What old tech do you still have or use around the house or at work?

[Wally Fairway 5541]

We still have 1 tube tv in our basement, I think it was purchased in the late 1990's. And yes there is a VCR player connected to it, though I am not sure the VCR works. There is also an answering machine connected to a "base" cellular phone that replaced our actual landline about 12 years ago. 
Mrs Fairway really likes both of these, though she never listens to the answering machine, and I don't either because I hate even having it. and I haven't give out that number in 20 years. 

 

Use your own definition of old tech 

[High Plains Drifter 11029]

 

Newspapers. Still buy em and read em. 

Pisses me off that you can't get a newspaper in an airport anymore. 

 

Also, glass pipes. I'm too old for that vaping crap. 

[UnivTex34 1763]

My clothes dryer is 39 years old. I'm 36. I will completely bawl my eyes out when that thing finally bites the dust. Hand me down from my late grandparents, and you could cook a turkey in it in 2 hours.

[CoTex 1160]

41 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

Newspapers. Still buy em and read em. 

Pisses me off that you can't get a newspaper in an airport anymore. 

 

Also, glass pipes. I'm too old for that vaping crap. 

Got rid of my tank water heater last week.  That piece of shit let go and pissed down its leg like an A&M defensive back staring down Ricky Williams.  #Tanklessforlife.

Life goal is to make my whole operation like Ex Machina before I'm too old to enjoy the "technology."

This is what it will look like

 

 

[Elvis 3371]

6 speed 911 Carrera S

 

[Paper_jam 831]

1985 JVC amplifier/EQ/tuner/turntable rack system, still has original speakers. Been played loudly on a regular basis for almost 40 years.

1987 Zenith Hi-Fi VHS VCR. Still plays tapes, but the tuner is fried so can't make recordings.

An old Panasonic cordless landline phone of indeterminate age (at least 15 years).

I recently retired a 2005 Panasonic Plasma TV which was still working. I still have a '97 Sony Trinitron CRT television, which works but is basically never used anymore.

Moral of the story: electronics made in Japan were good shit.

 

[AUinHsv 579]

Still have but haven't used lately  - B/O Beogram turntable

Use - old ATT land line phone, old ipod for travel

[Parliament 14243]

My original and forever favorite smartphone: a 2010 Motorola Droid slider.  Screen is shattered but still works.  I fire it up occasionally and it still connects to wifi.

 

[0xdeadbeef 1645]

I had to think a while on this one.   In general, I don't like old stuff. New monitors, computers, and phones are usually just better.

My old tech: 

1992 IBM Model-M keyboard. Yes, a mechanical 'clickity' keyboard.  The greatest, and most indestructible keyboard ever built. I have a work and personal computers on my desk in my home office. This is attached to my personal computer because there would be no way to type while on Team calls unless you were muted. 

1989 Trek Road Bike.  It was high-end when I bought it new. I've tried new bikes, but the geometry doesn't feel as good to me. I'm going to ride this until it can't be repaired. Yeah, wireless electronic shifters are cool, but FU, I have down-tube shifters.

I think I have an old VGA monitor in the guest bedroom, but I wouldn't use that thing. 

  

 

 

[deadshank 24652]

Still using my HP-12c I’ve had since 1984.  Not one to give up on a calculator. 

[conVINCEd 21469]

I have a butter churn and cast iron skillet that I eventually inherited from my great grandmother.  Beyond those two items, I’m fairly modern.  The parents still have two landlines.  The second is for a dedicated fax machine.  They have both been retired for 10+ years.  I showed them how to scan docs and send the with their phones/tablets, but that was a no go.  They want to fax them.

[52-80 19147]

i have a turntable/record player but dont use it much.  the few times i do, i might light up a peterson tobacco pipe like im motherfucking gandalf

[High Plains Drifter 11029]

12 hours ago, deadshank said:

Still using my HP-12c I’ve had since 1984.  Not one to give up on a calculator. 

 

that reminds me, I still use my old TI-84 calculator on occasion. 

