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Obsolete: how much old tech do you have

I still have my HP45 calculator, which gets turned on a couple of times a year. Reading about the HP35 in the March (?) 1972 issue of Popular Electronics made me think that personal computers would be coming soon.
 
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zephonic said:
I was trouble shooting some internet stuff today, and at some point went through boxes of old tech looking for stuff.

It made realize that over the last twenty years I have spent frightening amounts of money on bits and pieces that are now obsolete.

Dozens of external HDD's, the USB ones still usable but the Firewire ones are paper weights at this point. Tons of cables, too. 10-100Mbps ethernet switches, a MoCA extender (remember those?).

It all cost money, a lot of money. But it all pales in comparison to the amount of money I have spent on now obsolete Apple products.


Ah, the price we pay for the convenience of progress. Or the progress of convenience, not sure.


How much old tech do you have? Anybody still rocking SCSI out there?
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I still have a DVI port for my old PC I used to play Solitaire and Mine Sweeper on
 
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I have a bunch of cables, some thumb drives, and a couple of old keyboards in a drawer, but otherwise I stay technologically lean. We've moved quite a bit in our 36 years of marriage and packing and moving a bunch of stuff I wasn't using anymore got old quickly.
 
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Quite a bit and I still use it. Regularly.
  • HP42s calculator ~ 1989
  • Praktica film camera ~ 1985
  • HP multimeter ~ 1972
 
eyoungren said:
The 30" displays took some doing. That was not overnight. The first one was local and cost me $100, the second was around $300 off eBay and the last three I just happened to be in the right forum on MR at the right time. A member here periodically disposes of excess equipment that NAU (Northern Arizona University) gives him. I got those three for free. He drove down from Flagstaff to pick up something from someone else and I met him here locally. That all started in 2020 I think, so took me roughly five years to get them all.

I dread any time I actually have to rearrange things. There's so much little stuff sitting on this desk that unless I take pictures, I never put it all back right.

And the cable management beneath the desk. OMG!
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I believe you. In my headspace, the feat isn't impressive because of the cost, but because of the space and the wiring and the time it would take to set all that up. TBH I don't want a desk that big. And I've maxed out at 3 monitors and 3 computers. (now down to 2 monitors and 3 computers). With the accessories and some RGB lighting and stuff... and my desk adjusts height.. the cable management is already enough of a nightmare.

Hats off to ya.
 
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I think the oldest Apple kit I regularly use are the keyboards.

I use a wired and wireless (home & travel) of the 2nd gen designs from around 2007-ish

Wired one is A1242
Wireless one is A1255

Shown below

l5tnm03hndad1.jpeg
1780841796357.png
 
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Nathan King said:
The only old tech I own that I will never get rid of is my 20" G4. Still have the box and original packaging.

g4-edge.webp
g4-arm.webp


g4-front.webp
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I think it's the most beautiful Mac ever made.

I wish they'd rekindle this design language for a new iMac.

The base could be used for an incredible sound system (along with computing internals, which are now tiny) and perhaps an integrated MagSafe area for charging other devices.
 
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JoeG4 said:
I believe you. In my headspace, the feat isn't impressive because of the cost, but because of the space and the wiring and the time it would take to set all that up. TBH I don't want a desk that big. And I've maxed out at 3 monitors and 3 computers. (now down to 2 monitors and 3 computers). With the accessories and some RGB lighting and stuff... and my desk adjusts height.. the cable management is already enough of a nightmare.

Hats off to ya.
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Part of my problem is that in the industry I chose as my profession, possibilities and freedom converged. Early on I saw the possibilities of multiple monitors and custom built desks. One job I had, you could stay in your chair and move from one computer station to another because all the Macs were sitting on one long continuous 'desk'. It had been custom designed and built to handle multiple work stations.

In another job I was basically the only person doing what I do and given autonomy over the furniture and computers in my area. It meant arranging stuff how I liked and attaching multiple monitors to multiple computers.

I just got used to it. And my wife and I like our space. We have always rented homes from the time we got married, until we bought our current house.

The 'desk' in the picture is actually my attempt at cost savings. It's two kitchen tables of appropriate size (same model) that are lined up together. It was cheaper to do that because there's no way I can afford a custom build. And computer desks that come in this size are mostly custom built and expensive.

Eventually our kids will move out (18 and 22 right now) and my wife and I get their rooms back. And all this stuff in the living room can go back into what will be my room again. That means I can finally move stuff out of the garage as well.

