Asklemmy

Me. 62 years. As long as it keeps on ticking, I'm proud.

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.

My original NES and game cartridges. Still work great, although retired as collectibles in favor of emulators now.

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.

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.

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.

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 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)

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.

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.

Polaroid Land camera, ~1950. Found it after my grandparents passed. Never tried using it, it's just neat.

I have a wheel on my bike.

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

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.

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 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

My car. 1995.

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 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.

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.

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.)

Gameboy Color with 1st gen Pokemon still running strong

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.

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.

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.

Commodore 64 but for everyday stuff my Alienware X51 R3 is a weird, old Frankenstein monster

A 1930s era Sunkist Juicer. That thing is still chooching along and just juiced enough key limes for two pies last night.

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 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.

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.