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  • 1983 Lenco LRP 5450 DD record player &

    1998 Yamaha RX-496 RDS stereo receiver

    My father-in-law got them for us 2nd hand for a joint present. Quite a decent system!

    Not a real audiophile, but it works well and we enjoy it.

    I also made a Google Home kind of thing out of it using an ESP32S3 that uses ESPHome, Home Assistant, and Music Assistant to make it a Spotify connect node to play Spotify through it, control it with an IR blaster, and use Voice Assistant with it if I am not too far (it has a single mema mic)

  • I have a bunch of mid-century Roberts radios that I've convert to smart speakers (using the original speakers and, where possible, the amplifiers) if that counts.

  • I'm still the original owner of one of these 1982 Pac-Man consoles. Actually, I thought it was lost for decades but my aunt discovered it during a basement clean out and gave it back to me. Last I checked, it still worked. But the volume is so dang loud that I remember I always had to play with it outside.

  • A Hitachi TRK-3D8 boombox from 1986 - you can see it sitting above my retro PC here.

    I got that for 12€ on eBay and that was the best deal I ever made. It has great audio range, the subwoofer packs a mean punch and it looks awesome. It's the perfect device for a drum&bass enthusiast. Just put some batteries and a Bluetooth tape in and you can even take it outside (it's quite heavy, though).

  • I still have my original Pikachu gameboy color, and it works. Somehow the battery on my Pokemon Red hasn't died but there's nothing useful on it.

    Not electronic, but I have a pre-WW2 era windup clock that still works. It's loud af and built like a tank

    • The first generation Pokemon games all used significantly less power to maintain their RAM battery saves than Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal by virtue of not having a real time clock constantly ticking the power away. RBY saves only needed to maintain the power for the save itself and did no additional work on top of that.

      Original GSC cartridges would last about 10-15 years, whereas RBY could last 20-30 years. We're currently in the span of time where many RBY cartridge batteries will be failing but it's still possible to find ones with functional original saves on batteries just barely holding on.

      Many people like to try using physically larger batteries when doing replacements, but most of them don't realize the batteries aren't losing charge at the end of those many years because they're drained and out of power. RBY saves use so little power from the battery in the cartridge that they won't fully drain it after 30 ish years. Instead the battery saves fail because the batteries themselves fail after 20-30 years. Picking the larger button cell batteries won't help since they'll still have the same total lifespan and will still lose charge at almost the same rate as the spare batteries that weren't installed in your cartridge of choice.

  • Casio f-91w watch. Its like 6 years old now, so the battery only has like 4 more years left.

  • 20 GB hard drive from 2006.

    Next year we're going to have a party for it.

  • I've got an old TRS-80 in stored-in-a-leaky-shed-for-40-years condition. I can also lay my hands on an AM/FM radio that I think dates to the 70's.

107 comments