[Native Horn 3498]

12 hours ago, deadshank said:

Still using my HP-12c I’ve had since 1984.  Not one to give up on a calculator. 

Still use mine daily, purchased in 1991.

[Dennis Taylor 18809]

Are medical offices the last places to use fax machines?

[Davis Lane 5580]

Oh and does a wife count?

[PittsburghTiger 6175]

17 hours ago, Elvis said:

6 speed 911 Carrera S

 

1998 6-speed Carrera Cabriolet

1968 Buick Riviera.

 

Well done.

[WithoutAClue 15341]

Sharp EL-515 calculator purchased in 1982

[TonyTexas 10506]

18 hours ago, Paper_jam said:

I still have a '97 Sony Trinitron CRT television,

You probably still have it because it’s too heavy to move. I used to have a 36” and that damn thing weighed 220 lbs. 

[PittsburghTiger 6175]

Going through old papers in my parent's house I found the receipt from a 1986, or so, Sony 40" rear-projection TV. It was about $2,500 back then, about $7,100 today, and weighed I think over 200 pounds. It was massive.

 

Crazy now that a 75" TV can be had for about $1,500.

[davidg 4036]

Still use mine daily, purchased in 1991.

RPN for life! But my 15c stays at home and I have a great HP11c app (RLM 11CX) on my phone and iPad that is a great emulation.

[PilotsError 2286]

[Dnaguy 11920]

4 hours ago, Davis Lane said:

Oh and does a wife count?

@Armybrat 2.0

[Dnaguy 11920]

4 hours ago, WithoutAClue said:

Sharp EL-515 calculator purchased in 1982

 

My TI 83+ from 2000. 

 

Fuck.

 

Yeah.

[mooseoutfront 3643]

I listen to a battery operated radio every morning for weather/news while drinking coffee and getting ready to leave for work. 
 

Found it in the cabin when we moved in over a decade ago. Thing has to be from the early 80’s, maybe late 70’s. Still works like a charm. 

[High Plains Drifter 11029]

5 hours ago, Davis Lane said:

Oh and does a wife count?

 

Still use a hammer rather frequently, but I don't think I've used a cross cut saw like that since shop class in 8th grade. 

 

I have used one of these bad boys within the last year or two: 

[Mittens 8258]

On 5/2/2024 at 2:23 PM, High Plains Drifter said:

Also, glass pipes. I'm too old for that vaping crap. 

palabra

[Armybrat 40822]

1 hour ago, Dnaguy said:

@Armybrat 2.0

 

[Dnaguy 11920]

1 minute ago, Armybrat said:

 

Not this?

[Armybrat 40822]

2 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

Not this?

 

[Dnaguy 11920]

8 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

 

[gofuckyourself 8205]

I still jerk off manually.

/Dude

[Jerry Callo 8698]

1 hour ago, BeardIP said:

I think I've shared this before, but a couple of years ago we wanted to introduce some old movies to the nieces and nephews who were young enough to get into them, and I absolutely could not find a VCR at any pawnshop. I ended up overpaying on Craigslist, like 30 miles away, for one.

So that's my answer, old school VCR.

I think we are going to be entering into the era where VCR's will appreciate as relics and collectibles, like typewriters have, and we are exiting the era where everyone just threw their VCRs away or sold them for $2 at garage sales.

DVD players are probably in that latter era.

Same.  Before the Star Wars prequels came out, we wanted to show the original trilogy to our kids.  We had a VHS box set of the original trilogy.  Ended up finding a VCR at Goodwill for $3.50.  Still have it.

 

20 hours ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

1989 Trek Road Bike.  It was high-end when I bought it new. I've tried new bikes, but the geometry doesn't feel as good to me. I'm going to ride this until it can't be repaired. Yeah, wireless electronic shifters are cool, but FU, I have down-tube shifters.

I have a 1989 Trek hybrid hanging in my garage.  I used it for my first triathlon in 2009/2010.

