And tell me how proud of it you are.
I’ve got a Miele washing machine that’s the best part of 40 years old. It’s required some maintenance over the years. However, it was designed with maintenance in mind, so all the repairs have been fairly painless.
My 5 year old dishwasher, on the other hand, has cost me more time, money and stress than the (very overworked) washing machine.
Miele shit just continues to exist inexplicably. Literally unbreakable (permanently). And according to what I’ve read, at least, their modern stuff has not dropped in quality
I honestly can’t think of any brands that have anything close to that longevity
It’s the little things that count.
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The drain pump is just 3 bolts to take off (pump came back to life after I tipped it. The new one is still sat in the cupboard a decade later).
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The electronics are mounted on their own door. They swing out, and are VERY easy to service.
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The wiring diagram was in a plastic wallet inside the machine.
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The shocks are easy to access and come off with an M10 spanner and are easy access.
Those are just the ones that have noticed explicitly, the whole machine was built with that mentality.
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I used a Miele hoover as a shop vac, hoovering wall plaster, muck and sawdust etc and pretty much abused it - replaced all filters and gave it a good clean and it still works like new. That was 5 years ago and it’s still going fine.
IMHO, if a dishwasher isn’t under warranty, and it’s a mechanical or electrical issue, you might just want to replace it. The cost of technician and parts can add up, and a new machine with a good reviews is only around $500 usd.
It’s a bit crappy that manufacturers have managed to essentially force us into a subscription for our home appliances, by making self repair uneconomical and expensive, almost guaranteeing a replacement every 4-5 years.
The repair contract on my washing machine is about to run out, and that thing has been serviced many times at this point. Once for a blown mainboard, burnt out motor, and other miscellaneous issues that some of the techs haven’t been able to identify, having to return again with more bits.
At least I have a spare mainboard now and the last tech fitted a brand new motor, which is way quieter than the horrifically loud original one
Agreed. IMHO, Bosch has a pretty good track record for dishwashers. Those things usually last a good long while.
It’s fixed now. It was a 10p sensor embedded in a £65 piece of plastic. The error message had me barking up the wrong tree. It’s fixed now, at least.
I dislike being wasteful. When my last TV died, while I replaced it, I then fixed it, and gave it to a friend. £10 backlight, and an hour or so of effort.
Why? Mine went error 17, that’s water in the bottom, turns out the seals had become damaged over the years. 1€ replacement part, 25 Minutes of time and a YouTube video and the thing has been running for 3 years as of now, again (total age 12 years).
My original NES and game cartridges. Still work great, although retired as collectibles in favor of emulators now.
I got lucky with mine. I started having issues with mine around 2000. I lived in Washington, only like an hour from Nintendo of America. At the time, Nintendo still serviced all their old consoles up to and including their current consoles. (This would change in 2006, with the Wii, when they started releasing old games digitally, it was game-over for their long-term servicing of old consoles.) So I took mine in, and if I recall correctly, it was about $50 to get all my games professionally cleaned and for the console to be cleaned, fixed, and sent home with new power supply and controllers.
It’s been a champ ever since.
I wish I had known about that. The cleaning accessories I’ve found over the years have kept it going without issues, but I definitely would have sent mine in for a preventative professional cleaning and refurbishing if they found anything wrong with it.
I remember being a bit surprised when I found out about it, but it also seems to be that a lot of people didn’t know about this service, despite it being something Nintendo seemed to pride themselves in for a long time. Maybe they just didn’t publicize it widely enough?
I never heard anything about it. I definitely would have sent in the NES, SNES, and N64 for servicing if it was on my radar.
Neat.
I have a hand-me-down NES from a relative that sadly passed away, console works a treat but at some point within the past decade the cartridge batteries went flat. Finally have the gamebit driver to replace them but the gear is all packed away at the back of my storage cupboard…
Could always do the melted pen trick (outside; burning plastic is not good for you). Could risk melting the game cart plastic, though if you get the pen too hot.
Same here. It’s been a while since I’ve owned an actual TV to hook them up to though.
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.
A pocketwatch manufactured in 1889. I keep it running as a memento mori:
And to think I almost typed in my Lumia 1020… 🤣 🤣 Hats off mate!
If you happen to want one, they are surprisingly affordable (I think I paid ~100$). So many were made, for so many years, that they are not exactly rare! Some antiques are fun like that.
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?
That was common in the town where I grew up. The sirens were used as tornado warnings, so they made sure they were in good working order.
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.
Yup! A weekly 30 second test.
But why do you have sirens?
Because it’s a hobby of mine, has been for years.
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.
Those are the mixers of legends 💪🧑🍳💪
I am the oldest piece of working hardware I own and I am constantly disappointed by it
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
You probably mean electronic not technology. But I have a mechanical singer sewing machine from the 1800s that’s still in working order.
Those things were built like tanks. As long as the main inner rod (name is escaping me right now) isn’t literally bent, and you can keep uo with maintenance/minor repairs it’ll probably keep running forever.
I’m a bit of a collector of old sewing machines; I love how simple a machine they are and yet so incredibly useful! They were also built to be able to be repaired by just about anyone, which is so cool. If you had to pick a single machine that shows how much capitalism has engineered backwards into built-in obsolescence from something we had already figured out, the sewing machine would be a good example.
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.
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)
Hey, keeping a first gen PS3 running after all those years is more impressive than you might think. Wayyy too many of those cooked themselves on 12+ hr gaming sessions back in the day
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.
Polaroid Land camera, ~1950. Found it after my grandparents passed. Never tried using it, it’s just neat.
They’re a lot of fun if you can get the film. Some company reverse engineered it and then went out of business, but I think there are still options if you’re willing to pay $2 a photo.
I have a Kodak Brownie here somewhere. I’ve never tried using it, but it should work - the shutter spring is in place and functional. The mirror for the viewfinder is messed up, too, so I might not be able to frame the shot correctly either.
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 wheel on my bike.
I have cosmic dust from the moon and stars in my body
My bike is made from an element that has been shaped by man into a more useful… shape.
Sunbeam Radiant Control Toaster.
Shit’s fire
Fucking Technology Connections.
I imported one and converted it to 230V. Shit is, indeed, fire.
Got one too. 1952-1957 vintage.
