Technologies that Have Exceeded Their Expectations?

drfunch asks: "With the recent 'passing' of Pioneer 10 after over 30 years of service, I wonder what other technologies have far exceeded expectations. One example from my own experience is my trusty HP calculator, which is still going strong after 21 years. What technologies or devices have gone far beyond your expectations?"

Comments

Voyager

[Elvisisdead]

The Voyager Probe

Re:Voyager

[Anonymous Coward]

light bulb, electricity and ceiling fan

Re:Voyager

[JudgeDredd]

Voyager exceeded your expectations? I thought it was the worst of the lot. The characters were flat, and the plots were repetitive. Every other damn episode was about time travel, and they did it poorly.

Well, except for 7 of 9. She wasn't flat.

Re:Voyager

[Magius_AR]

Voyager exceeded your expectations? I thought it was the worst of the lot. The characters were flat, and the plots were repetitive. Every other damn episode was about time travel, and they did it poorly.

Sounds like the new Enterprise to me.

Re:Voyager

[Anonymous Coward]

the lamest sig i've ever seen

Re:Voyager

[Anonymous Coward]

Voyager exceeded your expectations? I thought it was the worst of the lot. The characters were flat, and the plots were repetitive. Every other damn episode was about time travel, and they did it poorly.

Why is everyone so down on Voyager? So what if it flat and repeditive? what series of trek hasn't been? At least they blew shit up more frequently.

However I do agree that Enterprise is a load 'o shit. Scott Bakula in a lycra catsuit is not worth looking at. Jeri Ryan in a lycra catsuit is a sight worth looking at (She's also a better actor and had a better character to work with, but I guess titties don't ever hurt your popularity).

Re:Voyager

[Anonymous Coward]

Voyager was both less and more than it could have and should have been. It was once planned to be the one-time-only grand tour of all the outer planets. Politics and budgets saw to it that the launch could not occur while the planetary alignment was right to make the trip, something which occurs only once in every ten generations or so. Thus the mission's working name, Mariner Jupiter-Saturn (MJS-77) for the only two planets it should have reached by the time it was launched.

So much for the bad part. By careful flight planning and control, the mission achieved far more than was expected for the launch date they had to deal with. This is especially gratifying, because there won't be another chance even in our grandchildren's lifetimes to follow its exact footsteps. Voyager was a much more successful program technically than it had any right to be, but was a political and administrative fiasco!

--Anonymous ex-JPL geek

Re:Voyager

[Snaller]

The Voyager Probe

For a moment i thought you were talking about Star Trek Voyager! I thought you had really low expectations ;)

Re:Voyager

[Magius_AR]

Sounds like the new Enterprise to me.

Troll? That's absurd, everything I said was completely accurate. That should at least be modded Funny.

I mean they're desperately clinging to the whole Time Travel plot line with Enterprise (which is frankly a little absurd for their timeline btw)...sheesh, it's been done. The captain is a wanna-be Kirk/Riker, the sole vulcan just like spock...it's all rehashing. As for repetitive episodes, a friend of mine mentioned some Enterprise episode that _directly_ matched the Deep Space 9 one where Odo/Quark (two chars that hated each other) crashed on a planet and had to hike a communication device to the top of a mountain.

I've yet to figure out what's great about that show...looks like typical rehashing to me.

Beating a Dead Horse?

[superdan2k]

The paper-ballot voting booth -- worked just fine for over 200 years...and then, one major screw-up in one state and everything goes to shit. Go figure.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Threni]

Yeah, well, people were ok with reading and then punching a hole in a piece of paper for 200 years. But that was before MTV, Fox and Hip-hop.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[DunbarTheInept]

The system has always been as bad as it was in the last election. Ballots lost on the way to the counting center, polling stations running out of ballots, ballots getting jammed in the counting machines, people not understanding what they were doing. It's always been crap. The margin of error was always one or two percent. It's not that people got stupider, it's that this was the first time the margin was close enough that this always-existant problem became relevant.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Jupiter9]

So MTV, Fox, And Hip-hop have corrupted old retired people in Florida?

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Greg Palasts book, the best democracy money can buy and you might rethink paper ballots. Perhaps it didn't have squat to do with ballots and everything to do with a the president-select's brother being govenor of the state in question. If you don't want to read, you could watch Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[IWX222]

i dont get it with the machinery anyway. over here in the UK we have an amazingly effective system - a small piece of paper with "MARK ONE BOX ONLY" on the top it and boxes write your X in. no machine, no pregnant chads or anything like that.......just black marks even that didnt stop some wanker like Tony Blair rising to power, but hey thats democracy for you

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[lancer93]

In Australia we still use paper and pencil for every election I've voted in. It might be about time to switch to electronic voting!

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's the third time. Grover Cleveland (who lost to Benjamin Harrison) and Richard Nixon (when he lost to John F. Kennedy) has the grace to concede defeat.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Darby]

So MTV, Fox, And Hip-hop have corrupted old retired people in Florida?

No. At least the old retired people were granted the opportunity to attempt to vote.

This is as opposed to the 10s of thousands of people Jeb raped of their most fundamental right as a citizen. Look it up and realize that Bush is *the* worst criminal traitor this country has ever seen.

While you're at it do a search for John o'Neill.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[cmacb]

Worse than that. It *wasn't* a major screw-up. They could have left all the paper systems in place for another 200 years and it would have been fine. What happened was the vote was inicredibly close. Something that isn't likely to happen very often.

And had just about anyone but Al Gore (the inventor of the internet) been involved, it would have been over in a day or two without so much fanfare.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

why, don't you like a secret ballot?

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[DunbarTheInept]

In the US, the machinery varies by location. Where I vote (Wisconsin) there's a simple thick paper sheet with several uncompleted arrows pointing at the choices. You use a black marker to complete one of the arrows in each category, and then YOU feed it into the reading machine yourself on the way out. If there is some reading error that makes the machine reject it, or the machine mangles it, you get to see it happen while you are standing right there, so you can try again with a new ballot. If you filled in the arrow for a write-in candidate blank, the machine sorts your ballot into a seperate pile to be read by humans later - otherwise the machine tells you right away whether or not your ballot was scannable and the vote tallied. That doesn't have the same problem Florida's system did - where you don't find out the ballot is rejected until long after the voter has gone home and become anonymous. Here the voter himself gets to watch the machine count his ballot. A green light and a beep means everything worked.

At the end of the day, the machines from seperate polling places are brought together and their sub-totals are added together.

Here in Wisconsin, we *also* had a margin as close as the one in Florida, but the machinery was deemed reliable enough that the losing side realized a recount was guaranteed to give the same results, so they didn't bother.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes AC, but.. can anyone tell me who this Gore fella is? Between the gators and the snakes, it's kinda hard to connect the... oops, 'nother little critter floating over on a raft. Janet? can you handle this again? Thanks.

Oh yeah, Dots. Hmm, been hankerin for a big slice of "drop the bad vote in fl line."

If your too stupid, lost, clueless, flabbergasted to punch the card, CALL ME!! I'll help you. We will pick the right person together.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Duckie01]

Well your neighbours overseas (dutch) have used machinery for *years* now...

It's so damn easy. Walk to the machine, push the button with the name of the person you want to vote on, the name appears in a small lcd screen, then push some OK button, done.

Keeps lines short and makes counting easy.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Nexx]

Hrm, I did that, and I got this bit about wildflowers as the first google link. Is this what you wanted? Of course, I did use the "Feeling Lucky" button.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[IWX222]

aye we've experimented with that kind of thing over here - problem was loads of old people were so skeptical that they thought they touchscreen-voting system was just some kind of opinion poll and then they tried to vote again with normal pen-and-paper voting, and loads of young people were totally paranoid about the government computers gettin hacked by some evil nazi hacker and some complete lunatic getting into power..........actually that might explain why tony blair won the last election. lets all blame evil nazi hackers, takes the responsibilty away from the voting public. seriously though it would be interesting to see how secure the digital voting systems are....anyone know?

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[IWX222]

thanks for the info - the way the UK media portrayed it it sounded like everywhere in the US had the same problems. that sounds like a rather good system actually - would cut down on the waiting time between voting and results published as well, ye? actually it would make an interesting statistical analysis to see when voters for certain candidates voted. I don't pretend to know much about US politics itself but it might be interesting if, for example, republicans voted more in the morning than in the afternoon and democrats voted more in the afternoon.....hmmmm

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[ArmedGeek]

people not understanding what they were doing

These are the people that I would prefer not vote.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[quintesse]

Actually I've read that here in Holland they are currently investigating this because they want to know exactly how secure the system is. The company making the machines has already been told to change the locks on the casing because they were too easy to open.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[crawling_chaos]

I think you let your rhetoric run away with you a bit. GWB has a ways to go before he reaches the criminal traitor level of Jeff Davis, or Bedford Forrest, for that matter. As far as removing fundamental rights, the Confederacy and the Klan have done far more over the past 150 years than the Bush clan has over the last 10.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[DunbarTheInept]

The USA has had the same constitutional government for most of its history. This has the ironic affect that while as a nation the USA is very young, and as a culture the USA is very young, as a continuous unbroken government, the USA is the oldest in the world (Well, maybe the second behind the UK - it's hard to pick a specific date for the start of the UK's current government since it mutated a little at a time to become what it is today, rather than having a specific starting point with a clean break.)

This means the US government has some very archaic constructs not present in the newer constitutions of other countries. One of them is the voting system. Because the country was first founded as a loose joining of individual colonies that thought of themselves as independant countries joining an alliance, the national voting system only dictates how each state has to send its results to the national tally, and how many votes each state gets. Originally each state got to pick for itself how it was going to handle the voting process within its borders. That's still true today. The only thing the federal government mandates is that the voting age must be 18. (And there was still some wriggle-room in the wording of the constitution that allowed some states to add extra rules designed to supress the black voters, until the civil rights movement of the '60s got some amendments added to close those loopholes.) But everything else about the details of the voting process is still up to the state. So that's why the tallying system is not uniform. In some states, the entire state uses a uniform system. In other states, each small voting district gets to do it their own way. That was the case in Florida. The unfairness with this system is that the funding to pay for the vote tallying systems comes from the local taxes even though the vote is fufilling a national rather than a local need. Since voting districts are very small areas, sometimes only a few square miles, this means that poor sections of town tend to have lower quality voting systems with larger margins of error. This is why Gore was so adamant about a recount in Florida - the areas where people are poorer tend to vote more for Democrats, and those are the areas where the greatest possibility for error were. Today it's impossible to tell what the vote actually ended up being, since the data gathering system itself is flawed to the point where the data available, even if it is counted and re-counted, isn't enough.

[...] it might be interesting if, for example, republicans voted more in the morning than in the afternoon and democrats voted more in the afternoon

(Actually, Republican votes DO tend to come in earlier in the day that Democrat votes. I think I know the reason why - mostly having to do with the fact that almost all white-collar jobs have the same normal get-up-in-the-morning schedule, while blue-collar jobs tend to have schedules that vary a lot in their times. Since most voters vote on their way to or from work, the schedule of their work tends to affect when they vote.)

This is also why I am strongly opposed to the television news broadcasting their guesses as to the results (based on exit polls) before the polls are closed. Knowing which candidate is winning can change who you vote for, giving an advantage to the later-in-the-day voter. For example, if you really like candidate A, think B is kind of okay, but really despise C, and you find that candidate A has no hope of winning, but B does have some hope of winning, you might decide to vote for B instead of A just to help oppose C. If you had voted before knowing the results so far you would have been voting for A. (And since this country spans 6 seperate time zones, that ends up meaning that people voting in the west get to find out the results of the polls in the east while their polls are still open, and since this election had signifigant showings for a third-party candidate, I'm sure that this A/B/C example above realy did happen in a lot of cases.)

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[freaq]

his rhetoric is restrained. it is entirely reasonable to suppose that bush (and staff) had not just a little foreknowledge of 2001september09 events.
those folks' rhetoric is not restrained, but is, alas, rigorously backed up. the part about andrews air force base standing down is telling.
if true, it would not be the first time the US military has considered citizens expendable. as far as removing rights - shiva h vishnu, where to begin?off the top of my head (this is slashdot after all!) try to tell me it is impossible for someone to accuse you of a crime. if such a bad fate should befall you, would you like the right to a trial? no? it is being denied to some, and once that started there's no reason to suppose you could not be next.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[stonecypher]

> It's not that people got stupider, it's that
> this was the first time the margin was close
> enough that this always-existant problem became
> relevant.

A quick review of history will unveil that in fact it is the fourth, and that furthermore this wasn't even the closest.

Most of the hullabaloo, in my opinion, came from that the news networks lied, the state supreme court ruled for a recount and were denied by the federal supreme court (which explicitly does not have the ability to do that), and that the three states (florida, new hampshire, and idaho) where there were issues all have someone close to the family in power.

It would be nice if we could just get rid of the electorate college, too.

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, considering that the Democrats were having problems in areas where the election officials were *Democrats*, and that in Palm Beach, the disputed ballot was designed by a Democrat and OKed by the Democrat controlled election board, the fact that a Bush is the governor is relatively unimportant.

Well if you want conspiracies in the 2000 elections, there is a fairly strong arguement that the the networks caused the close race in Florida by declaring that Gore won before the polls closed in the Florida panhandle. That discouraged voter turnout in the panhandle, an area that is strongly republican. That the major networks are liberal had nothing to do with it :).

Re:Beating a Dead Horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is as opposed to the 10s of thousands of people Jeb raped of their most fundamental right as a citizen.

Historical revisionism, I see. Well, who ran the elections in the areas that were disputed? The election boards in those areas. What party controlled those boards? The democrats. Who created the ballots? The democrats. Who OKed the ballots? The election boards.

Look it up and realize that Bush is *the* worst criminal traitor this country has ever seen.

Interesting logic. But hey, if I'm smoking the same thing that you are, I could always claim that Gore's beard and hair made him look like an Al Queda terrorist, so therefore he supported the terrorists. :).

Washer and Dryer

[Andy_w715]

My washer and dryer are almost 30 years old....

Re:Washer and Dryer

[unicron]

SHIT!! I still walk down to the river to get my wash on.

Re:Washer and Dryer

[lauterm]

My body is almost 30 years old. Its still running too. Well somewhat.

Re:Washer and Dryer

[Patik]

Same here, as well as my refridgerator (well, my parents' actually).

And being a poor college kid, I've got a 20 year old car that, by the looks of it, has been through hell and back.

Re:Washer and Dryer

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus. At least try to get it right, retard.

Person 1: Is your refrigerator running?
Person 2: Yes.
Person 1: Well, you'd better go catch it before it gets away!

Re:Washer and Dryer

[Anonymous Coward]

My father got a Western Electric 500 telephone about 1946, it was in daily use until about 1991 (about 45 years), outlasting three teenagers, cars, washers, refrigerators, water heaters, the roof to the house.... Heck, lubricate the rotary dial and it would STILL work. (Remind me why the telephone monopoly was wrong.)

Re:Washer and Dryer

[stand]

My parents have a toaster that they bought at a garage sale back in the 50's. It still works great. I don't think I've ever had a toaster that lasted longer than 2 years. I'm hoping to inherit it.

Re:Washer and Dryer

[este]

My poor '67 Volvo 140 just hit 347,500 yesterday. So far, I've replaced.......everything. But that leaves little else to break.....right?

Re:Washer and Dryer

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us make do with one wife...
But I suppose that spreading the load only makes sense...

Re:Washer and Dryer

[freeweed]

Pfft, I have some rocks in my back yard that are several billion years old. They still work just fine as lawn ornaments.

Re:Washer and Dryer

[soloport]

Mom (mine's 84 years old, this year)

Outlasted Dad... :-(

Re:Washer and Dryer

[fsbilly]

what happened to the teenagers? it's quite a tragedy to lose one, but THREE?

Re:Washer and Dryer

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Lewyt vacuum cleaner that my grandmother received as a wedding gift. That makes it about 65 years old. Still works well.

Re:Washer and Dryer

[Virtex]

30 years is nothing. You should see my toothbrush. That thing's been through so much history. Passed down through the generations, it was used by one of my ancestors who fought in WW I. Before that it was brought thousands of miles across the ocean by this country's founding fathers. And you know what? It works just as well today as it did back then.

Also of interest is some of the food in my refrigerator. Perhaps it's not as old as the toothbrush, but it's still a wonder of archeological history.

Re:Washer and Dryer

[FireballFreddy]

If they'd been able to dial 9-1-1 faster they might have been saved. Unfortunately...

-FF

Re:Washer and Dryer

[FireballFreddy]

Damn, that was cheery. Couldn't have kept that last part to yourself? I think a few Slashdotters just hung themselves.

-FF

Re:Washer and Dryer

[Moses Lawn]

Remind me why the telephone monopoly was wrong

A few months ago, I ran across the agreement my dad signed with The Phone Company back in 1975 or so. Not only did they own your phone, and charge you monthly usage fees, but, if you wanted to "install" any other equipment on the line (like, say, an answering machine), you had to a) have it approved by TPC and b) pay an additional monthly fee for it.

That's why the phone monopoly was wrong. As Lily Tomlin said "We're the phone company. We don't have to care."

Although I will agree, Westenr Electric/Bell System phones kicked ass all over The Crap You Get Today.

Re:Washer and Dryer

[Anonymous Coward]

Your toothbrush is still good? Man it eather has
bristles of stainless steel or ( useage -lt once_per_year ) :-)

Re:Washer and Dryer

[laymil]

a few slashdotters hung themselves?
suddenly the world just became a better place...
things that have exceeded their expectations:
my early 1980s marantz amplifier.
i got it free (used) and didn't expect it to be that great...but its running incredibly...wooo

Re:Washer and Dryer

[orasio]

This watch was on my Daddy's wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured and put in a Vietnamese prison camp. Now he knew if the gooks ever saw the watch it's be confiscated. The way my Daddy looked at it, that watch was my birthright. And he'd be damned if and slopeheads were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy's birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide somethin'. His ass. Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then when he died of dysentery, he gave a friend the watch. He hid with uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass for two years. Then, after seven years, He was sent home to his family. And then he gave it to me (Butch).

The watch went trhough all that and more, and it still works, but, of course, it doesnt smell nice.

Not Just HP!

[davecl]

I have a Casio calculator (FX501p) still running happily after more than 22 years!

Re:Not Just HP!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a Casio fx-115M Scientific Calculator that I still use. I think I got it in the 80's some time. I finally had to change the battery a few years ago, it is solar powered with a batter for when the light isn't strong enough. I Still have a TI-30 from the 70's. I remember figuring out that it had a matrix style keyboard and that you could turn it on by pressing three keys in a certain way. The TI-30 has LEDs.