 

5 hours ago, PittsburghTiger said:

1968 Buick Riviera.

1969 Chevy C10 that I drive every week.

 

I have and still use early 1950's Belgium made Browning A5 shotguns in 12 and 20 gauge.

Nikon N4004 35mm camera that I got sometime in the 80s.

 

 

[Dennis Taylor 18809]

43 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

I still jerk off manually.

/Dude

Username 

[Tex Long 4383]

Got a $13,000 microcomputer in a corner of my studio. Haven't touched it this century, but it worked the last time I turned it on. I think it's probably from around a 1978 or so.

I had a project with Shell, designing, building and installing power station real-time control system for a new facility. Brown & Root was construction. B&R had a cost-plus contract on it, and had frequent meetings with Shell and we were part of those. BR always brought ten or fifteen engineers to the meetings, getting' that 10% on the plus.

One meeting, at B&R, the lead guy for Shell had a traffic problem, so we all got to sit around in a big space, waiting. Off in one corner was an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous blonde at a desk with a computer terminal on it. She would type for about thirty seconds, hit an ENTER key, pick up a book and read for about five minutes. The terminal would beep, she'd put down her book, look at a printout on her desk, turn to the terminal, type for about thirty seconds... rinse, repeat...

I went over to see what she was doing. Fair game, because the whole office was dedicated to that project, so... The printout was the data defining the analog control instrumentation – this thing had like 16,000 analog instruments, some just data, some just controls, and some both. It took six tab cards for each one of those – 480 characters. There were also another 8,000 switches, which were simple on/off things that could be turned on, turned off, or interrogated to see whether they were on or off. They only took three tab cards. So, yeah, lots of pages in the printout.

She said they were using the “big computer” in time-share mode, and they got a slice about every five minutes. She was correcting individual tab cards that had changes noted on the printout. Needless to say, a lot of those corrections were from my group... and now I knew why it was taking so goddamned long for B&R to get those corrections into the system.

When the Shell guy arrived and we got the meeting started, I got to bring up what we just saw. B&R said they weren't happy either, but they had orders to use their “big computer” and no outside services. Could they rent equipment? Yes, yes they could. We settled on $5,000 a month for the balance of the project (about nine more months).

I bought the latest and greatest CP/M microcomputer from CroMemCo, a snappy little z-100 based thing, with not one, but two, TWO 8-inch floppy drives (a full megabyte each). Got a copy of dBase II – total hardware and software, around $14,000. Took about three hours to write a little data entry, maintenance, and backup program in dBase II, a day to break up the data into groups small enough to fit on a disk. Took it to the B&R office, and the blonde took about all of thirty seconds to figure out how to use it. Showed the B&R Systems Programmers how to copy to and from the mainframe, they worked close to a week to create a Procedure to update from floppies to their big computer and back (this was in the days when the computers were still the bailiwick of the Accounting Department and everything had to be specified completely and approved by Managers before they could write a line of code).

Since it was only “rented”, I took it back when they were done with it.

I could probably let it go, cheap...

[Rimbo 25911]

21 hours ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

1992 IBM Model-M keyboard. Yes, a mechanical 'clickity' keyboard.  The greatest, and most indestructible keyboard ever built. I have a work and personal computers on my desk in my home office. This is attached to my personal computer because there would be no way to type while on Team calls unless you were muted. 

I have the new version of this that Unicomp makes. Same tech, current century.

[Rimbo 25911]

So I can beat the bike with my 1982 Fuji Berkeley.

But I feel like musical instruments are a cheat code to this game. Oh, there's the 1995 Ibanez bass. The 1989 Ensoniq synth I still use. The 1984 Peavey Combo amp for the bass. Mom's ca 1969 Sorrento classical guitar.

But beating all that is the 1700s-era cello, and if you don't think that's tech, I'll point out that this uses a design that predates Stradivarius, which every cello/viola/violin since has mimicked. But that's why this particular cello sounds so cool.

