And tell me how proud of it you are.
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.
You’re the badass stoich character from fantasy stories!
“I keep the relics of my ancestors to remind me we all die”
Certainly, no one would accuse me of insufficient gravitas.
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.
Those old KitchenAid mixers are beasts. I think they were still made by Hobart at that point and really built to last and easy to fix.
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.
Your city has sirens that go off every Monday?
Yup! A weekly 30 second test.
It’s relatively common in small towns. Some towns with volunteer fire departments will have a siren they use both to call all available volunteer firefighters and to announce the need to shelter for a tornado. They used to sound it at noon every day and my wife (then girlfriend) used it as an alarm clock when she worked 2nd shift anytime she slept in too late
About 5 years ago they stopped sounding it at noon, and honestly I’m not sure when the last time i heard the sirens was since tornadic storms are becomes much less common here and the firefighters have become increasingly reliant on their radios instead. I kinda miss it. There’s a quaintness to just listening for the noon whistle to tell time
It’s very common even today for fire sirens to still be in use, as well as noon whistles. Unfortunately, people complain about the noise despite choosing to live near the fire department, and the sirens get shut off.
Which country are you in? Not a thing I’ve heard of happening here in the UK
Canada. It’s not really a thing in the UK. Fire sirens/noon whistles are mostly a North American/European thing.
But why do you have sirens?
Because it’s a hobby of mine, has been for years.
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 could use it through my back jeans pocket. It was great!
In public would it just look like you’re caressing your own ass?
Probably. Just quickly and more of a poke the cheek. I did have a headphone cord coming out of the pocket though, so maybe less suspect. this was around 2010 probably.
The click wheel also works through fabric. I miss changing songs and adjusting volume without removing it from my pocket.
It’s currently not working, but I’m going to replace the battery soon on my 80gb Zune. I fucking loved that thing back in high school. I want to make it my dedicated music device for my stereo set up, as a digital parallel to my turntable
I’m sorry you were bullied (I kid, I’ve had non ipod music players (still do), but I hope you didn’t get beat up a lot for having a zune, thats not fair to you)
I know you were joking, but luckily my high school really wasn’t too bad when it came to bullying. Like, there were the cliques that beefed, but there weren’t any like, actual bullies. I think what helped was that all of the really big dudes (I was a “small” big dude, at 6’2" 200lbs) we’re all nerds, and we protected the small nerds. We couldn’t let anyone hurt any of our WoW guildees haha
I still keep mine in my car. Have you seen Dankpods mod them with terabyte micro SD kits? Stuff is amazing.
I did it to mine. It’s fantastic.
If I could get Spotify and FLAC files on this then I’d be in heaven
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)
Similarly, my PS2 which I got for Christmas in 2003 is still running strong, I replayed Simpsons Hit & Run recently and it the console plays as well as it did when I first booted up.
It also has the honour of being the last device I own capable of playing DVDs since my PC’s optical disc drive died.
Our wii is still hanging in there, though there DVD drive doesn’t like to fully latch and I have to keep the side cover loose too hello it Fully load.
But I also have a working PS2, PS1 with GameShark that can load pirated games. And a battery working finicky NES.
Same here. While mine is connected, I have no reason to use it with newer consoles in the same cabinet.
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.
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.
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.
That is just brilliant!
Thanks. It has occurred to me to add a voice assistant to the phone as well but I’m not sure I’d ever actually use it.
My car. 1995.
I have several of the original Philips LED replacement bulbs, which were some of the very first LED bulbs available. Paid about $35CAD each for them in late 2009 and they’re built out of solid metal and weigh a ton. They’re still going strong and put out a lovely light.
1966 Fender Princeton guitar amplifier. Me likey
My Aiwa P22 micro hifi from 1978. Very nice, compact and sounds great.
I have a beard trimmer from like 2008. I have literally no feelings about it.
Lmao
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 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.