Re:Not Just HP!

[Telecommando]

TI SR-10 bought in `73 or `74. Still works like new.

Also have one of the first LCD watches, a Micronta from 1975. Gains about 2 seconds a day (always did, they couldn't seem to fix it) but otherwise runs fine.

Re:Not Just HP!

[payndz]

Casio FX-82a sitting on my desk right in front of me, which I bought (I think) in 1984 - still running on the original set of AA batteries!

Now, if the damn thing just had a '%' button...

Magic Eightball

[Ec|ipse]

My Magic Eightball is great for answering questions from our sales department. Saves a lot of time on some of those questions that rely on actual thinking.

Re:Magic Eightball

[Cyno01]

Better yet get one of those tech support balls from CDW, HI-larious.

Re:Magic Eightball

[ankleteeth]

haha, my comp class teacher had one of them

Re:Magic Eightball

[ipmcc]

Wait a second! You have a sales department that asks questions that require thinking? Get the hell outta here!

what technologies?

[Anonymous Coward]

dick extension tool.

Speak And Spell

[gsharaf]

What about the Speak and Spell? BEEEE BEEEE BEEEE BEEEE BEEEE BEEEE... hours of enjoyment.

Re:Speak And Spell

[Anonymous Coward]

my stretch armstrong still hasnt been punctured

Re:Speak And Spell

[fsbilly]

For added hours of enjoyment.... The Art of the Creative Short Circuit

Re:Speak And Spell

[satterth]

and then... like... half of my paper was gone.. and i was like... hugggghh

microsof... oops, wrong thread

[deaton]

eom

Re:microsof... oops, wrong thread

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's correct in a way... considering its software has never really worked, one can say it keeps doing the same for more than 30 years.

As a tech support person...

[Frogking]

Stupid people shall last forever!

Re:As a tech support person...

[unicron]

Always remember the immortal rule of tech support: You couldn't do their job, don't expect them to do yours.

I remember when I was working as a summer intern doing desktop support for a rather large construction & engineering company. I was tagging along with a full-timer, and we walked into a rather large office where the guy I was with remarked "Heh-heh, you're gonna love this guy..stupid fool needed help defragging his HD".

Then I noticed on the wall he had a PHD in physics. Kind of humbled me right there and I realized he could probably learn my job in a month, where as I probably couldn't do his in a million years.

Re:As a tech support person...

[Tablizer]

Then I noticed on the wall he had a PHD in physics. Kind of humbled me right there and I realized he could probably learn my job in a month, where as I probably couldn't do his in a million years.

Just because he had a PhD does not necessarily mean he uses it on the job. Perhaps he was the janitor. With $2/hr PhD's avail in India, there might be a lot more of this "overqualification" in the future.

Re:As a tech support person...

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

I do tech support for payroll. Some of my duties involve reproducing the error, and either finding work arounds, or spoon feeding it to our programmers. I *can* do the payroll persons job. That is easy.

I mostly bitch about the fact that the payroll person doesn't know where the Start button is. That I have to explain what an Icon is. How to right-click. I don't expect them to be techs, but I expect them to have basic computer knowledge.

(BTW: I'm not making those up. I have talked to at least 3 people from each one of the examples I gave.)

Re:As a tech support person...

[unicron]

Yeah, but that's so suggestive it's not even funny. Stuff I think is just bottom of the barrel basics probably aren't going to be for a non-tech. Granted, not knowing where the start button..there's no excuse for that.

The thing that gets me are the people that take NO iniative when it comes to computing. They somehow have convinced themselves anything they do will destroy the machine.

Re:As a tech support person...

[IMarvinTPA]

My girlfriend is the front desk manager at a hotel. From what she has told me, I feel that people take NO initiative when it comes to doing anything. If you find someone who is willing to take initiative, they're probably worth a few magnitudes of their weight in gold.

IMarv

Re:As a tech support person...

[icewalker]

You might want to sit down for this.

I once knew a Ph.D. who called saying that his "CD-ROM" drive wasn't working right and that it messed up his CD. No problem, I'll be over shortly to check it out. Then, I got to thinking, "He doesn't have a CD-ROM drive!!!"

Sure enough, the guy tried to put a CD in a 5 1/4" Floppy Drive. The drive actually tried to read the CD! It messed up his CD and the drive! I couldn't decide if I should smack him or just laugh until I couldn't breathe.

OH, BUT IT GETS BETTER!

His Ph.D. was in Computer Science!!! I kid you not!!!

The man was just too smart to get out of the RAIN and had the common sense of a rock.

Re:As a tech support person...

[icewalker]

...they're probably worth a few magnitudes of their weight in gold.

You are absolutely right. They are worth more than that. But a person that takes initiative is often expected to outperform their duties and then they don't get squat but a pat-on-da-head. The last time I took intiative, I was given three weeks of work to do in 1 week. All because I opened my big friggin' mouth and out popped a really cool idea!

Re:As a tech support person...

[Anonymous Coward]

> With $2/hr PhD's avail in India

Does not mean that PhD's come cheap. Just that education is very cheap and government subsidy is high.

Anyway, I think C language is also something that is going beyond expected life ...

Re:As a tech support person...

[Colitis]

Quote:
Then I noticed on the wall he had a PHD in physics. Kind of humbled me right there and I realized he could probably learn my job in a month, where as I probably couldn't do his in a million years.
End quote:

I work in a university depertment, so needless to say there are PhDs coming out of the woodwork around here. Some of them already could do my job if they had the time (save for needing to be a fair bit more security conscious). Some of them probably could get the basics down in that period of time.

And a small number of them can't even do their own jobs properly, and even the undergrads laugh at them sometimes.

Re:As a tech support person...

[Malcolm Scott]

[Groan] Like the Intranet system I'm writing at the moment... that was my great idea too, which popped out in a conversation. That'll teach me to use initiative...

Re:As a tech support person...

[Havokmon]

"Heh-heh, you're gonna love this guy..stupid fool needed help defragging his HD".

Today I realized there's nothing comparable to the 'upturned nose' of the average computer geek.

I have a 'You are dumb' shirt, written in binary. I like the binary, not the message. It occurred to me today that you never see Greek or Latin Scholars wearing shits with 'You are dumb' in Greek or Latin on it. It could be written in 'Ultima', or whatever that script is called, and 99% of the population would be clueless..

Then again, maybe I just couldn't read those Greek and Latin shirts..

Re:As a tech support person...

[stephanruby]

(BTW: I'm not making those up. I have talked to at least 3 people from each one of the examples I gave.)

When giving out instructions, one must be very careful not to do the thinking of the person sitting at the workstation. For example, if my mom asks me why her computer is so slow. I tell her one possible reason is that her hard disk is dirty and disorganized and needs to be defragmented. When she demands that I perform the defragmentation for her. I explain that there is an application in her computer that will defragment her computer. I further explain that it's a very easy application to use and that she will have to find the application in her computer without my help. At this point, she usually frowns at me, looks at her desktop, and complains that she doesn't know where it is. Me, I usually respond that I don't know either and I ask her where such an application would be located. Eventually, she makes a couple of wrong guesses. I respond an encouraging "may be" and then eventually she ends up finding what she's looking for.

In any case, I have to go bowling now, but you get the idea. With a little bit of patience, you let the people you support do their own thinking and you let them make their own mistakes, and then eventually they'll learn. I know you may not have that luxury at your workplace, but I thought I would throw in my two cents anyway.

Re:As a tech support person...

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

I try, but since I am responsible for 1000 clients (and each have at least one payroll person), that is impratical. I try to train as many people as possible, but it is quite draining. Especially when they are already supposed to have basic computer skills.

Re:As a tech support person...

[King_TJ]

Yeah, actually, I've often found that people holding advanced degrees are incredibly dim-witted when it comes to operation of common electronic devices.

Perhaps it's a case of "tunnel vision" to an extent. It takes so much time and effort to master physics and earn a PhD in it - those doing so haven't spent much time working with the devices in the "real world"?

After all, getting one's head around quantum mechanics and all the hypotheticals of matter vs. anti-matter is pretty far from such concepts as H.D. defragging and mastering navigation of a Windows operating system.

(My own father is a PhD in physics and I see this with him all the time. He can barely use the mouse, and finds GUI's extremely frustrating - because things aren't strictly rule-based. I think he vastly prefers a command line based system where specific commands entered in exact ways give specific results.) He finds it odd that programs don't always have consistent menus with the quit/exit or print options in the same places each time. He wants to know why you click the Windows "START" button when you want to shut down the system (or log out). For that matter, he wants to know why the program menu button is labeled START - when that generally connotates a function performed to power on a system. I tell him "you just have to play around with it and you'll catch on to it" - but he wants something written out with clear, concise rules. Step 1, step 2, step 3, etc.

Re:As a tech support person...

[BenDalton]

I know, off topic, but....
I do have one of those shirts. It isn't quite 'You are dumb', but it is something to the effect of :
"If you can read this shirt, you know possess too much knowledge." written in Latin. It is surprising when someone walks up to you and says 'nahh you can never have too much' and wants to talk about latin.

Anyway, just thought i'd chime in.... and I agree, the computer geek does act condescending at times. (maybe it is revenge of sorts for someone calling him a geek? )

yeah yeah yeah... fun times

Re:As a tech support person...

[MidnightBrewer]

Tell him to get a Mac. It offers everything he's asking for.

Re:As a tech support person...

[Telecommando]

Never met a Ph.D. who was that bad but I did have to work with a gal who had her Masters in CS who was an idiot. One day she came into my office and demanded help on a problem. She wanted to know how to do a subroutine... IN BASIC!

I told her to look it up in the manual and she apparently found it easier to whine to my boss that I was being uncooperative and "delaying her project" (don't ask). I was ordered to "hold her hand" and teach her how to do it.

When I finished I told her I had only one question, "Where did she get her degree?"
She told me and asked if I was thinking of enrolling. I said, "No, I want to make sure no one I know even considers going there."
Didn't have to though, they went out of business a few years later. Not enough students and graduates were having trouble getting jobs. I wonder why?

Oh, and 2 months later she left to run the cad department. Her project was dumped on me. After a week I figured out that the hardware she had already bought was too slow to do the job in realtime by a factor of at least 4.

Re:As a tech support person...

[Orthanc_duo]

Funny I have seen most of those things cited as examples of bad UI in UI/HCI courses...

Just because Windows Users are used to it does not make it right. As the previous reply states macs have far fewer inconsistancies. Most people follow Apples UI guidlines.
Why, because Mac users get pissed off and son't use programs that dont if it can be avoided.

Re:As a tech support person...

[tsa]

He is right of course. If you work with Windows long enough your mind gets twisted and you don't notice these things any more.

Re:As a tech support person...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, I hope you won't get offended, but perhaps it's time to find another job.

Re:As a tech support person...

[stonetemple]

Computers are nothing more than a tool (like calculators and wrenches) to most people, and to many their benefits do not outweigh the time needed to learn advanced tasks. So can you call someone stupid for not knowing how to operate an HP-42S calculator?

Re:As a tech support person...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tu stultus es.

Re:As a tech support person...

[King_TJ]

Actually, using a Mac isn't really the answer for my father. I agree it's a more consistent user interface.

He's just not comfortable with a mouse, period. He's convinced that a keyboard is the most logical input device for a computer, and everything should be able to be done from it.

A mouse has numerous inherent problems. For one, it forces you to take a hand off the keyboard to use it - slowing you down if you're typing. For another, mice always have those problems of eventually rolling off the edge of the mouse pad/surface, because the edge of a mosuepad doesn't correspond directly with the edge of the display screen. Both of those issues aside, mice are rather trouble-prone too. They get gummed up with lint and quit rolling smoothly. Buttons get stuck/jammed. By contrast, a decent quality keyboard will keep on going for years and years - as long as you don't dump coffee in it.

Re:As a tech support person...

[stonecypher]

> Always remember the immortal rule of tech
> support: You couldn't do their job, don't
> expect them to do yours.

That's the way to talk to make sure that everyone knows you're a horse's ass. You don't get CEO tech support. You don't get accounting tech support. The fact is that connection to the internet is not difficult to establish. My seven year old managed to pull it off, asking only what the phone number was.

If a seven year old can do the job, the above is just whiny crap. We are making excuses for ourselves as a nation. I can see there being room for support for when you get serious technical considerations, or even subtle ones - how hard it is to get a connection through a PBX when people don't even realize they're on one, et cetera - but frankly, if you can't follow on-screen directions involving nothing more complex than next and cancel, you don't deserve your goddamn keyboard. ...
> where the guy I was with remarked "Heh-heh,
> you're gonna love this guy..stupid fool needed
> help defragging his HD".
>
> Then I noticed on the wall he had a PHD in
> physics.

Uh huh. Y'know what? There's a lot that a commercial truck driver can do that you can't. There's a lot that a fry cook can do that you can't. I'd be willing to bet there's even something you'd have to be shown about how a garbage man handles his route.

That doesn't make the task any more difficult. I can see needing help to defragment a hard drive; most people never bother going into the properties tab of a hard drive. Y'know what? They come with instructions. You plop a CD in the drive and it's pretty goddamn automatic.

I can't do the Baskin Robbins official twist on the icing on the cake, but that doesn't mean that it's rocket science. If the cake decorator comes with instructions, then I should be able to use said instructions. If I can't, I shouldn't be decorating cakes.

And if I were on 1-800-help-me-ice, frankly, I'd be just as disgusted with the people who couldn't muster the effort that my seven year old thought was trivial as I am with all of the people who can't pick their ISP from a list.

But, then, I just don't like people who cower instead of trying, and I don't honestly believe that anyone which genuinely tried could possibly fail to make that stuff work.

Re:As a tech support person...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now imagine said calculator has a button with the word "ON" written on it.

The button is a different colour from every other button on the calulator.

It's right next to another button with the word "OFF" written on it.

And the person has to ask "How do I turn it on?".

NOW can I call him stupid?

Re:As a tech support person...

[TheLink]

You're still young, you'll survive ;).

How much time did they give you? And what sort of features will it have?

Just make sure to do it right - then it won't get stuff like the advogato worm thingy ;).

Have fun!

Re:As a tech support person...

[Malcolm Scott]

It's actually being done as a favour for my Dad - so there's no real deadline (just "the sooner the better"). It's already live and in use by a few hundred machines, but more features are being added when I finish them.

Features: it's a dynamic menuing system, which generates a menu of web-based apps depending on which machine you're sat at, and whether you've logged in or not. It's for a supermarket chain - so people working at one store might have a link to a system only present at that store, etc. Menu items can be targetted at a particular set of IP addresses, or a particular store, or a particular department. It also keeps gaining random features as they're requested, e.g. an announcements system; the latest feature is about making announcements targetted at particular subnets.

Trying to avoid the advogato worm - in fact, that was in mind when designing it :-) - by use of htmlspecialchars() in PHP. One thing I keep missing is stripslashes() - don't know why, but PHP has a habit of adding backslashes to submitted form fields. And I think I'm doing it 'right' ;-)

It's their first Linux server though (and their second Linux box, after my Dad's, which was also set up by me) - and I might have started a trend, since they're suddenly finding which of their existing techs know Linux, and they're starting to set up servers of their own. Nice to think I've introduced Linux into a big company without even being employed by them :-)

Anyway, this is completely OT, and probably much more info than you wanted. But never mind :-)

Malcolm

Re:As a tech support person...

[TheLink]

Many parts of PHP are badly designed. You should turn off the automatic backslash thing, and filter/escape stuff accordingly.

The input and output filters should be kept separate, and relevant to the target programs/users.

PHP tends to mix the two up as you have noticed. This is bad as it can lead to corrupted data - end up with backslashes everywhere.

Stuff to your app should be filtered so your app can handle it. Stuff from your app to a DB should be filtered so the DB can handle it. Stuff from your app to the web browser should be filtered so the browser can handle it and treat it correctly.

The filters for the various cases should be kept separate. Lumping them all into one is wrong minded.

Thing is after turning off all the badly designed features, PHP stops looking like PHP ;).

Looking at PHP Nuke etc, it seems people find the badly designed features in PHP very useful and convenient for writing badly designed webapps quickly.

Re:As a tech support person...

[ces]

sounds like he would be happy with a linux text console, vi, and TeX.

women

[Anonymous Coward]

my wife needs to go. i wanted 2 kids, but we had 3. she wanted an imac, but got a g4.

Re:women

[Anonymous Coward]

she wanted an imac, but got a g4.

You sure your wife isn't a gay man?

Re:women

[Anonymous Coward]

> You sure your wife isn't a gay man?

Or pehaps, your wife made a switch?

TV/Telephones

[binaryDigit]

Both the tv and telephone are excellent examples of technology that seems to defy the ages. Esp. the good ole telephone. In this high tech age, it hasen't changed much (well at least from the end user perspective).

Re:TV/Telephones

[kweiske]

I've got a black Western Electric 2500 set and a WE 500 set that work just fine on the network, despite being older than most of the people here...

Re:TV/Telephones

[NineNine]

I agree, except for cordless telephones. For some reason, my cell phone works virtually anywhere in the world, for days on a charge, and is usually crystal clear. For the same price, my cordless phone works only up to about 20 feet away from the base, can keep a charge for no more than 1 hour off of the base, and sounds like shit. Cordless phone technology is perhaps the worst technology of our time.

Re:TV/Telephones

[binaryDigit]

For some reason, my cell phone works virtually anywhere in the world, for days on a charge, and is usually crystal clear.

Right, but keep in mind the fact that the price of your cell phone is subsidized, it has millions of dollars of hardware supporting it (just TRY to buy a base station!). I have a 900mhz digital spread spectrum phone that works exremely well out to the garage (opposite end of the house, around 80'). It's around 8 years old so it still uses nimh batteries and it's fairly large, which are it's primary weakness's. So I would disagree with your statement, though I haven't tried any of the newer phones and it absolutely would not surprise me to hear that they've taken a nose dive in quality.

Re:TV/Telephones

[superflippy]

Nine, this is kinda offtopic, but what brand of cellphone do you have that it works "for days on a charge"? Mine will barely run half a day on a single charge, and if I leave it turned off for a few days it seems to spontaneously discharge the battery. As a result, I can't use it unless I plan to spend half an hour charging it up enough to place a call. Sorta defeats the purpose of having a cell phone for convenience.

Re:TV/Telephones

[NineNine]

I've got a Samsung that I got with Sprint PCS Service. I can literally use it (not constantly, of course) for 3-4 days until the battery is tapped. The model is... (taking off battery to check)... Samsung SCH-8500. And the Samsung that I had before this one was the same. It even worked after it fell off the roof of my car at about 50 MPH. The display was mostly broken, but it still worked for several weeks until I could replace it.

