What is the oldest electronic you own?
What is the oldest electronic you own?
What is the oldest electronic you own?
Sinclair Microvision MTV-1. It doesn't work though. First released about 1978 according to Wikipedia.
Found it in a thrift store in a small town with a single stop light, in the middle of nowhere. That's also where I got my sealed copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator 3.0 on 5 1/4 floppies. Total cost $7.
I have my grandmothers iMac G4. Just an interesting looking from the days when Apple made interesting looking things. It still works but it’s really used for anything.
Probably a Cowon iAudio mp3 player from the mid aughts. I might still have a Philips cd mp3 player from the early aughts. Ooh in my garage I have Sony PC speakers from 2001.
I own a model electric train that was built in 1937. So, 88 years young?
Runs well, it's kinda weird to think that this was a toy and this level of build quality was normal. To be fair, it wasn't exactly. This was a high end toy aimed at affluent teens and young adults. It would have been equivalent to buying a new PlayStation. But still, I have trouble imagining any toy you could buy today that would hold up like this.
250 MHZ analog oscilloscope from HP
Fully functioning Commodore 64, monitor, 2 floppy drives, printer, and several joysticks.
A TI-99/4. I need to find an old tv to hook it up
I've got an old TRS-80 in stored-in-a-leaky-shed-for-40-years condition. I can also lay my hands on an AM/FM radio that I think dates to the 70's.
Empire State radio, R52
I have a radio from the late 30s, though not in working condition. And a radio from 1961 that I use regularly
oldest electronic
Electronic WHAT!?! Choose a noun, son.
I suspect this is the (non-word) singular form of the noun "electronics". If there's a better term for such words, and you let me know what it is, I will give you my thank.
Gizmo
atari vcs (from before it was rebranded to atari 2600)
My husband has a collection of obsolete technology. The oldest thing he’s got in there is a VT100 terminal.
1950s oscilloscope
heck i bet that is awesome looking. Does it still work?
I have a bunch of mid-century Roberts radios that I've convert to smart speakers (using the original speakers and, where possible, the amplifiers) if that counts.
I have a battery operated tube radio from mid to late 1940's. It even works, but the battery it uses is getting rare and quite expensive. And my country doesn't really use AM radio broadcasts anymore, so it's more of a curiosity nowadays.
I also have a lot of working stuff from the 1950's, mostly radios and amplifiers. Great gear, and much easier to service than their modern counterparts.
So many old computers & calculators here.
I have an Apple IIe, but at the moment it's at my friend's place. What I have with me are a bunch of Thinkpads: a barely working X60, a fine X200 with busted battery, and a combination of 20 and 30 series ones I am currently using.
May I insert some additions of analog here?
I got a Rotel RA-04 audio amp from 2006 from my dad that I am currently using, and I'm sure there are older stuff where it's from.
Aside from that, a Yaesu FT-60 FM transceiver made in 2004 still running strong.
One of the Play it Loud Game Boys (the red one), it's as old as I am
Original Gameboy.
Still works.
Hah, you stumbled upon one of Lemmy’s weird UI quirks. If you start a line with a number and period, it assumes you’re making a numbered list. But that period is placed at a specific indent, so long numbers spill off the left side of the screen.
(Adding a line break here)
It only works with 8 numbers or less though, because 99999999 is the highest value that the numbered list supports.
I have an electric singer sewing machine from 1964 and another one from around 1950. Amazing how well they work.
Extremely old singer sewing machine gang unite
They aren’t even my oldest machines. Just the oldest ones that use electricity
They will last forever.
The machines probably yes. The little electric motors will probably need replacing eventually though.
Hi Enrique! (°▽°)/
Donkey Kong Game & Watch (1982)
My original gameboy colour
1983 Lenco LRP 5450 DD record player &
1998 Yamaha RX-496 RDS stereo receiver
My father-in-law got them for us 2nd hand for a joint present. Quite a decent system!
Not a real audiophile, but it works well and we enjoy it.
