atari vcs (from before it was rebranded to atari 2600)
oldest electronic
Electronic WHAT!?! Choose a noun, son.
I suspect this is the (non-word) singular form of the noun “electronics”. If there’s a better term for such words, and you let me know what it is, I will give you my thank.
Gizmo
I 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).
Fridge. Older than me
My speakers by far
Probably my Canon AE-1. Not sure of the exact year, but the model was made from roughly '76 to '84.
my first computer. it’s about 12 years old
Probably my dad’s electric turkey carver. It was a wedding gift he got in 1980
Our 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.
Casio CZ-1 synthesizer, produced in 1986.
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 have my old Speak & Spell. It still works.
I have my grandmothers iMac G4. Just an interesting looking from the days when Apple made interesting looking things. It still works but it’s really used for anything.
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.
Real cool though.
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.