[Tex Long 4383]

6 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

So I can beat the bike with my 1982 Fuji Berkeley.

But I feel like musical instruments are a cheat code to this game. Oh, there's the 1995 Ibanez bass. The 1989 Ensoniq synth I still use. The 1984 Peavey Combo amp for the bass. Mom's ca 1969 Sorrento classical guitar.

But beating all that is the 1700s-era cello, and if you don't think that's tech, I'll point out that this uses a design that predates Stradivarius, which every cello/viola/violin since has mimicked. But that's why this particular cello sounds so cool.

Post some cool sounds from it. Or links to such.

[QuesoEspecial 255]

Nintendo Entertainment System from 1986…fire it up and play Super Mario Brothers with wired controllers from time to time

[AUinHsv 579]

21 hours ago, deadshank said:

Still using my HP-12c I’ve had since 1984.  Not one to give up on a calculator. 

One up you with HP41C - I have two

Also several of mentioned IBM keyboards. Those things rock

And box of about 5000 IBM punched cards. Use them all the time for notes

Edited May 3 by AUinHsv

[deadshank 24652]

10 minutes ago, AUinHsv said:

One up you with HP41C - I have two

Also several of mentioned IBM keyboards. Those things rock

And box of about 5000 IBM punched cards. Use them all the time for notes

It is amusing to pull out an old school financial calculator and use it when running numbers with a younger person.  
 

I was purchasing some company fleet vehicles and the dealer’s finance guy was using his computer to run the interest rate / term / finance amount models to give me the monthly.  He wasn’t really paying much attention to me as he was stroking the keys on his desktop computer’s keyboard to produce numbers.  Really simple stuff.

Every time he came up with a monthly payment amount I’d beat him to the punch and have the solution just a moment before he did.  He was flustered and asked if I was a savant.  
 

I replied to the negative and held up my HP-12c.   He looked at me as if I had some of Satan’s secret magic in my grimy paw and asked “what the hell is that thing?”  I showed him as he had never seen nor heard of one.  
 

I showed him how it works and what it does.  He was enthralled.  So much so he called me 3 days later to say he bought one and was learning how to use it.  
 

/csb

[Humpy 112]

HP-11c in shirt pocket at all times, the HP-15c stays in the office.

[Paper_jam 831]

My HP-20S from my college days still going strong, well after 30 years.

 

[Armybrat 40822]

2 minutes ago, Paper_jam said:

My HP-20S from my college days still going strong, well after 30 years.

 

 

[Rimbo 25911]

2 hours ago, Tex Long said:

Post some cool sounds from it. Or links to such.

 

So the choir-pad sound @ 1:00 or so is the Ensoniq synth; my crappy cello playing starts around 1:33.

[CycleTex87 2966]

9 hours ago, davidg said:

RPN for life! But my 15c stays at home and I have a great HP11c app (RLM 11CX) on my phone and iPad that is a great emulation.

That’s awesome. Had no idea there was an HP11C app. I now have it.  My 11c is crapped out. 

[rage-a-holic 4379]

jesus fucking christ, you fucking people

 

things that are not "old tech" :

• hammers
• hand saws
• newspapers
• glass pipes
• skillets
• non-electronic musical instruments
• bicycles

 

Edited May 4 by rage-a-holic
spelling

[Rimbo 25911]

15 minutes ago, rage-a-holic said:

jesus fucking christ, you fucking people

 

things that are not "old tech" :

• hammers
• hand saws
• newspapers
• glass pipes
• skillets
• non-electronic musical instruments
• bicycles

 

[0xdeadbeef 1645]

2 hours ago, rage-a-holic said:

jesus fucking christ, you fucking people

 

things that are not "old tech" :

• bicycles

 

Going to have to disagree with you there chief. By the late '70s there was a lot of tech going into high end bikes.

 

[rage-a-holic 4379]

6 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Going to have to disagree with you there chief. By the late '70s there was a lot of tech going into high end bikes.

 

Bicycles were invented in 1817. They are not "tech"