Re:TV/Telephones

[The FooMiester]

Cordless phones aren't so much limited by range as they are by interference. At my parent's house, I can get the phone to work 500' away from the base station. There's nothing to interfere, except some trees. I haven't tried it further, because there was never need to. And it was just a crappy bellsouth(I think) cordless. Wasn't 900mhz, I remember, somewhere in the 200s if I'm correct.

Re:TV/Telephones

[NineNine]

Cordless phones have been around plenty long enough to make 'em decent (20 years?). I paid $100 for a 900 mhz cordless about 6 months ago under the false assumption that these fucking things actually worked by now. Hell, and I got one a month before that with a whopping 10 foot range, with sound quality that's worse than AM radio. Whatever the reason is, cordless technology telephone is absolutely terrible. If I didn't *have* to have one, I wouldn't.

Re:TV/Telephones

[binaryDigit]

Hell, and I got one a month before that with a whopping 10 foot range, with sound quality that's worse than AM radio

I can only assume that the quality of the phones vary greatly? My last two have been Uniden (900mhz and 900mhz dss) and they've worked fantastic, esp the dss model. I'd move up to a newer 2.4ghz, mainly for the smaller form factor and caller id in the handset, but I'm afraid of what it might do to my wifi signal.

Re:TV/Telephones

[king_penguin_05]

I bought a nokia from wal mart and it lasts for days and works great. They're only $50 and so far I haven't had any trouble with it. I had an old StarTac phone before that, and it would hold a charge for about 30 sec. (if it was on the charger), and it didn't work for shit.

Re:TV/Telephones

[dildatron]

If it wasn't 900MHz, it was, almost without a doubt, 46-49 MHz.

Re:TV/Telephones

[Thumb-One]

FYI, it is more a function of the network than the phone. Newer phones - I believe they call the network TDMA - don't have to constantly broadcast "here I am" to the local cell in order to let the network know where to send a call. I think they broadcast only when they change cells. This is why the 'standby' time for these new phones rocks. Their 'talk' time is generally no better than the old style phones, Of course, newer phones are more likely to have better batteries, too, but it is mostly a function of the network. FYI, my 8260 is tiny and lasts 3-4 days on a charge, if I don't use it much.

Re:TV/Telephones

[NineNine]

Re:TV/Telephones (Score:1)
by binaryDigit (557647) on Friday March 07, @05:33PM (#5463314)
Hell, and I got one a month before that with a whopping 10 foot range, with sound quality that's worse than AM radio

I can only assume that the quality of the phones vary greatly?


I have no idea. I have no time or interest to keep up with the exciting field of cordless phone technology. I'd assumed that at this point (having never owned one before) that they'd all be acceptable, and more money would just buy a better quality, but still essentially commodity phone. Little did I know that for some reason, they still really, really suck.

Re:TV/Telephones

[radish]

My 2 year old Nokia 8210 still goes for a week...

Re:TV/Telephones

[malfunct]

I had no problem with my wi-fi, but then again I never watched download speed when I was making a call. I will say that the phone quality is fine when I am using the wireless network though.

Re:TV/Telephones

[Anonymous Coward]

Could that be attributed to the fact that you are an IGNORANT A-hole? I mean those phones are being replaced by cell phones, and the manufacturers havelittle interest in keeping those around. Posted as AC because i really dislime nine nine's methods. Look at his enemies list an youll see the extent of his paranoia.

Re:TV/Telephones

[Anonymous Coward]

You are an ignorant a-hole! Cant you figure it out, i mean people look @ his enemies list!!

Re:TV/Telephones

[Sabalon]

Ever seen a cel tower? Do you hae one of those on your base station? If not, there's your problem...look on e-bay :)

I'm waiting for someone to make a cordless phone based on FRS or something.

Re:TV/Telephones

[Eil]

Interesting... I have a Uniden 900Mhz phone that I bought 4 years ago for that's in absolute top condition. I had to change the battery once, but the thing goes quite a long way and I've never had interference problems, even in a dorm with 400+ people.

This phone was about middle of the road cost-vs-quality wise. I learned a long time ago never to buy the bottom end (the V-Tech phones and whatnot).

Re:TV/Telephones

[nolife]

Cordless phones quality is a crap shoot.
Generally speaking...

46-49Mhz analog: Sucked, luckily I don't even think they are made anymore. Great if you want to tune in on your neighbors phone or a nearby baby monitor.

900/2400Mhz analog: Better then 46-49.

900Mhz/2400Mhz Digital: Much better then analog and normally about 2x the distance.

900/2400Mhz Digital Spread Spectrum (DSS): About the best you can get. Average about 4x of any analog phone and normally does not get worse with distance, just drops off when you get to far (don't know if that is good or bad) but should beep before hand to let you know.

The unknown part is the quality of the actual phone. I have a 900Mhz DSS Vtech #1984 that is outstanding. By far the best cordless phone I have EVER used. It is very consistant, very clear and works at least 500ft from my house. Problem is after 5 years, the NiCD battery pack is going and it is in a proprietary type case and it does not have a page button function to find it (what were they thinking?).

Since I bought that, I had a 900 DSS AT&T for about a month before it died. Very cheap and quality sucked. A Toshiba 900Mhz DSS that I still use and a pair of 2.4Ghz DSS Unidens that I got this Xmas. I have never had interference issues with any DSS phone, even with multiple ones in use in the house at the same time.

When looking for a cordless phone, limit yourself to a DSS model and compare quality from there.

Re:TV/Telephones

[RedCard]

Actually, while you're right in that many analog 46/49MHz cordless phones were very poor, I had a GE cordless phone that lasted for almost 8 years, until my mother dropped it on the concrete garage floor.

It easily picked up a signal out to nearly two hundred metres, and the battery seemed to last forever. The sound quality was also good (but to be fair, not as good as a 900/2400 MHz set). I wish I could say the same about the 900MHz GE I got to replace it, but sadly, I cannot.

Re:TV/Telephones

[Anonymous Coward]

SonyEricsson T39m. Works for about 180 hours without a charge.

Re:TV/Telephones

[woobieman29]

Second that. I have a Samsung SCH-8500 from Sprint and this thing rocks. I have had numerous cell phones over the years, of varying brand, and the best before I got the Samsung lasted about 18 months. I've had the Samsung now for three years, have dropped it innumerable times (once in the toilet...), used it non-stop the whole time that I've owned it, and it has never had one single problem. The thing is definitely battle-scarred, but the battery still holds a charge for days and the signal strength is better than any phone I've ever had. Yes, I would definitely buy another one.

Re:TV/Telephones

[Anonymous Coward]

My brother had a wireless phone, finally replaced it, it would fade in and out, sound like he was on shortwave from New Caldonia.

On the other hand:
A friend got a high quality cordless, she could start a call, walk to the grocery store, and come back still going.

Re:TV/Telephones

[Ethelred Unraed]

Nine, this is kinda offtopic, but what brand of cellphone do you have that it works "for days on a charge"?

I have a Nokia 6210, about two years old, which lasts for about four days on a full charge, depending on what the reception is like (the cellphone has to use more energy if reception is weak) and how much I use it (which is not much -- mainly for being reachable). If I talk on it, the charge lasts for at least a couple of hours -- I have had pretty long conversations on it, anyway.

My wife has a two-year-old phone from Alcatel -- I forget the model number -- which is rated at 360 hours of standby (mine is rated at 240, I think). It generally gets less than that, more like 200, but it's still better than mine. Which is good, because she tends to forget to charge it anyway. ;-P

Your cellphone's battery might be suffering from the memory effect -- if you haven't heard of that, it's basically if you recharge it too often when the battery isn't fully drained, then the battery holds less and less of a charge. (It's as if you fill a glass half-full with water, and it shrinks. Drain it halfway and refill it, and it shrinks again.)

Maybe you just need a new battery. But most newer rechargable batteries don't have that problem anymore.

Cheers,

Ethelred

Re:TV/Telephones

[stonecypher]

> I agree, except for cordless telephones. For
> some reason, my cell phone works virtually
> anywhere in the world, for days on a charge,
> and is usually crystal clear. For the same
> price, my cordless phone works only up to about
> 20 feet away from the base, can keep a charge
> for no more than 1 hour off of the base, and
> sounds like shit. Cordless phone technology is
> perhaps the worst technology of our time.

Perhaps because your cell phone cost you $200 and your cordless cost you $20? Oh, and by the way, the cell phone sends packets, whereas the cordless, tied to the traditional phone system, keeps a stream open.

Oh, and because you haven't cleaned your battery in a while. Why am I the only person that remembers to absolutely kill the charge every few months?

Unix

[leerpm]

Still going strong after all these years, in some form or another.

Re:Unix

[cooldev]

But so is DOS.

*ducks* :-)

Re:Unix

[UnixRevolution]

I say this more for my own edification than for yours. DOS is pretty useless, whereas Unix in one form or another is still a huge force and extremely useful.

Re:Unix

[dracocat]

Karma Whore.

Re:Unix

[ssstraub]

SCO would like to change that.

Re:Unix

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, I didn't know DOS/Unix are edible. Dumbass.

Palm OS Devices

[IgD]

I'd have to put Palm OS devices in this category. I have had a Handspring Visor Deluxe for nearly 3 years now. It's black and white. The are no fancy graphics or sounds. However it keeps a mean phone list, address book and calendar. As a Physician, I like the third party software that is a handy quick reference for pharmaceutical dosing information. I have absolutely no reason to upgrade to anything better.

Re:Palm OS Devices

[Tin Weasil]

As a physician, don't you have better things to do then hang out at Slashdot? I mean... go save somebody's life or something.

The more contact I have with doctors, the more surprised I am to find that so many of them are closet geeks.

Re:Palm OS Devices

[t0ny]

Heck, I still have a Palm Pro. If it werent for getting a good sale on a Handspring Visor w/ 8mb, I would probably still be using it.

As it is, it made a nice hand-me-down to the family. Still useful, tho, because it can plug into a serial port.

Sadly, as good a product as they make, Palms suffer from competing against their old product more than anything else.

Re:Palm OS Devices

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody know anything about how the Apple Newton is hanging on? I've read that a fair number of people still use thiers despite them being discontinued in '98. And I have read some people think that some newtons are better than the best offerings of today.

Re:Palm OS Devices

[richy freeway]

How about the good ol' Psion Organiser II CM

http://www.bioeddie.co.uk/models/psion-organiser -I I-cm.htm

My dad bought one when they first came out in '88 and it's still in use today. Every day.

Solid bit of kit :)

My Apple //e still works.

[BoomerSooner]

Although all I play on it is Karateka (sp?). That damn bird...

I got it in 1983.

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Mastos]

Heh, I used to play that game on the Apple, but also on my IBM PC w/ hercules graphics card. In fact, I played it the other day on my Palm. With its monocrome screen, it reminded me of the green screen days....

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Knightfall]

Ah, that bird ... that damned damned bird ... and the little witch that killed you if you didn't "run into her arms" ......

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Croaker]

Um... how'd you play this? Has it been ported to the Palm?

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[tiger776]

Karateka! That brought back some memories reading that game title. I used to play it on my Commodore 64. I would always get to the basement area and get worked by the guy down there.

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[v1]

Assuming you have the actual original discs, (copying was rampant on the //) boot the other side of the disk. That's one of my all-time-favorite easter eggs.

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Jon Abbott]

I have a functioning Apple //c in my room. Lemonade Stand, here we come! The Atari 2600 is in the living room...

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[pyrrho]

do you remember the original karateka disks had a great easter egg, if you put the disk in upside down, the game booted from the back appeared upside down. I loved that.

what a great game. But tell me, why are you not also playing Aztec! Still a great great game... worth loading up an emulator for those without original hardware - although I don't know how you would go about getting the image to your machine, no, honestly, I don't. I guess it's legal to download it if you have the disk sitting next to you.

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Motormouz]

I remember that. I was totally shocked when the bitch killed me after fighting hours and hours trying to get to her and save her.

Jeezzz, women...

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[SquadBoy]

Yes yes it has.

http://www.beiks.com/palmzonebg/showtitle.asp?Ti tl eID=199

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Anonymous Coward]

both aztec and its kissing cousin swashbuckler were killer. both made by stephenson if i recall correctly. nothing like stabbing rats, snakes and pirates to pass your time.

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[shdragon]

Screw Lemonade Stand, The Oregon Trail is the shit. (oh yeah, and be the banker, buy nothing but bullets and go hunting everyday.)

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[IWX222]

now thats technology thats exceeded expectations - the BBC model B.... mine's still going strong...doing whatever it does...oh i dunno but its still a damn nice machine. whats even more amazing is that it still works even with all the mould growing on the motherboard

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy nothing but bullets? Shouldn't you buy a few oxen and some replacement axles and wheels?

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[wjsteele]

Now that brings back some memories... That damn bird is right!

Bill

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Darby]

Although all I play on it is Karateka (sp?). That damn bird...

Bird nothing. I never figured out how to stop the princess from kicking me square in the nuts.

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[zer0vector]

Holy crap, Lemonade Stand! I haven't thought about that game in 15 years. I so have to dig all my old Apple II stuff out of my garage just to play it. There goes my evening.

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Gulthek]

What I could never figure out is just why that girl you are supposed to be saving couldn't drop kick Akuma to the pavement.

Approach her in combat stance to see what I'm talking about...pow!

Akuma's entrance has gotta be one of the coolest of the forgotten videogame scenes though.

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Orthanc_duo]

Good thing the DCMA wasn't around in those days... think I only have about 4 origonal programs for my //e

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[madmancarman]

Bird nothing. I never figured out how to stop the princess from kicking me square in the nuts.

You have to stand up and run into her arms... if you approach her like you're going to fight, she'll kick your ass.

I nearly woke my parents up when I yelled in surprise the first time she did that.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[madmancarman]

Although all I play on it is Karateka (sp?). That damn bird... I got it in 1983.

My Atari 800 still works (from 1979, bought used in 1982), although the SIO connector on the computer for the floppy drive has been acting up. I still play Archon occasionally and have even gotten my fiancee into MULE.

I wish they would release an Electronic Arts "Museum" like they did for Namco. EA would make a killing on their old games.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi

Re:My Apple //e still works.

[Jon Abbott]

Are you still as amazed as I am that Lemonade Stand was written entirely in BASIC? It seemed so much more complex than that back then...

What else as gone beyond the norm?

[grub]

..my liver.

Re:What else as gone beyond the norm?

[DaytonCIM]

LOL. Yeah... I figured after my Freshman year at college I'd need a new one, but... it's still going strong.

Re:What else as gone beyond the norm?

[BlokkieX]

.. your brain

Re:What else as gone beyond the norm?

[XSforMe]

Je je... Seriously though, you might be amazed at how reliable your liver can be. I heard on the radio this morning that it is the only human organ that can actually regenerate itself entirely.

Re:What else as gone beyond the norm?

[Anonymous Coward]

the first funny thing i have read on slashdot after 3 years. this prompted my first post ever.

them new fangled horseless carriages

[AssFace]

I never thought they's last.

Re:them new fangled horseless carriages

[roachmotel3]

You know, this is very true -- I laugh whenever I think of this, but someone famous, somewhere, had this quote attributed to him. Somehow, it reeks of urban legend, but is still funny.

once said that if cars followed the same development cycle and rate of improvement that computers do, cars today would run at a billion miles an hour, and use one gallon of gas in the process. Every 18 months, your car would be made obsolete, and once a year it would spontaneously explode for no reason, killing everyone inside ;)

Almost as funny as OS airlines!

Re:them new fangled horseless carriages

[roachmotel3]

Silly me, I should have previewed -- didn't think Plain old text would interpret HTML. Anyway, the first line of the second paragraph should read [Insert Famous Technologist's Name Here] instead of that blank character. :) Ooops.

Re:them new fangled horseless carriages

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to use the "extrans" option.

By the way, is "extrans" an existing term or did Taco make it up?

Re:them new fangled horseless carriages

[Queer Boy]

The quote you reference is actually a little headline banter between Bill Gates and Lee Iacoca. I'm sure Reuters has it archived somewhere.

It was around 96 and Gates said something like "If automobiles had followed the rate of development of computers, everyone would have one and they'd cost $600." A few days later the press told Iacoca about Bill Gates' quote and he said something to the effect of, "Who wants a car that crashes twice a day?"

Re:them new fangled horseless carriages

[DaveAtFraud]

I'm still driving my 1987 Nissan Pathfinder I bought new in January of 1988. It still starts easily, doesn't require additional oil between changes on the normal schedule and gets me through the Eisenhower Tunnel (11,000+ ft. above sea level) summers for mountain climbing and winters for skiing.

Re:them new fangled horseless carriages

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers cost $2000 in 1996

Re:SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!

[PiratePTG]

Yeah, so now clean it up before someone steps in it!!!

My electronic alarm clock?

[frinkster]

I've had it since third grade. That puts it at about 15 years old. Is this what you are looking for? Based on the construction, I highly doubt GE planned on a 15+ year lifecycle for this thing.

Re:My electronic alarm clock?

[WinterSolstice]

Actually, I know exactly what you mean. I have an ancient GTE/Sylvania one with the numbers that flip (on the little plates). I should find a date on it somewhere, but I know I've used it my whole life.

-WS

Re:My electronic alarm clock?

[Chaz999]

Gotcha beat....my AM/FM Clock Radio - Mfg by SounDesign. Purchased new for 15 bucks in 1974 - still working perfectly & keeping perfect time - despite being plugged in all over the world (Japan, Germany, Panama, Honduras, New Jersey)

Re:My electronic alarm clock?

[Anonymous Coward]

mine brek after a couple of days. I gotta quit throwing them....

Re:My electronic alarm clock?

[Tilien]

I have a $10 clock I bought 13-14 years ago. I have a computer on my network that gets hourly atomic clock updates. That $10 clock is never more then a few seconds off from the atomic clock.

Wish my $2000 computer could keep the time that well...

Re:My electronic alarm clock?

[insecuritiez]

My old GE is still going -- 21 years old. Everyone looks at it and asks why I don't replace it. I tell them "Don't fix it if it ain't broke".

Re:My electronic alarm clock?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine is 22 years old and has travelled around the world with me. And I haven't yet had to change the batteries...

NEWTON!

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, I would think that anyone still driving a 1979 volvo wagon knows the answer to this.

Re:NEWTON!

[bandy]

It has a bigger display, better HWR, and is more featureful than the latest whiz-bang pocket-gadget from the PalmOS camp or the PocketPC camp.