I also made a Google Home kind of thing out of it using an ESP32S3 that uses ESPHome, Home Assistant, and Music Assistant to make it a Spotify connect node to play Spotify through it, control it with an IR blaster, and use Voice Assistant with it if I am not too far (it has a single mema mic)
I believe it’s my Atari 2600! I can’t think of anything older that I’ve got that runs on electric juice.
I cleaned up when I moved, so the oldest gadget I have right now is a 15 year old MSI laptop, still happily running with linux.
You should throw it a quinceanera. Put it in a dress and buy it a small car.
I still use my 2011 MacBook Pro! He’s got a SSD and 16GB RAM now, but he still works perfectly—and on original battery, lasts for over three hours! (Originally got him for LAN parties, and always used him plugged in. I believe 40-ish charge cycles.)
I have a few, but the one that immediately came to mind is my HP16c calculator.
I still have my original Pikachu gameboy color, and it works. Somehow the battery on my Pokemon Red hasn't died but there's nothing useful on it.
Not electronic, but I have a pre-WW2 era windup clock that still works. It's loud af and built like a tank
The first generation Pokemon games all used significantly less power to maintain their RAM battery saves than Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal by virtue of not having a real time clock constantly ticking the power away. RBY saves only needed to maintain the power for the save itself and did no additional work on top of that.
Original GSC cartridges would last about 10-15 years, whereas RBY could last 20-30 years. We're currently in the span of time where many RBY cartridge batteries will be failing but it's still possible to find ones with functional original saves on batteries just barely holding on.
Many people like to try using physically larger batteries when doing replacements, but most of them don't realize the batte ries aren't losing charge at the end of those many years because they're drained and out of power. RBY saves use so little power from the battery in the cartridge that they won't fully drain it after 30 ish years. Instead the battery saves fail because the batteries themselves fail after 20-30 years. Picking the larger button cell batteries won't help since they'll still have the same total lifespan and will still lose charge at almost the same rate as the spare batteries that weren't installed in your cart ridge of choice.
Either my TI-99/4A, or if it still works, the IBM 7072 that I got from NYIT for $200 in 2000.
i have an old magnavox TV from the early 70s, with the wooden slat curtain thing you pull in front of it.
Old 8 track players,
my great grandfather was an electrical engineer and made some custom lighting controls in wooden boxes, with dials and meters and switches, he did made it all for his church!
from that same grandfather, he had some portable reel to reel tape recording stuff, an old portable projector that comes in a cast iron cowl.
tons of stuff that everyone makes fun of me for holding on to.
i have an old magnavox TV from the early 70s, with the wooden slat curtain thing you pull in front of it.
i grew up on old floor wooden console tv's and had one up until 2014 when it died and discovered that neither replacement parts nor repairmen existed anymore despite the tv being manufactured not very long ago in 1992.
i haven't bought a tv ever since then and my plasma died after only 8 years, so i don't have a tv anymore; but would instantly buy one they made another console tv.
Bulova Accutron from the 60s. I also have a Heathkit oscilloscope which I think is of similar vintage.
A Hitachi TRK-3D8 boombox from 1986 - you can see it sitting above my retro PC here.
I got that for 12€ on eBay and that was the best deal I ever made. It has great audio range, the subwoofer packs a mean punch and it looks awesome. It's the perfect device for a drum&bass enthusiast. Just put some batteries and a Bluetooth tape in and you can even take it outside (it's quite heavy, though).
1962 fender brownface pro-amp
An originally original gameboy. Still worked until about 2 years ago. I assume there's just a little battery or a capacitor that needs replacing, but I haven't had the time to look into it.
Game Boy Advance with a Pokemon Sapphire cartridge that I don't think has been removed in over a decade. Every time I turn it on I always wonder how I spent so many hours staring at a screen with no backlight.
A ferrite core memory module, circa 1956 at a guess.
I still have a CRT from the early 90s and all my old video game consoles.
hello fellow "never EVER let a console go" gang
Over the years i had friends come over for retro video game / lan parties and they sometimes left their consoles. Picked up an extra dreamcast and an original playstation that way.
I want to get my grandmas old china cabinet and put some LEDs in it and have the consoles on display!
