Electrical gadgets that still work many years later

[UphillSlowly]

My mum bought this in 1988. I inherited it when I was at University, when I cut my dreadlocks off. Still working well today, despite the aged packaging.

 

[richardfm]

I still use a radio/cassette player that I bought in Singapore when I was in the merchant navy. It must be about 42 years old.

 

[tyred]

My vacuum cleaner dates from the 70s and it was presumably a cheapo model at the time as it was made in Czechoslovakia. I did once replace the starting capacitor.

 

[Bazzer]

When I was clearing out the loft towards the end of last year, I came across our old JVC VHS player which dates from 1985. This was quite handy because a couple of hours or so earlier, I had found a box of VHS tapes, which included around 2 dozen mystery or vaguely titled home recordings.
The player worked perfectly and with the aid of a conversion device bought from Amazon, we now have digital copies of forgotten recordings of our daughters growing up.

 

[raleighnut]

My QUAD pre/power amplifiers, dating from the late 60's-early 70's still sound fantastic. If they do develop a fault they get boxed up and returned to the factory service dept where the majority of the spares are still available.

 

[kynikos]

I've just connected my 60 year old doorbell chime up to my new video doorbell. Works perfectly, just as it always has done. I know which will require replacement first - and it won't be the chime!

 

[ColinJ]

I still use my old** Galaxy Tab 8.9. I bought it in 2012 and have used it nearly every day since.

The tablet is way out of date and no longer supported by Samsung. Most modern apps will not run but I have a selection of old puzzle games on it which I still enjoy playing.

I keep it on a bedside table. I often play a game of Sudoku, Spider Solitaire, Backgammon etc before going to sleep.

I am amazed that its battery still holds charge well. I get near enough a week between charges.

The biggest problem with it is that the power switch is nearly dead. I have to press it hard 5 or 6 times to wake the device up. When the switch finally dies completely I will open the tablet up and try to fix it. Failing that, a fallback option is to plug the charger cable in. That always wakes the device.

I am typing this on a much more recent Galaxy Tab. It is much better for most things but the old tablet is nicer to hold for long periods because it is smaller and lighter, so I will carry on using it as long as I can.

As for old hair clippers... Mine don't date back as far as @UphillSlowly's but I must have bought them at least 25 years ago. Still working fine apart from one of the plastic clip-on guards (?) which snapped when I dropped the clippers on a tiled floor.

** Not old by normal standards, but pretty old for a tech device!

 

[Sea of vapours]

I have a Garmin GPS 12XL and a GPS II+ (handheld gps receivers), from 1994 and 1995, both of which still worked when I powered them on, just out of interest, a few months ago.

 

[gavroche]

I bought a brother electronic typewriter in 1994 and it still works although it needs a new ribbon now which you can still buy from Amazon, so it is not in use at the moment.

 

[numbnuts]

This from the late 70s

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

I still have a Garmin Forerunner 201 from 2003 that I dig out on occasion for a parkrun. Surprisingly the battery still lasts very well. It was the first sports GPS unit Garmin produced for running that you should get data off of (via RS-232). I keep a Windows 7 virtual machine going simply to manage it. As it’s not been supported by Garmin for some time the GPS data table doesn’t get updated (the GPS week number rolls over every 1,024 weeks) so I need to use fitfiletools.com to correct the date before uploading to Strava etc.

I suspect few are still being used for their intended purpose due to the work needed to manage the data.

 

[ColinJ]

I have a Garmin GPS 12XL and a GPS II+ (handheld gps receivers), from 1994 and 1995, both of which still worked when I powered them on, just out of interest, a few months ago.

I didn't realise that they were available that long ago!

Hmm... I just Googled it. GPS is so old that Ronald Reagan was responsible for opening it up for civilian use over 40 years ago.

 

[winjim]

I've invaded someone's air fryer thread with this but I suppose it could go here as the sort of opposite. My pressure cooker has wiring which goes from the front panel up through the hinge in the lid to the sensors and solenoids at the top. Repeated openings of the lid have worn away the insulation and finally severed the wire. So it's probably fixable but is gonna be a pain in the arse to do. It's a demonstration of how the complicated bits have kept going but the whole thing might have to be junked because of a very minor design flaw affecting a simple component.

 

[13 rider]

I've invaded someone's air fryer thread with this but I suppose it could go here as the sort of opposite. My pressure cooker has wiring which goes from the front panel up through the hinge in the lid to the sensors and solenoids at the top. Repeated openings of the lid have worn away the insulation and finally severed the wire. So it's probably fixable but is gonna be a pain in the arse to do. It's a demonstration of how the complicated bits have kept going but the whole thing might have to be junked because of a very minor design flaw affecting a simple component.

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Whatever you do , oh hang on I've done that joke sorry 🥴

 

[Sea of vapours]

I didn't realise that they were available that long ago!

Hmm... I just Googled it. GPS is so old that Ronald Reagan was responsible for opening it up for civilian use over 40 years ago.

Indeed so. GPS receivers were in use by the public on, for example, boats in the mid to late eighties, but hand held units small enough for use on hill walks and such didn't appear until the early nineties. I think my two old ones, at nearly thirty years, are quite impresssive for longevity. They're very robust compared to modern ones (for which read 'quite heavy').