Technology that has endured?

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Awrrr
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#3374248 18-May-2025 10:48

Everything I have is old. Including me. I have laptops from the 1970s. G5 Macbooks. Car is 2003. My 2015 Shield does still send TV to the TV. I control it with a Flirc. The controller is an original Harmony One. I have a pc running Vista. House is from 1920s. I still use an analogue voltmeter. I could go on.

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richms

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#3374250 18-May-2025 11:44

I have some very very old netgear switches in blue metal boxes that are still working. 10/100 only. Seem to be more reliable with low speed stuff like arduino hats and similar than plugging into my unifi gigabit ports.

Mind you, the things I used them for have all but one of them being retired and replaced with ESP boards on wifi as the arduino and ethernet hat was reaching its limit memory wise all the time with MQTT before even running other things.

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TwoSeven

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#3374252 18-May-2025 11:48

traderstu:

the wheel

I would suggest the Axel was invented before the wheel.

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froob

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#3374305 18-May-2025 12:46

Probably my oldest is an ARCAM Alpha amplifier, which powers some (newer) bookshelf speakers in my kitchen.i think the amp is from the early or mid 80s. Still going strong, although I’m missing a couple of the nobs.

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aaristotle

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#3374315 18-May-2025 13:35

Still using my Fluke 73 digital multimeter I bought in 1983. The 9v battery seems to last about 10 years, and I may have replaced the fuse a couple of times since new, when I've forgotten to move the probe from the current socket back to the voltage socket before plugging into the mains!

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#3374325 18-May-2025 14:27

Dulouz:

I have a 13 year old Apple Thunderbolt display which still works great.

I wonder if you'd feel the same way if you compared it to a modern day equivalent side by side. LED's have a half life, but you'd unlikely notice as it's very small amounts over a long time.

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pdh

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#3374333 18-May-2025 15:28

My Panasonic Technics 1300 turntable - that I bought in 1976 in Montreal.
It's been playing vinyl for me for nearly 50 years and doing a very fine job.

A few weeks ago, I had it serviced by Turntable Guy (free plug - he's really good) and we discovered that the speed wobble was due to a new & surprisingly bad 110-220 transformer that obviously does a very poor job of creating the 50Hz phase - that the turntable must lock on to. Now back to my old (bulky) transformer, cleaned & lubed and its working like a charm.

pdh

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#3374334 18-May-2025 15:45

Also must give a shout out to my Sears 10" Radial Arm Saw - bought in 1974 and still soldiering on.
It's not quite as tight and accurate as it was 50 years ago - but still does a fine job on cross-cutting.
It's just helped me build a new house - so although it's no longer my main saw, it still makes a lot of sawdust.

Remarkable that it's survived the abuse of the past 43 years, running it at 50 Hz instead of its native 60.
(It was designed to run at 100 or 220 - with a simple wiring change.)

But the drop to 50 hurts the rotational speed by 17% - which drops the power by 30% (square of speed).
So I have to baby it through wet 4x4's.

Swapping the motor on a radial arm saw isn't really on - since the motor is on the blade axis and integral to the gimbal assembly - and Sears never sold its tools into 50 Hz parts of the world. But I've always dreamed of finding a cheap frequency converter - to run it back up to full song.

A lesson in buying good kit - and looking after it.

traderstu

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#3374335 18-May-2025 15:51

TwoSeven:

traderstu:

the wheel

I would suggest the Axel was invented before the wheel.

Now, there's a chicken/egg conundrum

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#3374336 18-May-2025 15:52

traderstu:

Now, there's a chicken/egg conundrum

So we know the answer? Because the chicken/egg thing is obvious.

sir1963

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#3374337 18-May-2025 16:03

My Dick Smith systems-80 still works...and I even have the service manual for it.

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Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#3374338 18-May-2025 16:17

sir1963:

My Dick Smith systems-80 still works...and I even have the service manual for it.

Hell I've got a BBC Acorn. Not that it gets much use these days.

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eracode

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#3374340 18-May-2025 16:49

Rikkitic:

I have laptops from the 1970s.

Laptops - plural - wow, early adopter. Found this on the ‘net:

“1975: IBM 5100. Often considered one of the first commercially available portable computers. It was a self-contained unit with a 5-inch CRT display, keyboard, and tape drive for storage. However, it weighed around 55 pounds, making it more of a "luggable" than a true laptop.

Late 1970s: Micro Bee, Atari 800. These were more like transportable personal computers with separate components that needed to be connected to a television for display.”

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Scott3

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#3374342 18-May-2025 17:09

I also have a 2015 Nvidia shield pro.

Just decided to upgrade an older fire stick in the bedroom (that TV is not 4k, but I have 4k files for benefit of the other TV, and it was struggling with them), and was shocked to find that the Nvidia shield pro (2019) is still considered the best streaming / Kodi Box on the market. Feels wrong to order an expensive bit of 2019 tech in 2025, but it is in transit at the moment.

I'm also running a 2013 era Dell M4700 mobile workstation laptop as my personal laptop. My have had a bunch of upgrades (SSD, ram etc), thermal paste replacement, had the GPU replaced when it died, and a bunch of fluf cleaned out, but it is epic that it is still going strong after more than a decade.

My Wifi / router is an Asus RT-AC68U (2014 launch date). Has been rock solid stable. But it is on the list to be upgraded (I am going to skip wifi6 and go straight to wifi 7)

robjg63

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#3374343 18-May-2025 17:12

1988 F&P clothes dryer.

2009 Panasonic 50" Plasma TV - still going strong....

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