Yeah even when they do eventually stop working, they'll be nice to display
I have the Commodore64 my family got used when I was 8.
I've had it less long, but the sewing machiney mother bought after she left college is older than that.
And I inherited it even more recently, but also have my maternal grandfather's electric hair clippers from when he was a teenager, around 1960.
And I bought my house most recently of all, but some of the wiring dates back to 1926 (the house itself was built without electricity in 1880).
I'm still the original owner of one of these 1982 Pac-Man consoles. Actually, I thought it was lost for decades but my aunt discovered it during a basement clean out and gave it back to me. Last I checked, it still worked. But the volume is so dang loud that I remember I always had to play with it outside.
A Bell & Howell 8mm/16mm projector and a handheld super 8 video camera that belonged to my dad. I'm not sure how old they are but probably late 70s/80s. From what I gather, he was very much into manual film editing.
A panasonic lumix dmc-fz50 that I got from my mum after she got her new camera. It's from 2007, so not that old, but still, it's only three years younger than me. It takes pretty good photos for it's age, especially macro shots. It's biggest flaws are the display and view finder. The image in the view finder got yellow and foggy with time, to the point it's almost unusable. And the display is rather dark so it's no good in sunny weather.
Don't know if it counts, but my suitcase record player has vacuum tubes. Still spins but it needs a needle.
Casio f-91w watch. Its like 6 years old now, so the battery only has like 4 more years left.
My Nintendo dsi. Since 2009
Our old pong console. I don't know if it still works because it's been boxed up for over a decade at this point.
Oldest in use? Probably my old texas instruments graphing calculator, but it's dying. I got it back in the early nineties for college, and my kid was using it last year with homework, but the screen is failing and it sometimes just freezes until you pull and replace the batteries. So only kinds in use, and barely hanging on.
My VCR is newer and still sees use rarely, but was used daily for a few years in the early naughties.
Wait! The phonograph! It's still functional and my dad got it in the early eighties, so it's older than the pong console, but I think calling it electronics is dubious, so I dunno if it counts. But it's the oldest functional electric powered thing we have that I know of.
Not entirely sure but this has to be one of the oldest and is fully functional.
4 channel mono audio mixer, with germanium transistors only
From the mid-sixties
Cool. I’ll give you $50 for it 🤪
Probably either my Olympus OM-1 or my Minolta SR-T 201. Both still work (the Olympus just needs some cleaning and maintenance)
Casio CZ-1 synthesizer, produced in 1986.
My speakers by far
Probably my Canon AE-1. Not sure of the exact year, but the model was made from roughly '76 to '84.
Got my aunt's rotary phone in the closet.
I have a CRT from 1995. Aside from that, probably my dad's turntable which has unofficially become mine, or the Yamaha electric keyboard
Either the wood-grain radio with clock or a 1970s bubble-LED calculator
My TI-84 calculator.
Lost a lot of cool old stuff in a fire a few years ago, so I'm guessing my original N64.
I've got my og NES.
20 GB hard drive from 2006.
Next year we're going to have a party for it.
I have a Milton Bradley Microvision from around 1979, the first handheld game system that used cartridges. I have the block breaker game, it still works but I think some components are wearing out as the game speed feels way too fast. Thing takes 2 9V batteries!
Sega Megadrive from about 1989.
I have my old Speak & Spell. It still works.
Probably my dad's electric turkey carver. It was a wedding gift he got in 1980
Not a full electronic per se, but I do have a heatsink from an old second gen IBM memory module.
Fridge. Older than me
A Nintendo64 with several game cartridges. It's a little flaky, but it still works for the most part.
One of these telephones. Was my grandfather's.
Probably some old radio, not sure of the date though.
my first computer. it's about 12 years old
Wii console
ITT: electrical appliances lacking electronics
What counts as electronics? Guitar speaker with vacuum tubes? Old rotary phone? Lamps so old the electric cords are covered in a hard fabric? If you require solid state / chips and boards rather than things that did the same function without them, you're excluding the stuff predating that tech.
1980 Sony trintitron crt TV that still works. Got the N64 hooked up to it.