Your oldest, most outdated device

IBM PS/2 (mostly) keyboard from an RS/6000 workstation from around 1986. Essentially one of the good clicky keyboards. Works ok as a PS/2 keyboard on modern machines, but fails during soft reboots sometimes.<p>IBM 4758 32-bit PCI HSM from circa 1998 and an nCipher NFast from around 2001.<p>IBM ThinkPad T43p with a UXGA 15" IPS LCD.<p>Martini-Henry rifles from Afghanistan. For one I'd actually shoot, an ex-Nazi, ex-IDF Mauser rifle in .308, with Nazi proofmark and IDF star on the same receiver, and a Hebrew name on the stock.

<i>“Or,” he continues, “maybe there is a simpler explanation: You can't order a car stereo off Amazon, which is where I get the rest of my stuff.”</i><p>...huh? <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&#38;field-keywords=car+stereo" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3D...</a><p>(The oldest thing I own is a Sega Genesis Model 1 -- not terribly old, but it is a few years older than me.)

I've got quite a few of the best keyboards that were ever on the market: IBM Model M. And I'm proud that I have them, and use them.<p>I've a working Commodore 64. With 2 1541's. And a tape deck.<p>I have a working quadrophonic 8track player.<p>I have a working Edisongraph conical record player, the horn, along with about a dozen cylinders.<p>I have 300+ electron tubes I'm trying to sell to interested hackers. All US tubes. No janky Russian tubes.<p>I have a huge electronics parts cabinet with semiconductor tech from the late '60s, 70's, 80's, 90's, and 00's.<p>And I use a unlocked, jailbroken iphone 3gs for my phone.

Casio CZ1000 from 1985. Hours upon hours of fun: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6vyCNWJVME" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6vyCNWJVME</a><p>Close second, a Kawai K4R rompler from 1989. It is also seriously badass: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7VSPDeN19c" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7VSPDeN19c</a><p>80s digital synthesis gear is incredibly unfashionable now and therefore very very cheap. Lots of it is almost being thrown away, like the classic analog kit was in the 80s. I'm sure you can guess how much that stuff's worth today...

Probably my desk phone. It's a rotary phone built in the 1950's. It's got mechanical bells on it, and the voice quality is far better than any of the modern phones.<p>I bought it 'new' about 15 years ago, as it had been sitting overlooked in a warehouse since it was made.<p>I have other old stuff, but this one is in daily use.

70s: Videomaster Enterprise, Atari 2600<p>80s: TRS-80 model 100, Sharp pc-1211 (both work and the latter allows weeks long computing on the one charge; eat your heart out Haswell!), MSX 1 and 2 computers (around 20 of them, all working), Amiga 500, Commodore 64 and 128, few ZX Spectrums, arcade joysticks with 1,2,3 buttons, music keyboard with a special connector which fits only a cartridge on the msx, a ton of modems for the above computers (1200/75 baud)<p>90s: around 8 Apple Newtons, Psion 5, few SGI O2s, 10 Sparcstations, E450 and a big load of laptops/desktops<p>Everything is working still (if it breaks I fix it to satisfy my electronics and soldering lust). Stuff I use regularly: MSX-2 to code on (making a game, I like the keyboard better than my laptop and it's more of a challenge to write software on paper to such a standard that the machine doesn't crash upon running it, wasting a lot of time) and creating extensions (like ethernet and making it into a 'laptop'), Atari 2600, C64 (last ninja plays nicer with an arcade joystick than the sad controls on the Android emulator) and Amiga 500 (Shadow of the beast plays nicer with an arcade etcetc).

Pretty easy for me its an old Thinkpad 101 key keyboard that I got for my Thinkpad 750C when I got the 'dock' for it (which held up to three ISA cards, back when a dock meant something :-))<p>The keyboard though is has the same mechanical cherry switches of the PC keyboard except it has the trackpad pressure sensitve joystick thing in the crotch of the home row. Oh and mouse buttons below the space bar which can come in handy too.