WINDOWS

[Anonymous Coward]

Or should I say - MSDOS :)

FAA System

[Tisha_AH]

The FAA had a top flight (my pun) system 30 years ago. It's still running and they want to spend billions to upgrade it. The programmers have all retired (or jumped off of buildings in the dot.com bust).

Old pre PC Home Computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Insert your favorite discontinued 8bit machine here ____________ (i.e. Tandy Color Computer, or TI99)

Re:Old pre PC Home Computers

[frodo from middle ea]

ZX Spectrum + (128 KB RAM). it still works, though sometimes i have problems with the "space" key. (coffee anyone ?)

Re:Old pre PC Home Computers

[corsec67]

TRS-80 Model 100? That thing kick major @$$!

Linux

[Rob.Mathers]

This is a pretty obvious one, but I think Linux has surpassed everyone's expectations, esp. those who knew about it in it's earlier stages. I'm sure Linus never expected it to become so huge, as well as a posterboy for the OSS movement.

Re:Linux

[HamNRye]

Actually, It's funny. I have been toying with Linux since Kernel 0.7, and I'm shocked as hell. For the record, I have also played with many other small OS projects, and none of them have taken off like this.

BTW, My fav?? QNX. http://get.qnx.com

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

We've had white hats, we've had black hats. The brown hat is resserved for you!

Re:Linux

[dildatron]

You should be nice to your fellow slashdotters and provide a link. It is really easy.

Re:Linux

[dougmc]

I have been toying with Linux since Kernel 0.7

Minor nit -- the Linux kernel versions jumped from 0.12 to 0.95 or so. As far as I know, there never was a Linux kernel 0.7.

Re:Linux

[Stween]

Personally I don't know much about any kernel release before 2.0.

But surely 0.12 > 0.7 ... as in, 12>7. If it was 0.1.2, I'd see what you were getting at.

Re:Linux

[dougmc]

But surely 0.12 > 0.7 ... as in, 12>7

No, 0.12 There was a kernel 0.01, 0.11, 0.12, 0.95 and later.

There used to be a nice Linux kernel history page, but it doesn't seem to exist anywhere anymore. Pity.

But back to 0.7, I can't find any evidence that 0.07 existed either, if that's what you meant.

Looks like 0.95 came out in March of 1992, and 0.01 sometime in 1991.

Re:Linux

[Bishop]

As far as I know, there never was a Linux kernel 0.7

You are correct.

Three Words

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Source Software.

This is Easy...

[LordYUK]

The Real Doll. That thing goes WAY beyond expectations!

Oh, wait, I dont think thats what you mean, was it...

hmm...

Re:This is Easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

i concur.

good thing my wife doesn't make me clean her out after i'm done.

Re:This is Easy...

[MouseR]

That would have been funnier if you had included a link to it.

Texas Instruments Solar Calculator

[daeley]

Boomin' Texas Instruments solar calc I got in high school in 1985. Still works perfectly -- so well in fact that my stepson, who's now in high school, is using it. :)

That's easy

[falsification]

That's easy. The technology of Slashdot.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

STsoopid arse-likkng fagghorx!#!

My trusty Sparc 2...

[jvanick]

It's been running every day since September of 1993... that's right 10 years... it's gone through 2 hard drives, but is still on the original memory, cpu, power supply, everything. It's amazing that it still runs. -J

Re:My trusty Sparc 2...

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, mine died a few months ago :(

I know one..

[WndrBr3d]

The x86 Processor. Created in 1982 with the unveiling of the all mighty 286 (both 8, 10 and 12Mhz speed demons).

Granted the main core has gone through some overhauls (Major ones include 486DX2, Pentium, P6 Core, K6, Athlon).

Seriously though, who would have thought it would hang in there for this long ?! :-)

Re:I know one..

[Ossifrage]

And how many wish it hadn't?

Re:I know one..

[xyzzy]

Bah -- that architecture is but a child! You can STILL run programs written on the IBM/360 on the mainframes of today! Of course, technology-wise, there is no comparison, but the core instruction set is the same!

Re:I know one..

[neurojab]

You mean you never ran DOS 1.x on a 4.77 mhz 8088 processor? The 8086 was the first x86... it was released in 1978, with the mighty 8088 (actually a scaled down version of the 8086) released shortly thereafter.

Re:I know one..

[AxelTorvalds]

It's a lot older than that. There were the 8086, 8088, and 80186 before the 80286. Depending on how you measure things, some people trace the x86 (IA32) lineage back to the 8008 and 4004.

Re:I know one..

[Fry-kun]

Oh suuuuure...
Let's take a step back and remember the 286 Protected Mode fiasco.
At least 386 doesn't suffer from that problem... it's still supported by many *nix operating systems

Re:I know one..

[Jester99]

You mean you never ran DOS 1.x on a 4.77 mhz 8088 processor?

I actually ran DOS 4.01 on a 4.77 MHz 8088 for seven years. DOS 4 and Wordperfect 5 served me from 1988 straight until I got a Pentium 90 with the then-new Windows 95.

Nowadays, a Microsoft OS upgrade requires a whole new processor and an order of magnitude more memory. Back then, they had four different major versions that'd all run just dandy on one old machine with 640Kb of RAM. (DOS 5 might've worked on it too for all I know, but I never got my hands on a copy to try.)

I found it in my closet a year or two ago. The drive's got a bad sector here or there, but it still boots. Hot damn. :)

There's something to be said from that, but I'm not quite sure what it is. Ah well.

Re:I know one..

[Anonymous Coward]

My 8086 was 4.77 MHz, but I recall a friend's 8088 being 8 MHz. It could've been a cutting-edge model though.

Re:I know one..

[Anonymous Coward]

I purchased and ran DOS 1.0 on an IBM PC, aka IBM 5150 in December 1981. I believe the PC was released in August 1981.

Mine had 64K of RAM, a 160K floppy drive, and a CGA. I hand assembled my original assembler code using Mod, Reg and R/M bits. There was no macro assember or debug 'A' command available at the time.

Of course, I wouldn't lower myself to buying a 6502 based POS.

Too bad the PC wasn't based on 68K though.

Re:I know one..

[BRTB]

Yeah, DOS 5 runs on an 8088 just fine. =] (I have two - IBM XT and a Tandy 1000... both still in working order, the Tandy with its original screen. What is that, 20 years?)

Re:I know one..

[Anonymous Coward]

and the 8086/88 architecture bears a lot of resemblence to the 8085/8080 their 8bit predecessors, you can still see traces of these technologies in the Itanium.

Re:I know one..

[abhisarda]

is somebody fogetting the *essence* of Playboy?

Re:I know one..

[stonecypher]

> The 8086 was the first x86...

Weeeeellllll, that depends a bit on whether you're willing to include the 8080, which had virtually the same architecture.

The Internal Combustion Engine

[sdo1]

The design is very much the same as it was 100 years ago and, with the exception of fuel injection and emissions "add-ons", has changed very little in the last 50 years. With some of the V8 engines, manufacturers have been using the same block design for decades.

-S

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[michaelggreer]

It could be argued, however, that this lack of change is in fact due to inherent design constraints in the combustion engine. Some believe that its end is near, as little more efficiency can be squeezed out of it. It is a 19th century technology (its main compitition was the steam engine), which electric cars might soon surpass in performance, efficiency, and environmental impact.

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[Doobian Coedifier]

Wankel rotary....mmmmmm

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[Anonymous Coward]

HA! you said wankel.

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[dlakelan]

The gasoline IC engine may in fact be near end of life, but diesel is definitely not.

In fact, a modern diesel engine with direct fuel injection and regenerating particulate filter rivals or may surpass Compressed Natural Gas "clean air vehicles".

Clean Diesel has a lot of practical promise.

In many parts of the US, electricity is principally generated using coal, natural gas, and diesel anyway, then 50-70 percent of the energy is thrown away as waste heat and of the remainder 12 percent is lost in transmission, of the remainder that makes it to your recharging station the battery cycle consumes 20 percent or so. In the end the best of all feasible electric cars is getting 40% thermal efficiency and is carrying an enormous amount of extra weight in batteries.

Clean Diesel hybrid vehicles with ozone catalysts on their radiators would do wonders for consumer adoption of more env. friendly technology, and all the technology is available TODAY.

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[turgid]

Well, I used to own one, and I've Wankeled all over Great Britain, from the South of England to the North of Scotland. You wouldn't believe some of the obscure highland roads I've wankeled on!

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[good soldier svejk]

with the exception of fuel injection and emissions "add-ons", has changed very little in the last 50 years.

Actually, fuel injection is older than 50 years. Daimler-Benz aircraft motors were using it by 1932, although it took Rolls Royce another eleven years to add it to the Merlin. Other than the belated addition of FI, the Merlin was a remarkable design. It was all aluminium, dual-stage supercharged unit with four valves and two plugs per cylinder. The exhaust valves were filled with sodium to improve cooling.

I think the biggest changes in internal combustion engines over the last half century are the addition of solid state electronic management and improved production methods and materials. These have rendered high end technologies like the Merlin sported practical for mass production and distribution.

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[Anonymous Coward]

"With some of the V8 engines, manufacturers have been using the same block design for decades."

Witness the rebirth of chrysler's hemi. Can't speak for the latest incarnation but the old 426 was a monster with stump-pulling torque and massive horsepower. And a surprisingly advanced design that squeezed 1 hp out of each cubic inch - an amazing feat in 1970.

A fuel injected version would make a wicked sports car option.

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[Openadvocate]

Not that it is a good thing. I have even seen newer Ford cars with push-rod engines(An engine configuration where the camshafts are located lower in the engine). Ok it was cheap, but really amazing since other mainstream cars have left that concept before 1986.
But maybe one day when Americans have to pay real money for gas, they will start looking at producing and buying cars with higher fuel efficiency. But until then, you'll excuse me if I keep my old Pontiac.

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[rrkap]

"Clean Diesel" isn't very clean. While very fuel efficient compared to a spark ignition engine, the so-called celan diesel engines have severe NOX emissions problems. This is important, because it is NOX (or actually the resulting ground level ozone), NOT CO2 that has an effect on human health.

Hybirds, which you mention, on the other hand are an important development. They allow an ICE (gas or diesel or turbine for that matter) They allow the engine to run much closer to its peak efficiency (by averaging the load using the battery), which saves fuel and reduces emissions.

One of the big differences between American and European air quality policy is that American regulators in the U.S. have chosen to trade fuel efficency for improved public health, while europeans would rather have people suffer from lung disease to fend off the spectre of global warming

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[Anonymous Coward]

I wankled in your girlfriends mouth! Really! While I wankled in her mouth your mom sucked my balls and I ate your daughters pussy!

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no Ford CAR with a pushrod V8. All Ford CAR V8s are either SOHC or DOHC, and most Ford CARS use the same engine: a 4.6L V8. (The Lincoln LS and the new T-bird use a 3.9L DOHC V8.) Ford TRUCKS do use an OHV V8, the 5.4L, but the Explorer uses the 4.6L SOHC.

Meanwhile GM has had their small-block OHV V8 for the last 50 years (started out with 283 cubic inches, about 4.6L, then went up) and they've developed this so-called ancient technology to a level of refinement equal to their Japanese counterparts' four and six cylinders. The current iteration of this engine, the LS1, has a displacement of 346 cubic inches and, in the Corvette, makes 345 HP and around 375 lb-ft of torque. That's about one HP per cubic inch (or about 56HP per liter of displacement). Not too bad for a pushrod V8. Not only this, but with modern engine management controls the new 'Vette is capable of getting around 30 MPG on the highway if driven conservatively. (that means around 70 MPH in 6th gear)

The next engine in the lineup for the 'Vette? You guessed it, an OHV V8 displacing around 366 cubic inches, if the reports are correct. (That's about 6.0 L) GM just knows how to get a lot of efficiency out of this kind of engine.

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine

[dlakelan]

Actually, true Clean Diesel does not have severe NOx emissions. That's one of the main things they are working on in the industry. Reductions of anywhere from about 15% to 70% have been achieved with various technologies. Cummins even offers a "low NOx rebuild kit" for their engines (though I don't know what "low" means to them).

You're right that up to now your average diesel still has NOx and soot problems, that doesn't mean that the technology to change all this isn't in development, it just hasn't hit the market yes, largely because there is no economic incentive as yet.

fan goes woosh

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a fan from the early-mid 80s (translucent blue blades, white case, can't remember the name). It has been running consistently now for about 8 years (I only turn it off to clean it). It makes absolutely no noise, never needs any maintenance, and works as flawlessly as the day it came out of the box.

I also have 6 fans in the attic that I bought in the 90s. Each one makes horrible noises, requires constant attention, and drives me nuts.

-rt

Homemade marijuana "hitter".

[Anonymous Coward]

I made it out of a Charmin toilet roll and some tinfoil found on the street back in 1977. To this day I use it.

Re:Homemade marijuana "hitter".

[Anonymous Coward]

yer gonna die from that shit.

I mean, of course, the aluminum in the tinfoil (not really tin). Alzheimers baby! watch out.

Re:Homemade marijuana "hitter".

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you mean that using 1200 federal agents during one of those 'terrorist' warnings to bust bong makers WONT stop people from enjoying weed?

Well, at least during this latest "alert" they didnt bust the sick and dying like they did during the 3-4 previous ones.

When you have dozens of agents busting through houses of the sick and shackling paraplegics to beds, I guess the word 'terrorism' takes a whole dfferent meaning.

Re:Homemade marijuana "hitter".

[Eil]

I fail to see how your post relates to its parent. You must have accidently hit the wrong Reply link. I'll forgive you this time.

Re:Homemade marijuana "hitter".

[Anonymous Coward]

get a fucking life man

Re:Homemade marijuana "hitter".

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't squeeze the Charmin!

Re:Homemade marijuana "hitter".

[rastamutz]

what the fuck is going wrong in america... terrorist warnings...security meters... read 1984 en see how orwell missed 20 years... they just want to make the common people scrared... fuck i'm glad i live in Europe

The 3.5" Floppy

[theophilus00]

...has outlived just about every other piece of the PC. I don't know that it's 'exceeded expectations', but it's certainly hung on.

Re:The 3.5" Floppy

[Rude Turnip]

I'd say it exceeded its expectations. The floppy disk was originally invented by IBM as a way to insert code updates into mainframes (think flash rom but bigger). Computer scientists/engineers found it could make a handy portable storage media and the 3.5" disk that we use today is just an evolved, smaller version.

Re:The 3.5" Floppy

[anethema]

IBM eh..

Know the engineer's names? Their families names? I have TEN GOD DAMN YEARS of frustration to take out.

Re:The 3.5" Floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

The New Incranation of Floopy Disk -

Memory Card (SmartMedia, MMD, Memory Stick, etc.) Floppy Adaptor

Re:The 3.5" Floppy

[ces]

Yea but those were 8" monsters with a casing like a 5.25" floppy. Single Sided, Single Density and all of 140K or so.

I have an old S100 CP/M computer with dual 8" floppy drives, the things are just massive, they even have large 110 motors.

Cell phones

[Subnirvana337]

When they first started out in bags, I had no way of knowing they'd end up the size of a deck of playing cards and smaller with pictures and games. Now EVERYONE has one...

Re:Cell phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but how many people have owned more than one cell phone because their last one took a shit on them? The question wasn't "tech that everyone uses or has been around since dinosaurs." It was "a piece of technology that has had a good life time."

SR-71 Blackbird

[Anonymous Coward]

The SR-71 Blackbird aircraft was in many ways 20-30 years ahead of time when it was first created and put into service. An amazing piece of engineering and materials technology.

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Tablizer]

The SR-71 Blackbird aircraft was in many ways 20-30 years ahead of time when it was first created and put into service. An amazing piece of engineering and materials technology.

Is it still in use? I hear mixed things about that.

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Anonymous Coward]

how about the B-52? it's already 50 years old, and the USAF fully intends on using it for another 50 years. those things are built like a god damn flying tank of doom. they are *huge*. i sure as hell don't want to be behind one on landing/takeoff or 35k feet below one.

bb is still around, but sees limited service with nasa. usaf sold them a number of years ago i believe (or leased them, something like that).

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Jupiter9]

Very true. But the U2 (which I believe came before the Blackbird) has been proven to be a more economical and versatile spy plane. I'm not even sure if there are any Blackbirds out of mothball anymore, but there's several (upgraded) U2's.

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Anonymous Coward]

The SR-71 was retired quite a few years ago, and *publicly* broke several speed records on that day, since everything had been classified before then. I believe one was coast to coast flight across the USA.

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[iAlex]

The Blackbird is no longer flying. There were two that NASA Dryden was using for some high altitude atmospheric work but they ended up canceling the program for the same reason the Air Force cancelled it. The planes were just too expensive to fly. It still is an absolutely amazing aircraft though. Nothing can fly higher or faster than the Blackbird. Some interesting facts about it is that it can only fly for two hours without refueling and it is only rated to pull 1.4g's. Pull anything more than that and the fuselage will fail. That's not too much of a worry because there is no turbulance at 85k feet.

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Rxke]

... and still in use by NASA to test all their new fancy scramjet thingies

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Anonymous Coward]

This page has some interesting info on it about the SR-71. About 1/3 of the way down the page there is a chart showing where they are. Quite a few of them have crashed...

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/sr- 71 .htm

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I was watching a discovery wings piece on the SR71. Pretty amazing that the thing could fly at all. It was mothballed because each plane cost $3billion a year to maintain and fly.

Because of the heat due to friction, the plates making up the surface of the plane are built with huge gaps between them so that they expand and fit together at full velocity. Unfortunately, this also caused all the fuel to leak out. An SR71 would be filled while sitting on the tarmac, and basically take off on fumes. Once in the air, it would meet up with a refueling craft and then head to its objective. Well built? I don't know about that, but it did fulfill all its requirements and never lost a pilot.

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[eidechse]

Yup, if it had been kept secret until today you'd still think "damn...cool space plane" when you saw it for the first time. Not bad for being on the drawing board in the late fifties. It makes you wonder what the current state of the art really is...

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[divisionbyzero]

Probably not much better... I think the blackbird is the finest of its kind... to do better we would need a "quantum leap" (I hate that expression but in this case it's true) in technology (e.g. scramjet, etc...)

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[larien]

Well, if we're gonna mention aircraft, the Shakleton was originally built just after WWII and was still flying active duty in the UK (for surveilance duty) until the 90s.

I remember a documentary about it just as it was retiring describing this bird as "10,000 loose rivets flying in close formation".

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[drivers]

SR-71 is my favorite airplane. I'm glad I got to see one fly (including landing with a drag chute) as a kid at the EAA Fly-in in Osh Kosh.

