What's the oldest tech device in your possession?

[brewer]

A (albeit broken) VE 301



and a model very similar to this one



in working condition. I recently changed the ECL86  triode / pentode in the output stage. It dearly needs replacement of some capacitors, too.

Cool. Does that literally translate to "peoples receiver"?

[pocaracas]

Not sure it still works, but I have a 48k Sinclair ZX spectrum that looks like this:

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Also, a still functioning famicom.

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Had to look up both those.

Always glad to contribute to your "culture"!

[brewer]

Oh, if it counts as tech, I have an 1891 Argentinian Mauser rifle - so old it isn't legally considered a firearm.

Does it still function?

[vorlon13]

LOL, just remembered, I have one of these.  Still use it too.  It definitely has a vacuum tube in it.

I like saying the word sorghum. What setting do you use for milo?

We only raise corn and soybeans here, so that is all it's used for.  We used to raise wheat, but stopped before getting the moisture tester.

[vorlon13]

Oh, if it counts as tech, I have an 1891 Argentinian Mauser rifle - so old it isn't legally considered a firearm.

It's disassembled, and no ammo in the house, but I have a 1916 Ruby pistol.  One of my grandfathers used it on the job.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Should have been the oldest tech that you still use. I would have replied with a mechanical Hasselblad from 1975.

[brewer]

Should have been the oldest tech that you still use. I would have replied with a mechanical Hasselblad from 1975.

Had to look that one up also.

[vorlon13]

I'm not the original owner, but I have an HP35 calculator from '72 or '73 and it still works.

[Jackalope]

Oh, if it counts as tech, I have an 1891 Argentinian Mauser rifle - so old it isn't legally considered a firearm.

Does it still function?

As far as I know. I've never attempted to fired it, don't have ammunition for.it, don't really have much interest in doing so.

[JuliaL]

I'm hopeless at throwing things away.

In silicon, my oldest is a Radio Shack Pocket Computer 1.  I don't even think of it as old.

Going back before that is a rather extensive 8 track collection of tapes and a few players.
I've developed some expertise at fixing them and like the contrarian atmosphere in which I've got a viable working tech that everybody else considers not only obsolete, but ill conceived in the first place.

Then there is the Radiac set (geiger counter) that used to belong to the US Navy during the early cold war 'duck and cover' period.  It now contains (as far as I remember) seventy two 9 volt batteries to make up the couple hundred volts needed to run vacuum tube innards.  I had to build them up because the dry-cells originally called for haven't been in production for decades.

But my prize possessions are the prototype read/write heads from the very first digital magnetic storage devices:  ca 1948.   Part of projects to supply the NSA (before it was the NSA) with their very first digital computer, the ERA 1101.