I expect that by that time I'll be in my downsizing phase and replacing several monitors with a single much larger one. 🙄
 
cjsuk said:
Impressive. I usually kill a keyboard every 9-12 months. That is from wearing it out, not damaging it. But I am nailed to the thing all day every day.
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I’ve only broken one keyboard (apple wireless keyboard) and that’s because I smash my keyboards when I get frustrated and that model doesn’t fully sit on the desk like most keyboards (see image (not mine)) it lasted me many years though

1780854891768.jpeg
 
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My 5yo daughter likes to play KidPix on a Quadra 700 in the study. I'll fire up some Escape Velocity or Marathon on it from time to time too.
 
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I have an iBook from 2001 my sister just returned to me after 20 years or so. It still works boots Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X. I have old iPhone's 1, 3g, & 4s somewhere. iPod (3rd gen). iPad (1) somewhere. iMac 27" 2017. A CP/M machine with 2 floppy discs and a daisy wheel printer that still works and prints.. I used wordstar 1.0 in highschool to print my papers on it. A Tandy Color Computer 2, an Atari 2600, a 286 pc, an original Nintendo, Sega Genesis, TI-81 graphing calculator... tons of cables, adapters, laserdiscs, dvd's, SACD's.
 
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alfonsog said:
I have an iBook from 2001 my sister just returned to me after 20 years or so. It still works boots Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X. I have old iPhone's 1, 3g, & 4s somewhere. iPod (3rd gen). iPad (1) somewhere. iMac 27" 2017. A CP/M machine with 2 floppy discs and a daisy wheel printer that still works and prints.. I used wordstar 1.0 in highschool to print my papers on it. A Tandy Color Computer 2, an Atari 2600, a 286 pc, an original Nintendo, Sega Genesis, TI-81 graphing calculator... tons of cables, adapters, laserdiscs, dvd's, SACD's.
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I have a box of dot matrix printer paper from 1985 when I was 14. Have yet to use it all up. The kind with the holes on the sides for the wheels on the printer. 🙂
 
eyoungren said:
I have a box of dot matrix printer paper from 1985 when I was 14. Have yet to use it all up. The kind with the holes on the sides for the wheels on the printer. 🙂
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I was a Lieutenant typing on a shiny new Zenith Z100, single floppy drive, when our office building got a preliminary network (ethernet?) that connected everything to each other, within the building. My buddy with an EE degree figured out how to send a Command:
10 : Eject to top of next page
20 : GOTO 10
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(or something like that, a lot of brain cells ago)
...and he sent that command to the printer of the Commander's secretary in the front office. It spit about a third of a box of printer paper onto her and her desk before someone figured out to hit the printer's Power switch.
Damn that was funny; I miss those days. 😁
 
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I still have a boxed iMac DV Special Edition (DV SE), graphite. It's survived at least 7 moves when other stuff has been "let go". I last switched it on a couple of years ago and it worked fine. I really should find a place for it to live, it's a gorgeous piece of kit.
 
Mousse said:
I've still got my 2x CD-R (FW & USB) and Zip Drive (USB). Zip drive might still work (more likely not), but all my zip disc are dead/clicking. CD burner still works, but who burns at 2x anymore?🤔

I've got a Bondi Blue iBook and a 14" iBook G4, both running Tiger (10.4). I still fire up the 14" to run old Ambrosia shareware games.
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Ambrosia shareware. That’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.
 
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I have a visceral aversion to keeping things I no longer use. It… has its downsides. So this time, whenever Apple releases a Mac Studio I can actually buy (and actually afford), my M1Max MBPro will remain on the shelf. In case.

That said, I do have a bunch of “old tech” that has blown past its best before date that I still keep for varied reasons, usually laziness. FW800 cable, for example. You never know! Despite having neither a FW device nor a Mac that has FW for approaching two decades now…
 
My Apple //e is in it's original box downstairs and my Mac SE is in a "carrying case" in my attic. Then there are a handful of phones in various drawers (3GS, 4S, 5c, 6). My iPod Nano is somewhere.

-bdd
 
Typing this reply on my main Mac which is a 2010 Mac mini running macOS High Sierra, upgraded to 16GB and an optical drive that was replaced with a Kingston 120GB SSD. Its old intel Core 2 Duo is really struggling with modern* websites in 2026.

My media streaming machine is a 2011, 13" MacBook Air running macOS High Sierra. Apart from badly needing a new battery and a keyboard cleanup because of dust build-up under some keys, it's still running fine for my needs and the old dual-core i7 is still good enough for YouTube, PlutoTV and TubiTV.

* by "modern websites" I mean the pile of garbage code of frameworks and libraries held together by duct tape made by so-called programmers and coders who don't know how to optimize anything anymore. I'm almost glad that people can't afford RAM anymore because it's going to force them to learn to optimize for the first time in their life.
 
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