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[matfud]

Opps sorry to say it but the Mig 25 (foxbat) which entered service in 1967 can fly higher and faster. It still holds the altitdue record at 118,898 feet (36.2km). It has been observed at mach 3.2 (by america somewhere over Israel) although the engines needed changin after and it couldnot sustain that speed for long.

Apart from that the Blackbird is and will be for a long time one of the most pretty plance ever built.

matfud

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Anonymous Coward]

The SR-71 Blackbird would have been like a million times cooler if it had lasers, autocannon, miniguns, cluster bombs and other cool shit like maybe a miniplane piggybacked on it like the Cobra Raven had. Cobra-la-la-la-la-la!!!

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Sentry21]

Let's add to this the Avro Arrow. If it hadn't been cancelled because of political manouvering, budget overruns, and generally being mismanaged, it would still be in use today, and even the test model would be superior to many fighters in use today. I can't imagine how they would have been improved upon in that timespan either.

Curse you Diefenbaker! Curse you!

--Dan

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they use instead now?

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[thopkins]

Satellites are used now for strategic reconnaissance, since the cameras on them are so advanced. Drones are used for tactical reconnaissance.

Re:SR-71 Blackbird

[YrWrstNtmr]

www.fai.org lists the SR-71 as retaking the speed title from the MiG in 1976. And, this was with regular engines that could be used the next day..;)

The MiG (listed as the E-266) apparently still holds the altitude title at 37650 meters.

And the B-58 (1961!) still has a couple of records. 2000km course with 2000kg payload @ 1708kmh.

My cell phone.

[dasmegabyte]

I only paid $10 for it. I'm surprised it works at all.

Re:My cell phone.

[Anonymous Coward]

The $10 was a token payment. Lots of people get a "free" phone but the deal is you must have the service for a one-year or two-year period so basically the price of the $200 phone is built into the price of service. You pay $200 for the phone over the period of the two years -- you just don't know it.

Tech Life

[Fascist Christ]

Is it too much to expect a technology to last a few decades, rather than it being a shock?

Re:Tech Life

[Anonymous Coward]

If it lasts a few decades, then people won't buy new ones. What good would a car whose parts never wear out do for an auto maker? You survive by having people buy new products.

Re:Tech Life

[Anonymous Coward]

"Engineered Obsolescence"

had that in a class my junior year in college.

Not anymore

[Patik]

I think it's all going fade away since manufacturers love to make things of cheap plastic parts. Simple devices like portable CD players barely last 2 years anymore.

Re:Not anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

In general, I agree, but i have a panasonic brand discman that's lasted through 5 years of pretty rough handling.

Re:Not anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this flamebait? It is true!

Paper Products

[BSDevil]

As self-evident as it seems, note paper has stayed around way longer than I expected it to. It's a simple, cheap setup with the ultimate handwriting recognition system. If I want to write someting significant I'll open my word processor, but for quick little notes and calculations nothing will beat my pad of McGill notepaper.

And for planning things out and high-level organizational diagramming, I have yet to find a system that works better than a pad of Post-It notes and a roll of paper. We were promised papreless offices and homes years ago, and people were fortelling the end of Dead Tree books since the emergence of eBooks - but look around. I still see lots of paper on my desk.

We may have been told years ago that it was obsolete, but it's still the number one tool for many jobs.

Re:Paper Products

[lawpoop]

Paper contains no handwriting recognition whatsoever. Your brain (or other peoples) does all the work.

Re:Paper Products

[Smidge204]

If anything, technology has increased the rate we use paper.

I work at an engineering consultant office doing HV/P/E work. We got a laser-plotter a few years ago... want to check the drawings? Plot out a set. Only takes about 5 seconds per sheet (30" by 42"). After marking it up with highlighters and colored pens, there's a good chance the whole set will be plotted again with the changes we made.

Usually between 10 and 20 sheets for a job, sometimes as many as 80 sheets.

Before the laser plotter, we had an inkjet plotter. It would take nearly 10 minutes to plot out a single sheet on that thing! Corrections were done by printing out portions of the drawings on letter paper. You better believe we're going through a lot more paper now!

Especially when there's an obvious mistake. "Oh crap. Guess I'll have to reprint it..." *click click* *another 12 square feet of paper wasted*
=Smidge=

Re:Paper Products

[Mignon]

As self-evident as it seems, note paper has stayed around way longer than I expected it to.

Wow, you're that old?

Seriously, I was looking at all the mentions of cars, planes, computers, etc. and thinking about movable type.

I have no idea what the expectations were about either paper or movable type, but both independently (you can write on paper without a printing press, or print on other media besides paper) and inextricably (metal type on paper is a huge use of both), they have become irreplacable in our society.

Re:Paper Products

[number11]

I have no idea what the expectations were about either paper or movable type, but both independently (you can write on paper without a printing press, or print on other media besides paper) and inextricably (metal type on paper is a huge use of both), they have become irreplacable in our society.

Somebody still uses moveable type? Aside from a few hobbiests and craftsman printers, I don't think actual moveable type has been much used in the western world since the early 1900s.

Paper, though, that's definitely had a good product life. And the clay-tablet people thought it was just going to be a flash in the pan.

Re:Paper Products

[unitron]

"...I don't think actual moveable type has been much used in the western world since the early 1900s."

The Linotype machine took over a lot of the applications that previously relied on movable type, such as newspapers, by the second half of the 20th century, but job printers were still using movable type at least as recently as the 80s for some tasks.

PCs

[Anonymous Coward]

Definately personal computers.

I figured we'd all be wired into some massive virtual reality world by now and could do all computations by waving our hands around all cool like Tom Cruise.

Re:PCs

[Big Mark]

What's the point of being able to solve differential equations in an instant if you don't know how it's being done or, more importantly, why?

-Mark

One word

[Anonymous Coward]

SNMP !

Re:One word

[bobibleyboo]

Technicaly That is one Acronym or 4 words ;)

How about..

[frodo from middle ea]

How about the wheel ? Surely no technological advancement is better than that ?

Re:How about..

[duck_prime]

How about the wheel ? Surely no technological advancement is better than that ?

Are you kidding? The dam' thing gets reinvented three times a day. That is shoddy design, sez I.

pants

[Hnice]

for what seems like decades now we've been hearing wild, utopian speculation regarding an endless stream of leg-covering technologies, each hailed as a 'pants-killer'. on seemingly a yearly basis, it seems, sony or microsoft or archer daniels midland trots out some promising technology to replace pants -- some intended to render not just the item but the entire pants PARADIGM obselete forever. but for all this new-fangledness, what's that on your ass, i ask you? huh!?!?

man, am i hung over.

Re:pants

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that you towlie?

Re:pants

[decipher_saint]

My problem with the current implementation of pants is the stupid "one leg at a time" protocol, I should be able to enter the pant leg routine in parallel to save on time!

I think the main reason a pants-free market is being held back is because of patents (and subsequent patent-battles) held by the Scots and the Greeks over kilts and togas, it seems like only college kids ever get into togas and there seems to be some kind of European stranglehold on the whole kilt technology...

I tell ya...

Re:pants

[Tower]

I'm not sure you've really explored the features of your pants. The "one leg at a time" protocol is useful, but once that is mastered, the transition to the "both legs at once" protocol isn't all that much more complex to implement. It seems that the latter protocol has been likened to the "walking on water" protocol in terms of inherent elegance and implementaion difficulty, but I, as many others, have found that not to be the case.

The "both legs at once" protocol is much easier to implement on looser versions of pants, but even jeans can be made to respond appropriately to the protocol. I suggest you try it yourself. In the case that you cannot achieve success, I highly reccomend the "pound a few Guinness" protocol.

Re:pants

[spudwiser]

man, am i hung over.

at 4:18 in the afternoon? nice work!

Re:pants

[Anonymous Coward]

For American kilt technology, check out Utilikilts

Re:pants

[larien]

Ah, just wear a kilt :) Wonderful bit of clothing; great way to meet girls, too!

Re:pants

[Tokerat]

I know how he could have cured that in 2 minutes.

;-)

Re:pants

[ottffssent]

In point of fact, nothing is on my ass, as I just stepped out of the shower.

But I see your point:)

Re:pants

[CaptainCarrot]

Well, what's that you just sat in?

Re:pants

[Saint Aardvark]

LOL...now that's just hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

Re:pants

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that pants themselves replaced something. You could say that they were a (I apologize in advance for this pun) kilt-er app.

Internet

[countzer0interrupt]

The Internet. Originally set up as a way of maintaining communication after a widespread nuclear attack, it has become the fastest source of information on practically everything, a worldwide centre for commerce and a great way to meet people. (Just ask my girlfriend. :-D)

Re:Internet

[michaelggreer]

The Internet is not a technology, but a vast array of seperate technologies. However, any of these (HTML, HTTP, TCP-IP) is an excellent candidate.

Re:Internet

[tedhiltonhead]

What, she's trying to find someone else?

Re:Internet

[DunbarTheInept]

I'd argue that the internet *is* TCP/IP. That's the thing that distinguished it from the LANs and WANs that came before, and it's the low-level piece on top of which HTML and HTTP are built. TCP/IP without HTML and HTTP is still something useful, while HTML and HTTP without TCP/IP is something that doesn't work. They are not just an "array of" seperate technologies. They are a heirarchy of seperate technologies, and TCP/IP is the crucial lynchpin of that heirarchy. There are a number of seperate low level networking protocols, but they all exist to support TCP/IP on top of them, and then all the higher-level protocols exist on top of TCP/IP. (Yes, there is UDP, but it is still on top of IP.)

Re:Internet

[rongallant]

I would have to say that this may be one of the best examples. No one even today is prepared for it's growth and uses. But I have to add Swiss Army Knives...

Re:Internet

[wishus]

I'd argue that the internet *is* TCP/IP.

After all, IP does stand for "Internet Protocol."

Re:Internet

[malfunct]

HTML works just fine without TCP/IP. I load html documents from my hard drive all the time without a single tcp packet transferred. HTTP would work just fine without TCP/IP as well, so long as your network stack handled the switch to whichever protocol that you wanted. Modular design, remember how that works :)

That said I wish that IPv4 would die already so we could move over to newer protocols :)

Re:Internet

[DunbarTheInept]

HTTP is still tied to the URL, which includes the assumption that the host is reachable using a DNS hostname or an IP address.

Electroic dictionary

[SuperMallen]

Beyond the obvious stuff like refrigerators, cars, clocks, and so on, the little Franklin dictionary my dad got me as a present in 1994 or so still treats me very well when a mysterious word pops up in my dictionary.

Re:Electroic dictionary

[Anonymous Coward]

Mysterious word? Such as? Do you mean something like
"Electroic"?

Mac Classic Going Strong

[mrphish697]

I fish the classic out of the closet and see if I can still play shufflepuck once and a while. As of last month, it still works fine.

Re:Mac Classic Going Strong

[Twirlip of the Mists]

God, what a great game. That little robot used to royally piss me off.

HTML

[seldolivaw]

It started off just being a simple language for describing academic documents. Now you can plug so much junk into HTML that you can create whole applications. HTML is bursting at the seams because of all these hacks and extra languages tacked on to the end, but it still works. I think that's amazing.

Re:HTML

[Anonymous Coward]

HTML?!? Sure but...how about shell scripting? Databases and programming languages have come and gone but the good ol' shell script is still around.

Re:HTML

[$$$$$exyGal]

The technology has evolved quite a bit, though: HTML 1.0, HTML 2.0, HTML 3.0, HTML 3.2, HTML 4.0, and now XHTML. At least the core is still the same (if you use it correctly).

Re:HTML

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, and it is not just used explicitly for the internet either. Apparently the designers of Java believed that their GUI elements could use some artistic enhancement, so they allowed HTML to be used(in java2) on most swing elements including JButton, JFrame, etc...

seems to me that the ultimate test for any language(not just computer languages) is if it is adopted, and HTML has MOST CERTAINLY been adopted, now in many other forms and dialects, too!

Re:HTML

[HamNRye]

I thought XHTML was only for use on porn sites....

Go figgure.....

Re:HTML

[Anonymous Coward]

html is gay.

Re:HTML

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, so's the poster of the original HTML comment....

my penis

[Anonymous Coward]

this device has greatly exceeded my expectations

Re:my penis

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet a clitoris has twice as many nerve endings as your entire penis, all in an organ less than a centimeter wide. You think you got a good deal!

Re:my penis

[znaps]

Repost - someone already posted about floppies above this....

Re:my penis

[Anonymous Coward]

females have a far higher expectation. Sorry bud :)

Re:my penis

[Anonymous Coward]

And fortunately if it ever quits working, you can breath new life into with modern medicine.

What an age we live in. =)

My old windows install floppy.

[Xzzy]

I don't use floppies for much more than install disks for linux anymore, so pretty much any disk I have rotting in the closet is fair game for a reformatting to serve as a boot disk. I've gone through stacks of disks, one goes bad, I toss it out and pick the next one on the stack.. except for this one ancient maxell floppy I have.

I used it back when my parents got their 486 (in the early 90's) for holding windows 3.11, it was an OEM release and the first time you loaded the machine it prompted you through swapping disks to copy out recovery disks.

This disk has followed me in moving about the country four times now, it's gone from alaska to oregon to new jersey to california to illinois. Currently it's a boot disk for redhat 7.1, and I use it at work several times a week.

No it's not a 20 year old calculator, but considering most claim floppy disks have two year lifespans, the fact this is STILL my most reliable floppy makes it interesting. It even has the original "Windows 3.11 disk 8" label I wrote up for it on it, scribbled out. Underneath it is written "slackware #1" and "redhat boot".

They really don't make 'em like they used to. ;)

Re:My old windows install floppy.

[moronic1]

maybe is the maxell floppies.. I have one from them that has last years too. Its been with me for about 4-5 years+

too bad I don't use it anymore. bootable cdroms :)

Re:My old windows install floppy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear, hear...
My oldest disks (a few programs from the early 90's) are still working fine, but if I try to save a couple of files on a brand new disk, 1 out of 3 times I can't read one of them. I think that quality control has gone way down since floppy sales have tanked in the last decade.

Re:My old windows install floppy.

[jagilbertvt]

Obviously, this was a pirated copy of Windows, otherwise it would've had a machine printed label on it! You are a bad (some might say evil, I wont) person. But, I guess I'm not one to judge.. Pirate on!

Re:My old windows install floppy.

[ottffssent]

> most claim floppy disks have two year lifespans

Jesus, man! What planet are you on? Any time I want data to last on a floppy for more than 10 feet, I make 2 copies. And I have on more than one occasion needed a third. I consider myself fortunate if I can get a floppy to last from one end of a 20-minute car ride to the other in a nice floppy box in my breast pocket. Years?!? You can get floppies to last years? Go buy yourself a lottery ticket. Now!

Re:My old windows install floppy.

[Splab]

Hmmm...
You are the kind of person who buys the shittiest hw in the store and complains it doesnt perform well right?

My disks last way longer than years, last time I bought disks was in my amiga time before '95... most of those disks still runs...

Re:My old windows install floppy.

[C32]

Floppies are weird that way. I too have some disks which have withstood up to maybe 10 times the read/write cycles and various transport abuse that others from the very same 10-pack..
They must make them so sloppily (because it's such a simple media) that some are built excellently with a good coating of magnet-stuff on the plastic disc etc etc, and some get bad sectors spontaneously after a days use.

Re:My old windows install floppy.

[Anonymous Coward]

What you mean by old?
I think I still have a copy of 2.03

Re:My old windows install floppy.

[quintessent]

It must have been from the early days, when Bill Gates hand-wrote "Windows" on every diskette.

Stuff that lasts

[PokeBlor]

I would have to say that my orginal Nintendo controllers has out lasted my expectations. 16 years old and I still have my orginal ones. Not like those horrible N64 controllers. I have to buy a new one of those every few months.

Cheap stuff that lasts longer than it "should"

[pr0ntab]

• Koss open-ear headphones (just replace the pads a few times...)
  
• My NES and SNES, some carts with battery-backed save still work
  
• Ethernet (lol!)
  
• My SparcStation 10 (12+ years old and running a 32-bit OS, nice)
  
• etc.
  

Re:Cheap stuff that lasts longer than it "should"

[stratjakt]

>> My NES and SNES, some carts with battery-backed save still work

If the battery dies (it wont last more than 10 years max, my original Zelda gave it up not more than a year ago), it's a CR-2032 you can get for a buck at Radio Shack. The old ones welded into place, but it's easy to clip out. Replace it with an appropriate holder (another buck from RS) so it'll be easier to replace the next time. Hold the battery in tight with a bit of black tape, so it wont shake loose when you move the cart.

There's no reason an NES cart shouldnt last for 50 years if it's cared for. I'd say NES gets my vote too. I still play it more often than any other console.

Re:Cheap stuff that lasts longer than it "should"

[homer_ca]

If only the connector in the console would last that long. Remember the /. story about the guy who hacked a new connector onto his NES? It worked, but it faced the wrong way so he cut a hole in the back of the case for the cartridge.

Internet

[gmuslera]

by far, I think the is one of the technologies that goes more far from their expectations. Or if you want, the World Wide Web itself is pretty impressive alone.

Voyager last forever....

[twert]

Hey just you wait until it comes back to destroy earth as VGER.

Re:Voyager last forever....

[Anonymous Coward]

i recognize it as some reference to something, but I don't know what, someone please enlighten me

Re:Voyager last forever....

[Anonymous Coward]

It was one of the Star Trek movies. I cannot remember which.

Oldies but goodies!

[PiratePTG]

I still use my Kaypro10 for Amateur Radio packet, and a RatShack Model 100 for testing serial comms....

And just to tweak the youngsters at work, I still keep my trusty Pickett sliderule in my desk....

Another interesting one..

[WndrBr3d]

How about VHS technology ? I know that DVD is soon going to phase it out, but I mean seriously. The first VHS recorder was released in 1976! And I mean, if you exclude the ESP, EP, SP recording options, there wasn't really any major changes to the format since then!

I exclude SVHS because it's more or less a completely different format on the same media.

Kinda crazy if you think about it.

Re:Another interesting one..

[Anonymous Coward]

> DVD is soon going to phase it out

How would a read-only media phase-out a read/write media? VHS is going to be around for a long time, because people want a product they can record TV shows with. A TiVo, while interesting, is about five the cost of a good VCR.

Re:Another interesting one..

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought the first JVC 4-head VCR model that was made, oh, I think it was back in 1983-1984 or thereabouts. I had to take it into the shop to be adjusted and have a couple of belts replaced two months ago. Man said I could bring it back and he'd happily work on it anytime... guess he's a little tired of trying to fix plastic stuff. That was the first time I'd ever had it repaired.

