and overall lower quality compared to modern cameras doesn’t bother me much. The battery isn’t doing so well after 20 years though, so I’m getting a couple new ones and a larger memory card for it. Hoping to buy a new camera soon and get at least 20 years out of that too, but I still plan to use my current one alongside any other camera as I really like the look of the images it produces.
- What's the make and model? I had a Cannon 20D that I used forever, tiny 2.5in LCD. My 7D is collecting dust, but my fave was a A-1 with 800 Kodak.
  
  It’s actually a 20D too! The new battery really brought it back to its prime, not having to constantly stress about it dying on me has been great

Gameboy Color with 1st gen Pokemon still running strong
- Awesome- very jealous!
- If it hasn't yet, the battery in that cart is gonna die any day.
- Same, game boy color with the clear purple shell and Pokemon red. Got it when I was 8 and the cartridge still saves.

I’ve got an old iRiver mp3 player thats still ticking (as soon as you pop a AA in it. Would play enough music for me and can plug it in via mini USB I believe.
- My iRiver is just lying around in a box somewhere. I totally forgot about it. Poor thing. Has some nice weight to it, well-distributed, very high-quality build.
- Hell yeah! My H320 is still going strong. Did you rockbox it?
- I lived off one of their CD MP3 players back in the day. Was so nice. Also had a Sansa Clip.

Not that old but my 2009 i5 750 can still rock most of the games at a solid 1080p. I added a fan and overclocked it to 3.6, some ram and a 1060 gpu. It now serves as our main streaming / gaming computer on the TV and shows no sign of giving up. Overall I've spent less than 650$ over 15 years on a computer that we use daily.

1966 Fender Princeton guitar amplifier. Me likey

IBM PS/1
Proud as fuck, as it's my first pc. I'm 26

My Aiwa P22 micro hifi from 1978. Very nice, compact and sounds great.

My original Atari 2600 and games I got as a kid.
EDIT: I am pretty sure my stove is from the 60's but it came with the house I bought in 2015, so I am not sure it counts.
- My mom gave me her Atari 2600 that she had when she was a kid. It still works. It even still had all the cables and games stored with it at her parents' house when they passed.
  
  Mine is a sears video arcade.
  I have an original 2600 too that my exes dad bought for her when she was little but it doesn’t work any more.
  My console collection is stupid at this point. I have like 15 Sega Genesis consoles and I’m too sorry to sell them.

Commodore 64 but for everyday stuff my Alienware X51 R3 is a weird, old Frankenstein monster
- Are you keeping up with the Commodore?
  My dad was showing us all Moon Shuttle for the 64, some old game he'd never played. And then he pulled out a chip he called "the shadow" that I guess has a history to it. It was a replacement for another chip you'd plug it into the hard drive to... Copy games? But they didn't work or they didn't make enough? He even showed me his thermal printed complaint letter he wrote explaining how long he waited and how many times he was fobbed off.

I'm still using an IBM model M keyboard from 1989. Picked up a conversion cable to go straight from the weird RJ45 connector to USB and have zero issues with it.
- Also using a Model M from 1991, still going strong. Very serviceable too if I ever need to repair it, so long as I can get the replacement parts on ebay.
- Woa

I have a GeForce GTX 970 from 2015 that's still doing sterling service every day in my recently refreshed HTPC, delivering 4K movies and the occasional game to my 65in Sony OLED TV. My best tech buy ever.
- I just gave mine away, like an hour ago. I recently upgraded my hardware so I listed the old 970 for giveaway since it has very little market value nowadays, and this guy showed up for it, turns out he's the pilot at a nearby scuba centre, and he told me I got a diving session in exchange for the card. Good business
- My 970 made it until the end of the crypto boom and GPU shortage. I got a GPU shortage special 2060 that was manufactured after the 30 series release to replace it with
- Just put an old 960 in a PC and gave it to my sister-in-law for Christmas so her stepdaughter could play the Sims 4 on it.
  I was absolutely shocked to see several games running on ultra settings at 1080p without any issues.

A 1930s era Sunkist Juicer. That thing is still chooching along and just juiced enough key limes for two pies last night.
- I recently bought a 1970s Sunbeam food processor to replace my broken modern one. It's so incredibly quiet that I thought it was broken as well until I tried it out grinding stuff and found that it was even better and faster than the modern one. It is much heavier, though, and a pretty ugly shade of '70s yellow.

I have a Panasonic "Genius" microwave from 1983, still going strong.
A multimeter from the 70's, although I don't use it often anymore (I have two newer ones)
A Back and Decker b-100 corded drill from the 1960's with a skill saw of the same era. (Both backups in case my newer ones die.)
Also not really tech, but A scythe from the 1930's, an old clothes iron from the early 1900's (The kind you heated on the stove) a machete from 1920, and a couple old hand pump sprayers from the 20's or 30's (The type you screw a glass bottle onto) that all are functional but mainly just collect dust.
I probably have some other old crap I'm not thinking of at the moment, I just like collecting weird old things.
- Mine eventually started stopping after one minute no matter how long I asked it to cook. I guess the brain was starting to go.
  