I have two Acoustic Coupler modems. A Racal Vadic and an Anderson/Jacobson, they're early 1980's, 75/110/300/600/1200bps selectable by DIP switches. One of them has an embossing of Van Jacobson's signature. Sadly I don't think I have a telephone that fits either of them anymore so I can't demo them.<p>Outside of that I have a car from 1978 with Mechanical Fuel Injection, and some pre-1900's pyrotechnic machines.

I have a small collection of older unique/high end computer hardware. Up until a few years ago my firewall was OpenBSD on a DEC Alpha 21164 at 533Mhz, with 512MB of RAM, which I retired just to save on power. Also in the collection are a Mac IIfx and a SGI O2, both in working order.<p>I also have a set of early 80's Bose 901 speakers in my office, which were acquired for $25 at a yard sale.

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone think that in ten, twenty years, their "most outdated device" would be their personal computer? It's like Moore's law has been too kind -- just 3 years ago I don't think I would've ever had this thought. But now, IMO, the only real reason you'd need to update your PC would be for newer games. Otherwise, there really is no reason why you'd ever need more computational power than you currently have (say, mid-high range ivy bridge, decent graphics, etc). Anything more intensive that cannot be reasonably handled by your own computer, you have the cloud -- crunch large numbers, computer renders, etc.<p>Or am I just afraid of change? Am I missing something? Do I really need to update my hardware for a better screen? Perhaps the day Wi-Fi becomes obsolete, maybe then I'd have to buy a new laptop...

My great great grandfathers hand saw, and my fathers Rancilio Silvia espresso machine (gen one). In a subtly different vein... Oldest software/service? For me its a copy of Marathon (well, all of them actually).

In use: A Telequipment D61 Oscilloscope (1974).<p>In the cupboard: A tube of unused WD2795A floppy drive controller integrated circuits. I'd throw them out, but I've got delusions that one day someone will have to repair a drive to read some critical data, and these will be the last WD2795A chips in existence. Never mind that that the oxide layer all the world's 8 inch and 5 1/4 inch floppies (including my own) is probably dust by now.<p>Edit: Forgot to mention the 5 1/4", 3.5" and zip drives, still powered up and hanging off the IDE bus of the desktop I use.

1886 Columbia Standard highwheel bicycle, the ultimate hipster fixie. Yes, I ride it (though not all that often), including 100 mile rides.<p>For computing tech it would have to be an Apple Newton. It isn't terribly old, but I gave up using my house to curate a computing museum years ago.

I love the comments on the Yahoo page complaining about new technology. You just KNOW these are people that got turned on to Yahoo in the 90s and have been using it for 'Internet' ever since.

I have an NES. I'm sad that the Zapper and Duck Hunt from the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt Game Pak doesn't work with my LCD HDTV. Everything else works great, though.

This would be easy if I were still living with the folks as my old bedroom is virtually a vintage computing <i>museum</i>.<p>Since moving out - and abroad no less - I have to think a little. Probably a 2GB USB memory stick I brought with me. I shudder to think how much it cost new at the time and perhaps because of that still sentimentally use it over the 16GB+ sticks I've acquired since. Good ol', reliable 2GB USB stick!

Mine's a Sony Discman D-E200 ESP2, not really THAT old. But still, not many people walk around with cds and a discman anymore.

Commodore Amiga A1200. I need to get it an accelerator card though.

Panasonic CRT with built in VCR player.<p>It's used daily.

An Olivetti M24 :-)

My 80s-era digital alarm clock, sans front. I usually sleep heavily, and I fear this clock finally breaking down and having to find another one that works.<p>A friend's dad had a vacuum cleaner that finally died after 30 years. He went into the store and asked for another one that was well-made like that, he was happy to pay extra. The salesman just laughed.

A Nintendo Super Color circa 1984.

A microvax. Well, two of them.

ugh<p>it doesn't take much effort to take an alcohol pad to your disgusting caked-on-brown keyboards and telephones, people.

Commodore C-64.