My AM/FM Radio...

[printman]

I got a "pocket" AM/FM radio for my 8th birthday that is still going strong; I keep it for emergencies since it only needs a 9V battery and takes a beating...

Re:My AM/FM Radio...

[Chaz999]

Gotcha beat....my AM/FM Clock Radio - Mfg by SounDesign. Purchased new for 15 bucks in 1974 - still working perfectly & keeping perfect time - despite being plugged in all over the world (Japan, Germany, Panama, Honduras, New Jersey)

Casio Scientific Calculator

[nanojath]

When I was a Junior in high school - 1989 - I bought a Casio scientific calculator, solar powered with a lithium cell back-up, for about 30 dollars. Through high school Trig and Pre-calculus, three college calculus classes, and a chemistry undergraduate degree, I used the thing a ton and it took a beating in the process. 14 years later I'm still using it... and the battery is still good (I guess that solar cell is doing its job.

Oh and another thing - when I first started college, I bought a single Sony double-density 3.5 floppy disk. That's 12 years ago and it still works. Yes, yes, I know, floppies are obsolete... but really, I bought a box of 3.5s (figuring they'd be a lifetime supply) and I'm lucky if I get a dozen rewrites out of them. That original floppy has been overwritten literally thousands of times. What gives with that?

Re:Casio Scientific Calculator

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh and another thing - when I first started college, I bought a single Sony double-density 3.5 floppy disk. That's 12 years ago and it still works. Yes, yes, I know, floppies are obsolete... but really, I bought a box of 3.5s (figuring they'd be a lifetime supply) and I'm lucky if I get a dozen rewrites out of them. That original floppy has been overwritten literally thousands of times. What gives with that?

Hey, I know what you mean. I've got 8" floppies that still work. Er, should I have admitted that? Well, anyway, the answer to your question is simple economics. How many floppies would you buy if they lasted forever?

Re:Casio Scientific Calculator

[teeker]

YES YES! I have one of these and I still use it all the time! I think it was purchased around 1989 (maybe 90)...I remember thinking how neat it was that it did fractions.

Nothing else I ever bought from Casio has lasted anywhere near that long...

Re:Casio Scientific Calculator

[Fzz]

Yes! I've got a Casio fx-450 solar-powered scientific calculator (which also has boolean login functions), which I bought in high school 20 years ago. I still use it regularly.

It's hinged down the middle - the basic calculator buttons are on the left half, and the scietific functions are on the right half, with a rubberized ribbon-cable/hinge between the two. The irony is that when I bought it, I was very worried that the hinge would fail quickly. I guess I was slightly wrong. But the solar cell is slowly degrading - it needs much brighter light to work than it used to.

Re:Casio Scientific Calculator

[AlienRelics]

I've got you beat. I still have a Casio scientific calculator I bought when I was in high school in the late 70's. Says Radio Shack on the sticker but underneath it says Casio molded right into the plastic.

Re:Casio Scientific Calculator

[angelsdescent]

Oh and another thing - when I first started college, I bought a single Sony double-density 3.5 floppy disk. That's 12 years ago and it still works. Yes, yes, I know, floppies are obsolete... but really, I bought a box of 3.5s (figuring they'd be a lifetime supply) and I'm lucky if I get a dozen rewrites out of them. That original floppy has been overwritten literally thousands of times. What gives with that?

Try putting something like a report or presentation on the disk due tomorrow morning.
Check the disk - It'll be perfect
Delete the copy on the hard disk so the only copy in existance is on that floppy
Recheck the disk - Error accessing Drive - Track 0 Error?

Trusty Old Computers...

[ethzer0]

I love my old Amiga 2000. It still does some things better than a damned PC. *sigh*

Re:Trusty Old Computers...

[AlienRelics]

Not quite as old, my trusty Amiga 3000. Yes, I use it for actual work. http://www.polyphoto.com

Re:Trusty Old Computers...

[Anonymous Coward]

my good old c64 still r0x0rz like it always has

Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows, from 3.1 until XP is the greatest and most advanced computer operating system ever concieved.

Packard Bell desktop machine

[Aerin]

A Packard Bell desktop machine, currently in use by the third member of my family to own it, was purchased in 1996 and carried in a suitcase to become a Christmas present. That machine has a 500 MB hard drive and is insanely slow, compared to machines produced today. When I was using it (4 years ago), it was already slow but performed all the functions I needed it to (Word, chat, e-mail...). It is still running -- I think it has Windows 95 and can manage an AOL connection. Not the oldest machine in the world, but still fairly impressive. Especially since the machine I had after that one died after two years...

Re:Packard Bell desktop machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Packard Bell?
That is amazing.

Re:Packard Bell desktop machine

[Anonymous Coward]

1996?? How about a Packard Bell Legend 386SX/16 circa 1991. Its 60MB hard drive, MS DOS 3.3, and bootable 5.25 floppy drive are still ticking away. Plays a great series of the older games, such as Wizardry, Pool of Radiance, Secret of the Silver Blades, etc.

Best device ever

[stubblehead]

I've got this electric-synapse device in my skull that's been working terrific for over 23 years. And the original batteries that came with it still work! The only downside is the warrenty/insurance - it's a large monthly fee, but, hey, it's an expensive, fragile piece of equipment.

Re:Best device ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Lucky for you. Mine is forty years old and is beginning to show signs of performance degradation.

Re:Best device ever

[Anonymous Coward]

> And the original batteries that came with it still work!

Yeah, but I bet you still have to recharge it three times a day and reboot it every night... Hmm. Aside from the fact that yours is about twice as old, this sounds a lot like my old 486 laptop that runs windows. Scary eh?

My TRS-80

[tlahoda]

still works just fine. I fire it up every once in a while just to remember what it was like.

Re:My TRS-80

[tlahoda]

oh yeah and that's amodel 1 with none of the expansion stuff, not one of those "fancy" model 4's

Re:My TRS-80

[PiratePTG]

Hey! I resemble that remark! Have a 4 and a 4P.... Both still work, running CP/M.... Lets see your 1 do that!

The plain old wood pencil and ball point pen

[PotatoHead]

With all the ways to capture information we have today, these two still are quite effective.

Other methods have more fidelity, but none have the simple human factors.

Guess I have to add paper to this list as well...

Re:The plain old wood pencil and ball point pen

[TopShelf]

There's a saying I've heard that when confronted with this issue of writing things down in space, NASA spent $zillions and came up with the Space Pen, since the lack of gravity wouldn't allow ball-point pens to function up there.

The Russians used a pencil.

Re:The plain old wood pencil and ball point pen

[softsign]

This urban legend deserves to be mentioned on its own in reference to the Ask Slashdot question... =)

Re:The plain old wood pencil and ball point pen

[Lord_Slepnir]

The Russians used a pencil.

and had to deal with cunductive dust floating around thier capsules. one grain hits the wrong place, and ZAAAAAP!!!!1111

Re:The plain old wood pencil and ball point pen

[rbrunner]

Pencils are not the ideal solution, because points break off and float into electrical wiring where bad things can happen. However, US astronauts used them through the Mercury and Gemini programs. The Fisher Space Pen was developed as a private venture, and then sold to NASA by the Fisher Space Co.. Robert

How about COBOL? x86?

[siskbc]

Does it count if it sucks and we JUST CAN'T get rid of it because of compatibilty issues?

Or how about Intel's shitty (for now) chip design based on a great (for then) 1970's design?

Fast Food

[Anonymous Coward]

The hamburger and other fast food and subsequent speedy food preparation and delivery innovations that free us from having to spend hours each day just to eat. No one could have predicted the societal changes (both good and some negative) such freedom has enabled.

Re:Fast Food

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it keeps making Americans look less and less human. I might have existed long enough to affect the natural selection process and produce the new race of Homo Americanus with an average weight of 200kg.

My watch's battery

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a watch in Brazil 5 years ago for less than 3 dollars and it still works! (I haven't changed the battery)

LONG LIVED TECHNOLOGY?

[TREETOP]

I bought that original Seiko LCD watch (the one profiled in Playboy and the Bond movies back in the early '70s, and believe it or not, the thing still works well after 25+ years. The only drawback is that it weighs more than small car and continues to make me lean to the left. Not a political position I enjoy. --AND-- that boombox that I bought in Japan (National Panasonic!)(1975) still pumps loud rock to this day. (it's also a heavyweight)

Re:LONG LIVED TECHNOLOGY?

[kristjansson]

Try holding your hands clasped in front of you. I wouldn't want to get caught leaning too far to the right, but you may find putting it on your right wrist will alleviate the leftist leanings.

Ah, the joys of American political jokes. Compassionate conservatism, a Democratic party political platform, time off from presidential campaigning...

Yamaha remote control batteries

[mmuskratt]

I have a Yamaha remote control that came with the 10 disk CD Changer and endured almost daily use from 1990 to 2000...never once changed the batteries for 10 years!

TCP/IP

[clevelandguru]

The people who developed TCP/IP would have never thought it would be used as widely as it is now. ISO OSI stack was supposed to be the standard network protocol. But It failed miserably.

Re:TCP/IP

[Anonymous Coward]

So popular that they ran out of address space.

Re:TCP/IP

[bobibleyboo]

The OSI model or stack as you call it is not a protocol at all. It is a seven (some think that is should be 8) layer refrence model used mainly to compare, or design new protocols. It is also very handy when intergrating 2 dissimialr systems as it allows you to look at the logical distinctions in the protocol stacks and to map between them at the same level. This jack of all trades also makes an excellent teaching tool.

Re:TCP/IP

[clevelandguru]

Its not just a reference model... There are implementation of OSI stack for use in communication. Telecom Applications use them a lot. Just a result form Google. Compaq OSI

The Internal Combustion Engine.

[Dr Caleb]

Think about it.

Invented more than 100 years ago, it's been refined to a point where it is very reliable and reasonabally effecient (from a chemical energy perspective).

Even a modern engine is still basically the same as the Ford Model T. We've just made it more effecient.

My first car, a 1975 Buick LeSaber had an Olds 455 that sucked so much gas I needed to take out a loan to fill the tank (and gas was $.34/l). My latest car, a 2003 Mercury Marauder has a 4.6l Cobra Engine that would kick that old 455 easily. It uses 1/6 the fuel with 3/4 the displacement developing 40% more ponies, and won't need to be rebuilt as often.

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine.

[10Ghz]

Even a modern engine is still basically the same as the Ford Model T. We've just made it more effecient.

Ummmm... Ford Model T was a car, not an engine. The real honor of inventing the internal combustion engine should go to Nikolaus August Otto (altrough there were other before him) with Gottlieb Daimler perfecting his design. Both are German, so it's no wonder that the Germans make the best cars ;).

Re:The Internal Combustion Engine.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a really bad example.

The bigblocks in '75 were so badly choked with emissions hardware that they ran lousy and got very poor mileage. Earlier bigblocks got better fuel mileage than the '75 and made power/torque that the new 4.6 will never make (without a blower).

Your new car weighs hundreds of pounds less and has an overdrive trans.

Aviation

[Shadow Wrought]

I'm partial to this one, as a pilot, but the leaps in aviation are amazing. We went from being able to fly a couple hundred feet to thousands of miles in a matter of decades. it has urged us towards the space program, and has become an integral part of our society.

My (completely biased) $0.02.

Lessee...

[Otter]

Mac SE's (especially SE/30's) have mostly passed out of service now but a lot of them were still in use well into the Windows95 era. SE/30's run Linux or NetBSD and are still in demand for mailservers and similar functions.

Hexcel skis are still popular among backcountry skiiers for their extremely light weight.

Original Playstations still seem relatively popular, given the usual console lifespan. (/me regrets buying a $50 Dreamcast instead, and finding no cheap games available any more.

You know, despite all the whining about "they don't make 'em like they used to", most new major purchases last a long time. You expect 150,000 miles out of a car or 20 years from a refrigerator, which didn't used to be the case.

My Good ole IBM PC jr

[doublesix]

... going on 20 yrs and it still runs Turbo Pascal and Kings Quest like a mfkn charm.

My personal favorite, my USRobotics Courier

[xTK-421x]

I bought this external modem (for cheap at the time, $170 which was half price I believe) from USRobotics as a field tester in 1993, and I helped them test the new V.FC 28.8 standard.

After the field test was over, USR gave me a free upgrade to every future standard. So I got V.FC+, V34, X2, and V90 all free. They finally gave up on upgrades with V.92, but the modem died a few weeks ago anyway.

10 years of service, with all those free upgrades. I have to say that lasted a lot long than I thought it would.

Purchase quality products

[BWJones]

Well, most products I purchase tend to be a little more expensive and higher quality, but they absolutely *do* last longer. I purchase Macintosh computers which have very long lifetimes, and often simply refuse to die. HP calculators, Sony televisions, Toyota cars etc... Of course those are considered wear items, but the same analogy could be carried through to non wear items or items that have very little wear. We tend to purchase high quality furniture that if we ever have kids, they could fight over after we die. (Humans, unfortunately have lots of little wear bits, but I'm working on some of that too).

Licorice Pizzas and Thermionic Devices

[TigerPlish]

While both have dropped off the mainstream's radar in this CD-driven, 500-watt amps-on-a-chip world, the old LP still gives better-than-cd sound, and tube amps for the most part sound better than the avg. crap one finds at Ckt City. And even some big-name solid-state makers cringe at the mention of tubes.

Not bad for LP (1948, Microgroove) and tubes..(Crap.. 1910's? DeForrest.)

/me hugs his dynaco stereo 70

Some good and bad examples

[watzinaneihm]

Good
Unix,C,Java (desgned to run on small appliances),IBM PC,incandescent bulbs.....
A lot of military stuff, from ww2 times like AK47 gun, b52 bomber planes,parachutes (even older)
Bad
x86 instruction set, original code in dos that caused y2k problems,

Ballpoint pens

[Sowbug]

They're pretty cool if you think about it. A whole bunch of ink that rolls out onto the paper over a tiny little ball. If you remember to keep the cap on and don't leave it on the dashboard of your car in the sun, it doesn't leak. And you can buy 12 for $1.00 at the office supply store, which if you didn't lose them all in a month would be a lifetime supply.

Re:Ballpoint pens

[Anne_Nonymous]

On that theme also, paper. It's been around for 5000 years or so, and it still covers rock like nobody's business.

Re:Ballpoint pens

[Iron Fusion]

12 pens is a lifetime supply? Maybe if you don't do much writing by hand, but with school work I would use more than that in a year even if I didn't lose any.

Re:Ballpoint pens

[farnerup]

Yeah, but the early ones costed like $10 a piece and leaked like rusty buckets. They didn't really catch on until the fifties.

SMS

[alexkj]

If anybody had told me, that the mobile phone killer app would be short text messages typed out laboriously on a numeric key-pad, I'd have thought they were nuts. But the telcos are making billions on'em.

Re:SMS

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely! SMS is the mobile phone "killer app." I think "tight" technologies like this have much more chance of lasting than bloatware like WAP and "mms" (which supposedly sends pics and multimedia messages.) Let's see if it takes off!
Phil C

windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I once had a single copy of windows ME working for 3 days straight without a blue screen of death. That is approximatly 36 times as long as the second longest time between forced reboots.

Macromedia Flash as a basic web layout

[mao che minh]

Honestly, I didn't think Flash would be around as long as it has. I saw it's potential in making cartoons, but Flash sites are just annoying.

How about the B-52?

[elcheesmo]

Over 50 years after it was introduced, it's still in use...with a few slight changes of course.

Re:How about the B-52?

[PhxBlue]

Not only is it still in use--we used it for close air support in Afghanistan. The engineers who designed it probably shat bricks or turned in their graves to see a heavy bomber successfully used for CAS. . .

Re:How about the B-52?

[ICEelemental]

While we're at it let's not forget the C-130...

Re:How about the B-52?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but perhaps even more impressive is that they were designed to last that long -- and are currently planned to be in service for another 30-50! And given the ungodly number of the things we built, I wouldn't be surprised to see a few reach 100 years old before they retire.

I'm Surprised that

[DaytonCIM]

my Mac SE30 is still running strong. Bought it new in 1989. Never had a single component fail, never had to repair anything on it.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

[DarkTrancer]

My trusty old sinclair spectrum still manages to hold onto dear life, it`s massive 48k of mem and the beast of a 3.5mhz Zilog cpu seems good for another 10 years at least,and my parents said in 1982 that it wouldn`t last.

Re:Sinclair ZX Spectrum

[nahual]

hummm

This reminds me of my Timex Sinclar 1000.

The manual for the expansion to 16kb said...

"16kb is a lot of memory, there are no contest to try to fill it..."

Now i feel i am ancient... :-O

Re:Sinclair ZX Spectrum

[malfunct]

Hmmm I had a timex sinclair 1000 and because it had a faulty ribbon cable to connect the keyboard to the motherboard you had to take it apart a few times a year and reconnect that. I don't know if it was a widespread issue but I got 3 different ones and they all had the same problem.

Ethernet

[bstadil]

Ethernet must be at the top if the list.

The Aloha based system was not supposed to scale. The problem pointed out by IBM / TI and others were that collisons increased as the useage increased, prohibiting a steady throughput. The problem of non predictability of packages was equally mentioned.

Token ring and other methods were supposed to supplant Ethernet in a few years, back when we were at 1Mbps.

10Mbps were supposed to be the EOL for ethernet.

Where are we now? 10Gbps is getting to be deployed.

Re:Ethernet

[perky]

But 1000base-X and above are switched systems so that only one machine is in the collision domain. This is so that the backoff times are reasonable despite fairly long cable runs. In other words gigabit ethernet is not a multiple access system on shared media. Ethernet hasn't scaled - the problem it solves has been supplanted.

Re:Ethernet

[bofus]

10Mbps were supposed to be the EOL for ethernet. Where are we now? 10Gbps is getting to be deployed.

Actually, if you look at GigE and 10GigE under the covers, you'll find that there is a lot of similarity to the token-passing technology employed by FDDI and Token Ring. Half-Duplex Ethernet hit a dead end at 100Mbs.

FWIW, I agree with you on the importance of Ethernet. Token-Ring and FDDI, while being proven technologies, never offered the "bang for the buck" that switched Ethernet did.

Re:Ethernet

[larien]

Yeah, ATM was gonna kill of ethernet. We were getting told this in our course back in 96/97. Where I work, ATM was put in and has now been largely replaced by trunked GigE and it's ATM that's died off (although it lives on in telecommunications, at least in the UK). 10GigE has already been mooted, as has Gig to the desktop (!!!).

