And tell me how proud of it you are.
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.
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
Agreed. IMHO, Bosch has a pretty good track record for dishwashers. Those things usually last a good long while.
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.
I remember being a bit surprised when I found out about it, but it also seems to be that a lot of people didn’t know about this service, despite it being something Nintendo seemed to pride themselves in for a long time. Maybe they just didn’t publicize it widely enough?
I never heard anything about it. I definitely would have sent in the NES, SNES, and N64 for servicing if it was on my radar.
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…
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.
Just the right amount 🤌
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.
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
It’s very common even today for fire sirens to still be in use, as well as noon whistles. Unfortunately, people complain about the noise despite choosing to live near the fire department, and the sirens get shut off.
Which country are you in? Not a thing I’ve heard of happening here in the UK
Canada. It’s not really a thing in the UK. Fire sirens/noon whistles are mostly a North American/European thing.
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.
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 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’m sorry you were bullied (I kid, I’ve had non ipod music players (still do), but I hope you didn’t get beat up a lot for having a zune, thats not fair to you)
I know you were joking, but luckily my high school really wasn’t too bad when it came to bullying. Like, there were the cliques that beefed, but there weren’t any like, actual bullies. I think what helped was that all of the really big dudes (I was a “small” big dude, at 6’2" 200lbs) we’re all nerds, and we protected the small nerds. We couldn’t let anyone hurt any of our WoW guildees haha
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
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.
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.
Ohhh really? I have one too, figured it was just a neat decoration on my camera shelf now. Maybe I’ll dust it off and use it again!
Go for it. Keep in mind, theres two types of film now though. “Retro” and “modern”. Don’t remember the classifications. Either way, modern doesn’t work in retro cameras cause there’s no built in battery.
Box should make it clear, but I know I grab without reading the box all the time. Figures I’d give a warning.
There’s a neat video showcase of their process/factory on YouTube. Forgot which channel made it but think something like veritasium/sed
Not sure if this is the one you’re referring to, but NileRed made a video on this:
Smarter Every Day did a film factory tour series, I think it was Kodak. He’s got some cool film photography videos.
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?
