ZDawgWhat is the oldest electronic you own?
DagwoodIIIGot my aunt's rotary phone in the closet.
Probably my Canon AE-1. Not sure of the exact year, but the model was made from roughly '76 to '84.
ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠I 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).
My speakers by far
Fridge. Older than me
Binettemy first computer. it’s about 12 years old
Battle_MaskerProbably my dad’s electric turkey carver. It was a wedding gift he got in 1980
I have my old Speak & Spell. It still works.
southsamuraiOur 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 🤪
A ferrite core memory module, circa 1956.
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.
i keep wanting to rip the guts out and install a 40 inch tv with some self hosted stuff in the cabinet, amplifier etc.
it would be cool! but also that thing is cool as it is
i thought about doing this multiple times, but each time i remember that i’m considerably less handy than i like to think i am and that my hubris lead me to almost killing myself when i changed the breaks on my car myself. lol
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.
hansoloYou should throw it a quinceanera. Put it in a dress and buy it a small car.
I have a few, but the one that immediately came to mind is my HP16c calculator.
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.)
20 GB hard drive from 2006.
Next year we’re going to have a party for it.
Probably some old radio, not sure of the date though.
I have a lamp my grandfather made out of an old moonshine jug in like the 40s.
That sounds electrical, but not electronic.
Would a hand crank electric generator for a doorbell count?
Still no semiconductors.
I’d still count valves as electronics. No semiconductors there either. Relays too. Basically, once you’ve got an electrical signal controlling another electrical signal.
One of these telephones. Was my grandfather’s.
that is nice! its… sexy?
very solid, built to last. I used to use it to talk on skype.
Ohhhhhh YES AWESOME!
you got that hooked up to a PBX?
a little USB box that you plug the phone into, made it into an audio device. needed windows drivers and I no longer use windows.
ITT: electrical appliances lacking electronics
memfreeWhat 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.
At least one diode.
How do you figure?
Vacuum tubes are called triodes, pentobes, etc depending on how many whatevers it has, do those count?
Yes, because there will be at least one “whatever.”
Are thermionic diodes allowed or just semiconductor diodes? What about the early crystal diodes (subset of semiconductor). Did the Colossus computer count? Eniac? I guess particular items don't matter because no individual owns either and I doubt individual built replicas.
Per that definition:
Vacuum tubes (thermionic valves) were the first active electronic components... and by the 1920s, commercial radio broadcasting and telecommunications were becoming widespread and electronic amplifiers were being used in such diverse applications as long-distance telephony and the music recording industry.
So tubes are in! Old lamps are OUT!
Relays?
I think I would drive electronics as something where electricity is being used as a signal, not just for power.
So lamp no, heater no, amplifier yes.
Lamp with dimmer knob is borderline.
Depends if the dimming is passive or active.
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.
Don’t know if it counts, but my suitcase record player has vacuum tubes. Still spins but it needs a needle.
My TI-84 calculator.
Wii console
oxjoxI’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.
MelllvarA Nintendo64 with several game cartridges. It’s a little flaky, but it still works for the most part.
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.
DessalinesCasio f-91w watch. Its like 6 years old now, so the battery only has like 4 more years left.
Not a full electronic per se, but I do have a heatsink from an old second gen IBM memory module.
Sega Megadrive from about 1989.
MooseI have a Milton Bradley Microvision from around 1979, the first handgeld 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!
Either the wood-grain radio with clock or a 1970s bubble-LED calculator
ByteMeMy Nintendo dsi. Since 2009
Mossy Feathers (She/Her)I have a CRT from 1995. Aside from that, probably my dad’s turntable which has unofficially become mine, or the Yamaha electric keyboard
DarkFutureOriginal Gameboy.
Still works.