As someone has said, ethernet has changed from the CSMA/CD to a connected "star" network.

Re:Ethernet

[geirhe]

Ethernet must be at the top if the list. The Aloha based system was not supposed to scale.

Ethernet is CSMA/CD, not Aloha. Aloha is where people talk regardless of what is happening, and scales like shit. Ethernet is Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Carrier Detection, a refinement of the aloha protocol which scales much better - the dip for high channel utilizations is much smaller. More info here

Re:Ethernet

[geirhe]

Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Carrier Detection

Dang. _Collision_ detection, I mean. It's a bit late on this end of the world.

Re:Ethernet

[bstadil]

FYI, The idea for Ethernet came from radio communication between islands in Hawaii.

The system were manual but the "rules" were when you heard someone else talk you had to shut up. Both parties. Then there were stocastic rules for how long you had to wait before you re-try. The stocastic manual system minimized repeated collisions. Aloha

Re:Ethernet

[stefanb]

10Mbps were supposed to be the EOL for ethernet. Where are we now? 10Gbps is getting to be deployed.

But this is not really Ethernet anymore.

Yes, the frame format is still comparable, but all the electrical parameters have been changed, and the encoding, full-duplex, etc. pp.

I think the amazing thing is that there is a straight-forward way of bridging between a legacy 10 Mbps Ethernet and a 802.x network, while still maintaining many of the original sematics.

Re:Ethernet

[sharkey]

Aloha is where people talk regardless of what is happening

Appletalk?

IIRC...

[alaffin]

Didn't that MIR space station thing stay up a lot longer than everyone thought it would?

Other long lived technologies? How about the simple pencil? Simplistic and unbelievably effective.

Re:IIRC...

[MerlTurkin]

Mir was originally designed to last 5 years. It lasted 13. Pretty darn good. It had it's share of problems but the Russians did real well with it. I'll never forget talking to John Blaha on Mir over ham radio back in 1997. Talk about exciting! Also many,many packet connects/contacts via Mir. I miss the old bird...

Slashdot

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Slashdot has exceed its expectations. Maybe not so much the technology-- it's doing exactly what it was programmed to do, after all-- but certainly the capacity.

In other words, Slashdot is notable not so much because it works well, but because it works at all. ;-)

Re:Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

And that people still choose to read it and post to it despite the low level of signal to noise.

Simple..

[Manfre]

I am amazed that no one has mentioned the wheel, or the written langauge. I mean if you really want to answer this question, just open up civ3 or a similar game. :P

Anything older than 20 years?

[Astin]

Am I the only one who notices that appliances and other electronic/mechanical devices from 15+ years ago seem to be MUCH better built than today's models? Sure, today's stuff is lighter, but that plastic seams to break much too easily. Give me a 30 year old blender that can crush ice in seconds over a new one that has a hard time with bananas anyday.

Somewhat analagous to the space program, eh? Pioneer, Voyager, etc.. much more longevity than anything that gets sent up these days.

Re:Anything older than 20 years?

[Spriggig]

I have my first computer, an AST 286, sitting in my closet, that thing is built like a tank. Still runs, but not very often any more.

Re:Anything older than 20 years?

[BoneFlower]

Problem is todays economy moves fast. Very fast. If you can't get a product to market NOW, you are dead. So, companies often simply cannot afford to produce items as durable as they used to be able to, and when they do, they have to charge more than most people can afford.

In general, I agree that older stuff does last longer and is more solid. My car was scrapped only because it wasn't worth repairing a 700 dollar car. Everything worked, it was just the body panels being light sheet metal(and some fiberglass and plastic in the grill area) that got messed up)

Re:Anything older than 20 years?

[cybercuzco]

Thqats a common misperception. If you had an appliance from 15 years ago that WASNT reliable, you certainly wouldnt still have it around, it would have been replaced 14 years ago. After an initial burn in period, when most appliances fail, appliances will last for quite a long time. In My grandparents old house they have a fridge that was bought in the mid 50's that has never been broken a day in its life. In fact it outlived my grandparents. Of course, if you make appliances too reliable, no one will ever buy another, which is what happened in this case, as the company that made those refrigerators, Philco, went out of the buisness of making fridges years ago.

Unix and C ofcourse..

[dracken]

Why Unix and C ofcourse ! Its really amazing that the creativity of one man (oh well, two men) is still going strong now (granted it had many overhauls). The entire concept of operating system has been influenced by Unix. We think processes and files. The beautiful simplicity and elegance! As far as C is concerned, the syntax and the semantics is elegant. (So elegant that I place semicolons at the end of sentences rather than a period).

Re:Unix and C ofcourse..

[Peaker]

Either they're elegant, or you're trapped in a misconception :)

Ofcourse you can view C and Unix as great tools that worked wonderfully over the years.. Or you can blame K and R for an insecure design (yielding problems such as The Confused Deputy) and the general insecurity problems that exist in Unix and C and not in many alternatives.

The concept of a process is also not very related to Unix specifically, but found everywhere where hardware-level separation between threads of execution is useful. I think in the future, such protection will be achieved at the language-level, rather than the hardware level, and that processes are actually ad-hoc and not in any way elegant.

As for files... I see those as the general concept of applications explcitly serializing and persisting their data into bit streams uniquely identified on the disk via string hierarchies. I don't find that elegant at all. In fact, I find Orthogonal persistence a lot more elegant.

I believe Unix encapsulates some nice creative ideas, even elegant. But I also think that the positive concensus about them is a simple reflection of the poor alternatives and of general ignorance of better and more elegant designs out there.

Re:Unix and C ofcourse..

[certsoft]

As far as C is concerned, the syntax and the semantics is elegant.

Thanks, I really needed a laugh today!

Re:Unix and C ofcourse..

[McCrapDeluxe]

(So elegant that I place semicolons at the end of sentences rather than a period). No, you don't.

Re:Unix and C ofcourse..

[Anonymous Coward]

C was good 30 years ago, but I think I can safely say that it's over-stayed its welcome. Just look at all of the recent security holes due to C programming, for instance.

Re:Unix and C ofcourse..

[MasterRa]

I must agree. C syntax really is beautiful.. :)

The IP protocol, obviously

[stripmarkup]

No one ever expected it to take over the world and run out of address space.

Re:The IP protocol, obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the IP protocol? I know that the "IP" of "TCP/IP" fame means Internet Protocol, so surely you don't mean that. That would be like saying MIDI interface!

hi

[Sarreq Teryx]

My dad's 35 year old Pioneer wood box stereo speakers. I haven't found any decently priced (under $200ea.) match to them so far.

Games that spring to mind

[Savatte]

Quake, Super Mario Brothers 1 and especially 3. Sure the technology may be old and there are newer and flashier games, but these games are still fun to play, and I can't imagine I'm the only one who thinks so.

Re:Games that spring to mind

[jjhall]

Go back even farther! I still enjoy digging out my dad's old Atari and playing Asteroids, Skydive, Slot Racers, Breakout... I'm 22 years old here, but I'm not sure when my dad got it, college or after, not sure.

I also enjoy playing SMB (The original, never cared much for 2 or 3. Duck Hunt, Tiger Heli. There are newer games and systems that make those look like absolute crap, but I enjoy playing them as much (if not more in some cases) than the new games.

Re:Games that spring to mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's be reasonable. Both you and I know that you sit around playing RTCW, and that neither you nor your dad ever owned a video game system. You are just posting this crap to make it look like you are cooler than the previous guy, who probably doesn't even have a nintendo. Go home, poseurs.

Cars

[pmz]

I know this might sound dumb, but I'm always amazed that car engines after 100,000 miles or so have gone through over a quarter of a billion revolutions. That's about a billion controlled explosions and about 4000 gallons of gasoline (give or take a few).

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[stratjakt]

x86 design isn't all that shitty. It's in the eye of the beholder.

There's no reason to stick with x86, it would be just as easy to emulate a la Virtual PC for backwards compatibility.

It's lasted, and dominated, because in many ways it's a good design.

amiga---

[nahual]

I still use mi Amiga 1200 and earn money with it!!!
(8 mb ram at 30 mhz...). Now it,s ancient technology..

Amazing =8-)

1865 Singer Sewing Machine

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife has a 1865 Singer sewing machine we use for our Civil War Reenacting and it is going very strong. Low cost too!

Re:1865 Singer Sewing Machine

[Anonymous Coward]

And you didn't have to upgrade it for y2k!

On-Line Banking

[UpLateDrinkingCoffee]

Being just slightly disorganized, on-line banking has lifted the huge burden of keeping tabs on all those pesky bills that come throughout the month. This is definitely one "internet" related technology that has changed my life for the better.

Of course, many of the bills are for "internet" pr0n... things have a way of balancing out for me.

The most basic ones are a sure bet

[gmuslera]

Wheel, fire, geometry, and so on. Probably the ones that made or discover them supposed that it will be here forever, but, with the reach and diversity of today's world?

Think in a wheel, something that rolls and could facilitate transport of... well, big pieces of stone, i.e., but that a variation of this made posible mechanical clocks, cinema, orbital stations, and a big percent of what are here right now?

Definetly

[Broken1982]

I have a 8 gig maxor hd that is still spinning after I bought it in 1995. Sure, it's filled to the brim, but, it still works.

I'll tell you what hasn't ...

[grammaticaster]

... my cordless phones. I've had THREE of them since July, and the one I'm using is about to get thrown out. Piece of crap.

Solid-Body Electric Guitars!

[GypC]

Long after their introduction, the Gibson Les Paul and the Fender Telecaster are still the guitars of choice for a great many artists. They were the first two solid-body electrics ever manufactured, although which was actually first is still a point of contention.

Re:Solid-Body Electric Guitars!

[Anonymous Coward]

But it can be argued that the Les Paul and Telecaster (and Stratocaster too) have lasted at least partly because of the look and nostalgia.

I mean the quality compared to much of what modern guitar designs have put out (like Ibanez's higher end stuff for one) doesnt seem to be there. One piece construction, graphite fingerboards, and the tech that's gone into pickups and other electrics lately is insane. (Though the older guitars can be upgraded).

Re:Solid-Body Electric Guitars!

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like someone that doesn't know a whole lot about the construction of Ibanez's higher end models. Expensive plywood is still plywood plus they still use really cheap pots and capacitors compared to the US made Fenders and Gibsons. If you don't believe me, just pop the neck of you JS model or your Jem and count the layers. Now if you care to argue the merits of the acoustical properties of plywood versus solid wood that's an entirely different issue.

Re:Solid-Body Electric Guitars!

[unitron]

Actually the Fender Broadcaster preceeded the Telecaster, although the only difference is the name. They had to change it because there was a Rogers drum set already using the name "Broadcaster".

TI calculators

[Tuxinatorium]

I'm suprised that TI-83s are still so popular, considering they use ~12 year old technology. They're painfully slow for running simple math programs. Especially with statistics simulations. It takes the calculator several minutes to generate 100 samples of 50 random numbers from 1 to 10, which is something my $70 Athlon XP 2000+ could do in a fraction of a second. It's ridiculous how they're still using 20 year old processor technology. Even the Mac Classic puts the TI-83 to shame in terms of IPS and FLOPS.

Re:TI calculators

[nidarion]

Has Texas Instruments even bothered to upgrade the guts of those things or is one you pick off the shelf today going to be just like one from the 80's?

It doesn't sound like smart business to keep the sell the same old clunker for over a decade. :)

Re:TI calculators

[kevinqtipreedy]

The TI-83 Plus just came out a few years ago. It has more ram, and "archieve" space where things can be stored. you cant run programs from the archieve but you can alwasy move them to ram. just this year ti released the ti-83 silver addition, which had a new processor. it was a little faster, and has a few more features that the ti-83 and ti-83plus cannot do.

Re:TI calculators

[Anonymous Coward]

The TI-83 is great for a student doing trig or calculus or something like that. I bought mine because it was the cheapest grapher out there and alot of other folks used it at the time. It does take a couple of seconds to compute certain things, but for the cost and the reliability of it (never seen one fail) I'd say it's a great machine.

Rob

PS- Plus, you can run DrugWar and Tetris during class...

Re:TI calculators

[satterth]

I hate to say it, but TI Calc's are still popular because they fit in your pocket. Mac Classics' and Athlons' don't.

Re:TI calculators

[number11]

I'm suprised that TI-83s are still so popular, considering they use ~12 year old technology. They're painfully slow for running simple math programs. Especially with statistics simulations. It takes the calculator several minutes to generate 100 samples of 50 random numbers from 1 to 10, which is something my $70 Athlon XP 2000+ could do in a fraction of a second.

You have an Athlon XP 2000+ pocket calculator? What's the battery life like on one of those?

Re:TI calculators

[Tuxinatorium]

oh, about 6 minutes ;) But seriously, there are some good handheld/ebedded type processors that are 1000x faster than the TI-83. The TI-83's guts havn't been upgraded in the last 15 years, (not counting the silver edition). In the plus edition, they just added a little more ram so now you have a (still pathetic) 24K of ram and ?100K of archive space. woohoo. You can fit 100x that on a single flash eeprom chip.

How about

[BaldingByMicrosoft]

The two-party political system in the US.

It sure seems like the public would eventually realize that the system was supposed to elect representatives from your area that would vote for the will of their constituents.

Yet year after year we send off representatives that, by and large, dutifully follow the directions of the party whip.

Casio watch and GE Electric clock

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, may Casio sports watch died last week after 25 1/2 years. Soon I wont be able to tell my stepson it's older than he is. But, at least my GE electric alarm clock is still the loudest most annoying thing you will ever hear after 32+ years.

The Knap of Howar

[cruachan]

This has to have exceeded all expectations. Nearly 6,000 years old and the basic building is still in reasonable condition. http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/knaphowar.htm

Pyramids, pah :-)

My jeep.

[Exantrius]

Any conversation about miracle technology has to include my jeep-- There are others out there just as good, but mine is special.

It's a 93 jeep with 300,000 miles on it, mostly original engine (replaced after about 400 miles. See police car below). Original transmission, and, well, basically over it's lifetime, we've put maybe 25000 dollars into it-- including buying it new and only two major technical breaks in its lifetime (transfer case and shorted computer chip), and all of the copays.

Three of the accidents were my family's fault-- Including the drunk in the truck. Cop called it her fault, but failed to give her a breathalyzer-- small town, cop didn't want to arrest his mom's friend. drunk contested, because of how she hit us, it looked like it was our fault, and no proof she was drunk. Let this be a lesson to you-- ALWAYS require a breathalyzer, even if it's obvious they're drunk, or the cop doesn't want to-- you can request it, and if the first cop won't, call 911, and say you were hit by a drunk driver.

Things that it's been hit by:
A) Big Rig
B) Police Car
C) Drunk in truck
D) New driver in new truck.
E) Idiot in el camino.
F) at least three other actionable accidents (had to have almost every panel replaced-- the roof is the one exception.

The most remarkable thing, 90% of the miles were put on within its first 5 years. After three years (180k miles), my parents stopped giving it regular maintenance("well, we're gonna sell it soon, what does it matter"), followed by not replacing the brakes. Six months later, they gave it an oil change. a year later "well, the brakes aren't getting any better".

Most of my friends received new cars on graduating HS, or before or during the first couple years of college. I got the beast because the dealer was going to give them only like 1800 trade in on it-- So my parents signed it over to me. Most of said friends have since seen their cars blow up/go kaput/stop moving.

Other than the cd player and the oil leak, there's nothing wrong with mine :-) *furiously knocks on wood* /Ex

Re:My jeep.

[binford2k]

Did I read that right that you put $25,000 into this jeep? There's no way that can be right, and if it is, you're out of your mind. $2,500 or $250.00?

Re:My jeep.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he meant including the original price for it...

Re:My jeep.

[Exantrius]

I actually just pulled up the numbers, and I'm 2,000 off. $23,000 over it's total lifetime, other than gas. That breaks down to $2,300 a year, or 7 cents per mile for the hardware (including tires, incidentals, accidentals, interest, brakes, oil changes and other maintenance.)

I'd like to see any other car with a total cost of ownership lower than that (more than 8 years old), or a lower per mile (for a car less than 8 years)

I've brought it to mechanics who've asked if I'll sell it because if it hasn't died yet, it'll never die *knocks furiously on wood* /ex

Re:My jeep.

[ChaoticLimbs]

I had a 1991 (sold it). Truly reliable vehicle. Started first twist of the key every time. Nothing ever broke. Replaced the brake pads once, and added oil to the differentials when it occurred to me to do so. Other than that, it just ran.

old tech

[lgalindo]

a sinclair spectrum

mactoaster

[gobbo]

I have a creaky 512ke Mac that won't die. It:

has a whopping 512K of RAM and a 9" b/w monitor

runs on two 800k floppies

boots in 17 seconds

runs various useful office programs including MSword 3.0 which means WYSYWIG columns, dropcaps, styles, embedded images, footnotes, chapters, indexes, etc.

doesn't crash (EVER!!)

networked over a printer cable, once upon a time

entertained/survived two toddlers

was made in early 1985

I wrote a master's thesis on this thing in the backyard, squatting in the grass with a long extension cord, published books and 'zines, hauled it around in a shoulder bag on trains and planes and boats, and generally thrashed it with everyday use.

Recently moved 6,000km, and couldn't give it away or sell it, and since it still works, hauled it some more. It's set up for more occasional abuse, though it gets less and less.

I love hearing the particular sound of those floppy drives used as incongruous 'hacker' sound effects in cheesy hollywood movies!

All the computers I ever owned

[nidarion]

I can't believe it but I hauled my 486 out of it's packaging a month ago, hooked it all up and it booted perfectly, faster than my current XP box. :)

The Pentium II box hasn't had a problem and my current Athlon 1.2ghz is peachy.

Although over a period of several years I've managed to corrupt Kernel32.dll on both the 486 and the Pentium 2... Boy does Windows hate not having that file.

Now where's that Radio Shack Tandy 3000, I want to code some BASIC.

Old Lionel Trains

[wikthemighty]

A couple of years back my uncle found a locomotive in a wall in a house they were remodeling.

The loco was manufactured in 1917.

We dusted it off, put it on the track, powered it up and it ran just fine. Only thing that didn't work was the little light on the front.

As much fun as their new trains are, I have a feeling that their old engines will probably outlast trains made today...

Colt M1911

[JesseL]

This is a firearm originally designed in the 1900's that is still one of the most popular designs of all time. The 1911 is considered by many to be as accurate, reliable, and rugged as any of the most modern firearms available. I inherited one that had originally been made for the U.S. Army in 1918 and belonged to my great-grandfather; it still functions perfectly to this day.

Re:Colt M1911

[Jon314]

Don't forget Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun.