  I'm going to cry when mine finally dies. I bought it second hand in 1991/92 and have only ever replaced the light bulb in it once around 98. That microwave has survived both my daughters growing up and a lot of moves over the years.
  Although at this rate I might crap out before it does lol.

I have several of the original Philips LED replacement bulbs, which were some of the very first LED bulbs available. Paid about $35CAD each for them in late 2009 and they're built out of solid metal and weigh a ton. They're still going strong and put out a lovely light.

1976 Gottlieb Volley pinball machine
- High score?
  
  313k

Pentax ME SLR camera, bought by my uncle in the 70s. Got some dents and scratches but it’s still taking beautiful pics.

Easily beaten by others, but I'm happy that my old Das Keyboard lasted nearly twelve years before it started missing keystrokes. Only retired it last week
- You could probably replace the individual switches by de-soldering them.
  
  I think it's an issue with the PCB itself, it's getting kinda rusty from old spills. I'm saving it of course, it still mostly works and I love the case and keycaps. Maybe someday I'll create it anew with even louder switches and a fresh PCB.
- I still have a Gen 1 Das Keyboard as well
  
  Thems is good keebs

Bang & Ollufsen record player from 1977

Mines not so interesting, but I do have an original N64 from launch. I wish I had picked up the gold plated Zelda console, but I instead grabbed the regular grey one that came with Mario...I had never played a Zelda game before and regret the decision today.
If I'm going even older, it would probably be the planer that my father made about 50 years ago. Still works amazingly for being all cherry.

1975 Gibson Grabber bass. Instead of having multiple pickups, it has one pickup that you "grab" and slide across the pickguard. I had to get the fretboard re-set, as it had been sliding down the neck and making it impossible to intonate.
Terrible design, but it's a unique piece of music history that I enjoy having on hand.

An electronic typewriter that my parents bought when I was entering highschool in the early 90s.
While my first works of fiction we're not written on it, my first fiction I ever submitted (it was rejected btw) to a publisher was.
I wouldn't get successfully published until the late 90s/early 00s after I had built my first PC out of scrap parts and a cheap copy of windows 95.
But that typewriter still holds a special place in my heart.

My Atari 7800. Had to replace capacitors and a transistor to get it working again. Also added composite AV output.

SNES purchased by my parents in 1992.
An old blade server I was able to take from my very first job, state of the art for the time it was made around 2002. It's still running and I've been using it as a media and hosting server for years despite how out of date the specs are now.

My dad has a 65+ year old tube radio that still works great. Sounds amazing too. It was my grandfather's radio and it's older than my dad is we're not sure how old it is exactly.

A 1960s electric meat slicer. Use it every Thanskgiving. That thing is built like a tank and a probable fire hazard.
A 70s crockpot/fryer. Another fire hazard that is relegated to hot buttered rum and frying food.
More recent would be a 720p Samsung TV hooked up to an AppleTV HD we still use in our Master bedroom, mostly for classic movies on TCM. We’ve had it for 15 years and she’s still kicking.
- That thing is built like a tank and a probable fire hazard.
  Back in the '70s my parents got gifted an electric hot dog cooker. It basically had two rows of electrode spikes and you'd stick a bunch of hot dogs between the spikes and electrocute them. Dangerous as fuck since it had no kind of guard or anything - and how hard is it to just boil hot dogs anyway?
  
  That’s crazy! I’ve never heard of that. I love hot dogs and haven’t had them electrocuted. Any good?
- I have a 70s meat slicer as well. Brings back a lot of memories (growing up, my parents used theirs at least weekly).

This isn't entirely uncommon, but my 20 year old car is in perfect shape, fully paid off, and can do any job. I'm proud of that thing.

1940 Turkish Mauser (8mm), at the newest 83yo. But that year's production was cobbled together from old stock receivers and barrels made just before 1900. So parts of it could be ~120yo.
Might not be tech now but in the late 19th c. the Mauser bolt action was absolute tech.

A pair of vertical speakers with three elements each made by my father in the early 80s and the paired amplifier that he built at the same time

My mom's morantz receiver from the late 60s.

10 year old Dell machine that I’m using as my home assistant and Plex server. Picked it up on Facebook for $30, tossed new ram in for $10, and a new SSD for $40 and it’s snappy and does a great job. And the SSD will go to any new machine.

Should be able to dig up a fully functioning Sony Minidisk player. Owned and lost quite a few of them over the years. Damn things were sleek and small, but they meant the world to me. Napster and then Limewire provided the mp3s thanks to the old 56k dialup modem, then a mini jack connection from PC to the Minidisk. It took a hell of a long time to get everything set up just so, but it was worth it. Every time.
- Those things were sooo cool!!!
- I used my Minidisk player a lot for radio interviews. A nice little machine. You could run over one of those disks with a steamroller, then drop in in boiling water and it would still play just fine.

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