Re:Colt M1911

[zerus]

Actually it was replaced by the baretta 9mm by all services back in the 1980's. The old service pistol is not in service in any branch except for my beloved Corps in the form of the modified M1911 SOC (spec ops modified). Not every one gets the modified pistol, since the gunsmiths at Quantico do the modifications in house and by hand. The baretta seems to be a decent replacement, but I prefer to stick with my trusty .45cal hand cannon.

Re:Colt M1911

[mgs1000]

Just because the M9 replaced the M1911 doesn't mean that the Colt was an inferior pistol. :)

AFAIK, none of the US military's special forces use the M9. I hear there are a lot of concern about the M9's long term durabilty. Something that I doubt could be said about the '1911. (IIRC, some indivdual pistols were in service for 50+ years.)

Re:Colt M1911

[LtDave]

My 1936 production 1911A1 Goverment Model still goes bang - first time,every time. And let's not forget my Model 94 Winchester. The design is 109 years old and its probably accounted for more deer, and more men good and bad, than any other rifle in civilian production.

Re:Colt M1911

[JesseL]

I agree about the model 1894 Winchester, and come to think of it, everything else designed by John Moses Browning. All of his designs were beautiful works of mechanical engineering, ergonomics, and manufacturability. I've spent hours pondering the simplicity of my Hi-Power, the intricacy of my 1911's, etc. I don't understand how anyone could think these wonderful, enduring, tools are "evil".

Re:Colt M1911

[larien]

Hrm, is that the one that uses the same ammo as the Barret "light" 50? Nice sniper cannon...

Re:Colt M1911

[dildatron]

Here, here. I got a new Kimber Custom 1911 and love the 1911 design. A true piece of art and functionality.

Re:Colt M1911

[perky]

On this theme, how about the Kalashnikov AK-47? 50 years old and still the basis of weapons used all over the world.

Re:Colt M1911

[Mullen]

On this theme, how about the Kalashnikov AK-47? 50 years old and still the basis of weapons used all over the world.

AK-47 is not that good, in fact, it's a pretty piss poor rifle in accuracy. The only reason people use it is that it is cheap. There is a saying, "The only people who buy AK-47's are people who can't afford M-16's."

Re:Colt M1911

[LtDave]

Yeah Ma Deuce. If you can see it - and its not a main battle tank, you can kill it.

Re:Colt M1911

[Mr. Foogle]

After they were issued (to the Corps) it was discovered that after firing X rounds the slide developed cracks. Distressing. They rushed out repair/upgrade kits but for a long time they went only where needed - our armoury was full of pistols with 'do not fire' tags.

Re:Colt M1911

[Anonymous Coward]

The Thompson Sub Machine Gun Model of 1921

Ever stand in front af a target and hold the trigger down using a 100 round "C" drum?

The guns as made by the Colt Patent Firearms Mfg. Co. were dead reliable and indestructable: a classic example of over engineering and high quality workmanship. They were a glorious proof of concept that lots of fire power was a useful tool in the military.

Re:Colt M1911

[blair1q]

M1911 Marine MEU (SOC)?

I can see the attraction.

With a light.
Ho-ly moly.
Clean and mean.

That last one has the interesting quote of a quote, "In the February 1999 American Rifleman, the author of "America's 9mm's", James P. Cowgill states, "One reason for the change to a 9mm service pistol was the increasing number of women in the military. They have statistically smaller hands and were often issued revolvers as opposed to the larger M1911A1".

The USMC's site for it.

Re:Colt M1911

[good soldier svejk]

AK-47 is not that good, in fact, it's a pretty piss poor rifle in accuracy. The only reason people use it is that it is cheap. There is a saying, "The only people who buy AK-47's are people who can't afford M-16's."

This is kind of a metaphysical issue. Each system is the pinnacle of its design philosophy.

The Kalashnikov is inherently rugged and tolerant of environmental variables. AK derivatives operate flawlessly in sand and water, at any temperature. Years ago I read an interview with Uziel Gal where he said that was why IMI (meaning Israel Galili and himself) chose the AK as the basis for the Galil. Israeli combat experience showed the AKs to be the only weapon to operate at or near 100% efficiency in desert combat.

The AR-15 is a totally different animal. It is a beautifully balanced and elegant design. While the AK was based on proven designs and manufacturing methods, the AR-15 was ground breaking. New materials and manufacturing techniques made it feather light, robust and easy to produce. Eugene Stoner's baby was an unbelievably efficient weapon. As you say it was more accurate than the AKs. Its ammunition was also (at the time, AKs have caught up) lighter, which meant you could carry more of it, and more destructive. The lightweight small bore cartridge also made the weapon easier to use.

Unfortunately, the AR-15s strength turned out to be its weakness. It was such a finely balanced design that the slightest change in specifications completely destroyed its functionality. This is painfully clear from the history of the M-16 in Vietnam. While the AR-15 was highly prized in that war, the "militarized" M-16 was a disaster. To the casual observer, the differences between the two weapons were trivial. The M-16 had faster twist rifling, which improved the already excellent accuracy but drastically reduced the bullet's destructiveness. The bullet retained stability after impact while the AR-15's tumbled. The M-16 had a plunger on the right side of the receiver for forcing the bolt closed when jammed with debris. Forcing a debris jammed bolt home is probably not going to solve your problem and can permanently damage the weapon. But neither of these changes explained the shocking reduction in reliability between the two designs. The AR-15's reliability had been outstanding, both in tests and in combat. The M-16 was terrible. GI's and parental complaints were so voluminous they sparked congressional hearings. What had changed? Believe it or not the cause of this unreliability, which probably killed hundreds of GIs (and wounded thousands), was a simple change in the type of gunpowder in the cartridge. Against Stoner's advice the DOD had changed from a Winchester bar powder to their standard ball powder. The higher chamber pressure and temperature, as well as the dirtier combustion, completely destroyed the functionality of the weapon. It took years of tweaking to bring the M16 back to reasonable reliability standards. The problems never occurred in testing because the Army never bothered testing the new powder. The M16 evaluation was all don with Stoner's Winchester powder.

By contrast, the AK variants can digest any ammo you cram into the magazine with roughly equal efficiency. The Russians learned there lesson during WWII when brass shortages forced them to use steel cartridge cases. If you can cram it in the chamber, the AK will fire it, eject it and load another.

The AR-15 is a fine piece of engineering. Israeli soldiers who used the Galil like it because of its balance and light weight. And for theIDF's current uses it is probably perfect. But it isn't any lighter than the AK-74 and accuracy is a secondary consideration. Reliability, durability, flexibility and quantity are more important. The Kalashnikov wins on all those counts. For most militaries I think the AK-74 is a better choice.

I also think the Browning Hi Power was a much better design than the 1911, and only twelve years newer (design not production).

$.02...blah, blah

Re:Colt M1911

[rjh]

Special Warfare teams draw weapons more or less as they want. They've got access to .45 OHWS, .45 Colt M1911A1, 9mm M9 and M11 pistols, mostly. For a long time SEALs swore by the M11 and Delta swore by the M1911A1.

After the frame and slide problems with the M9 were worked out, the M9 was quickly adopted as a standard Special Warfare sidearm. It's in very common usage throughout the Special Warfare community, mostly because (a) it's good enough for its task, and (b) replacement parts and equipment for the M9 are very easy to come by pretty much anywhere in the world. Unlike, say, if they were using the .45 M1911A1 still, in which case you could forget about ever being able to find ammunition outside of the United States...

Re:Colt M1911

[thopkins]

In a real dirty environment an AK is much more reliable than an AR15/M16. The AR is definately better when clean, but the AK is jam proof. For fighting in the jungle or other bad place I'd take an AK.

Re:Colt M1911

[GarryOwen]

You forgot the military did not issue cleaning kits with the M16 till after the hearings. After the military started issueing the cleaning kits and also chromed the chamber(prevents build up) teh # of jamming issues went down dramatically.
BTW my personal preference after having fired both the AK and the M16 is by far and away the M16. The AK feels very loose when firing.

Re:Colt M1911

[good soldier svejk]

You forgot the military did not issue cleaning kits with the M16 till after the hearings. After the military started issueing the cleaning kits and also chromed the chamber(prevents build up) teh # of jamming issues went down dramatically. BTW my personal preference after having fired both the AK and the M16 is by far and away the M16. The AK feels very loose when firing.

They didn't issue them to every GI but they did issue some to each platoon, IIRC (could be wrong). The reason was that Stoner's design, firing the powder he intended needed extrordinarily infrequent cleaning. The army's based its cleaning standards on the tests they had done with Winchester ammo and Special Forces and ARVN field experience with the AR15. The chromed chambers and increased cleaning requirements were hacks to overcome the powder mistake, which they refused to admit or fix. Last I heard (mid eighties) they were still using the same Dupont powder.

I agree that the M16 is a more precise and better balanced instrument. It also doesn't have a giant safety which makes an audible clack to give away your position or a muzzle brake which is deafeningly loud for a rifle chambered for a varmint cartridge.

Re:Colt M1911

[nathanm]

No, that's the M82A1.

sharp el-506d, se/30, light bulb

[ChristTrekker]

My high school calculator ('87 I suppose?) is still going strong on the original battery. I bought two revisions of the el-506 since, both had a hard plastic slide-on cover that I thought would be nice, but both have flaked out and died. The D still balances my checkbook, converts bases, and does trig for me.

(My HS math teacher had a calculator from about 1970 that still worked at the time. It had red LEDs, which was cool compared to the boring black LCD displays ours had. The school had paid several hundred dollars for it. Funny to think my calculator is as old now as his was then. I wonder if his still works?)

I have an SE/30, dating to '89 or '90, that still runs wonderfully. I installed a 1.2 GB drive and bumped the RAM to 68 MB, and it runs NetBSD. I think my //gs still runs...

I remember a Guinness book record from the 80's, I don't know if it's been broken since, but there was a fire hall that had an old carbon-filament light bulb that still worked. They thought it dated to around 1910 or something like that. That's pretty cool.

Re:sharp el-506d, se/30, light bulb

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be in Livermore, CA. Just down the road from me at the moment. You can find it here.

And yeah, my Amiga 3k still gets daily use.

qz

My slide rule!

[criscooil]

Still works fine. Must be about 30 years now.

old phones

[tomzyk]

My parents still have a rotary [pulse, dial...] phone in their kitchen. It still works just fine (after about 25 years of use from a family of 7) so there hasn't been a need to replace it. Although impatient people complain that you still have to wait a full 5 seconds longer to complete your outbound phone calls compared to touch-tone phones. (oh the horror!)

A friend of my younger brother was over there a few years ago and had to ask my dad how to use the phone because he'd never seen a phone without a number-pad on it. Pathetic. Times are changin and these young whipper-snappers aren't learning things that we took for granted. Like learning to read the time off of the face of a (non-digital) clock.

Anyways... back to the subject.

TV, telephones, wallclocks, pocket calculators (solar powered ones too), etc... there are a bunch of pieces of technology I use every day that have lasted beyond initial expectation.

I wish I could say the same thing about computers now-a-days. (Most are considered "old" or "out of date" within 6 months.)

Re:old phones

[Mr. Slippery]

It still works just fine (after about 25 years of use from a family of 7) so there hasn't been a need to replace it...

Works fine until you encounter a DTMF-based voicemail system that doesn't have a default. I was once at the home of a friend who's only phone was rotary, went to call my parents who have voicemail set up on their PC, and was unable to leave a message.

But yeah, general point stands - they don't make 'em like they used to.

Re:old phones

[ChristTrekker]

A friend of my younger brother was over there a few years ago and had to ask my dad how to use the phone because he'd never seen a phone without a number-pad on it. Pathetic.

I ran into the same thing, but back in the summer of 1990. I had a summer job with the city, and had stopped in the grocery store to get a lunch snack. Some kid walked in after a swimming lesson and asked to use the phone. It was rotary, and the kid didn't know how to use it. There must have been many more rotary phones still in service then than now.

I always wanted to get one of those old crank phones, and get it to work somehow. That would be cool. It would be OK to gut it and mount a modern phone inside, but to actually get it to simply signal an operator to connect me (and accept incoming calls normally)...that would be cool.

Re:old phones

[Unregistered]

Like learning to read the time off of the face of a (non-digital) clock.

You mean those things tell time too? Damn, now i can figure out what time it is w/out a watch. Is there a HOWTO?

Re:old phones

[Paradise Pete]

Is there a HOWTO?

Next time you're confronted with one, try screaming "MAN CLOCK" at it. Even it that doesn't work, somebody's bound to notice and tell you what time it is.

Re:old phones

[freeweed]

A friend of my younger brother was over there a few years ago and had to ask my dad how to use the phone because he'd never seen a phone without a number-pad on it. Pathetic. Times are changin and these young whipper-snappers aren't learning things that we took for granted. Like learning to read the time off of the face of a (non-digital) clock.

Uh huh. And can you successfully start up a crank-started car? Ride a horse (sans saddle)? Skin an animal from stone chips you've made yourself?

Remember, just because something *used* to be a certain way, doesn't mean it can't be improved. And people aren't stupid for not learning how things aren't done anymore.

Re:old phones

[Polyphemis]

A friend of my younger brother was over there a few years ago and had to ask my dad how to use the phone because he'd never seen a phone without a number- pad on it. Pathetic.

What about that is pathetic? I've run into the same problem before. I didn't know how to use one because nearly all of those phones have been phased out of use, and I hadn't seen them in use on TV or in movies before, so I quite reasonably had no idea what to do. It's not like there's a Rotary Dialing 101 in school that we've skipped out on.

May as well bitch about kids these days not knowing how to use a slide rule... which, incidentally, I've never even seen before.

Re:old phones

[C32]

Come on, tt's not either of those examples are rocket science...
Anyone with half a brain can usually figure stuff like that out themselves..

Re:old phones

[CodeMunch]

The worst thing about cordless phones are the SHITTY NiCad batteries. Stick Lithium Ion packs in 'em and I would bet most of the problems disapear.

Re:old phones

[captainktainer]

Joke, meet Poster. Poster, meet Joke. Here are Joke's friends, Irony and Sarcasm. They hang out together a lot; you might want to get used to seeing them together. :-)

Re:old phones

[UnixRevolution]

I have an old rotary phone sitting right here. Makes outbound and accepts inbound calls just fine. Make sure when you buy one that it has an RJ-11 plug on the end of its cord, and you're fine.

Even if rotary dialing isn't supported in your area, you can still pick up.

the best part..$8.00 on Ebay.

Re:old phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Just make sure you really pronouce that 'L' lest you get the wrong attention ;)

Re:old phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Replying voice: "...RTFM".

Re:old phones

[Degrees]

I have a combo clockradio + telephone (its a Chronofone) with big red LED display made by Radio Shack that I got in 1979 or '80. Still wakes me up to pleasent music every morning. Phone still works too. Far exceeded my expectations. I still have the manual for the thing. The manual has not one, but two schematics for the circuity inside - and a statement "We Service What We Sell". None of the other telephones I have owned have lasted as long.

At work, I just moved the last of 40 users off an old NetWare 4 server we have had for nearly eight years. I never expected a 468/33 server to last that long. Up until recently, it was easy to forget. And then it would be time to apply patches, and we would see that it had an an uptime of nearly 400 days....

Re:old phones

[Brown Line]

I too had a rotary phone in my kitchen until quite recently. It was installed when we moved into the house in 1982, and we never had it removed: if it ain't broke, etc. The thing was a classic Western Electric model, built like a tank, indestructible. A very good phone.

Then one day I checked my phone bill, and realized that with what I had paid over the years to lease the thing, I could have bought a dozen phones at Radio Shack. The classic, reliable rotary phone went back to Ameritech that same day!

Re:old phones

[astro-g]

ever meet a pilot that cant hand crank a propeller plane??

sure there are easier, and safer ways to do it,
but if your out in the middle of knowhere on a beach, about to get overtaken by the tide,
and the engine wont crank, you may as well do it the old fasioned way.

Re:old phones

[gr8_phk]

I wish I could say the same thing about computers now-a-days. (Most are considered "old" or "out of date" within 6 months.)

Turn those "old" computers into X terminals. If your really good, you can make them boot from the network and put all the HDs into the new machine. Then again, the old HDs don't contribute much compared to todays drives.

Re:old phones

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh huh. And can you successfully start up a crank-started car?
Been There, Done that (used to own a Lada)
Ride a horse (sans saddle)?
Been there too, done that
Skin an animal from stone chips you've made yourself?
Errr, does doing the same to carrots count?
(veggie)
And people aren't stupid for not learning how things aren't done anymore
<Kurt Saxon>
Just you wait till civilisation as you know it collapses
</Kurt Saxon>

Re:old phones

[Anonymous Coward]

I meant a crank phone, not a dial phone. The type where you held the earpiece and the mouthpiece was fastened to the wall.

53 Yr old fan!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a huge metal window fan that my grandparents bought when my dad was a baby in 1950 and it's still the best fan I've ever seen.

Ethernet

[forged]

Ethernet came a long way since it was created in 1973...

Machine Gun

[decipher_saint]

For the most part, machine guns haven't changed much in the last fifty or so years.

Well, the operating principals at any rate...

Microsoft BOB

[Jaegs]

Lasted way longer than I expected (and longer than it should have, for that matter...)

IBM PC/AT keyboards

[RatBastard]

I've got four of the old beasts and they all work like champs. The oldest is about 15 years old and apart from a missing keycap it is in perfect working order. Best keyboards money can buy.

Re:IBM PC/AT keyboards

[lightcycle]

I second that. A few months ago I found a used IBM keyboard from end of the 80s sometime in a second hand shop, bought it and replaced the crappy windows keyboard I had. The old IBM keyboards are certainly the height of technological perfection. The weight makes them stay put on the desk, and the response of the keys is simply outstanding, not to mention the distinct thump of the space bar. I wonder if someone's ever gonna make a keyboard this good again.

Re:IBM PC/AT keyboards

[ceswiedler]

the best keyboard I ever had was a Northgate keyboard from the late 80s. Anyone remember Northgate? Pournelle used to rave about their keyboards in Byte, I got one and I loved it...the function keys were on the left and Control was next to A, as God (and IBM) intended. Those function keys were so easy to hit with my left pinky...

Re:IBM PC/AT keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

ssssso d^H^Hoesss miiiiiine.....

Re:IBM PC/AT keyboards

[zsazsa]

(BTW, I'm typing this on an IBM Model M with a born-on date of July 10, 1986.)

Check out Unicomp - they bought the rights from Lexmark to make the ol' Model M and still make them to this day. They're a bit expensive but they're the only place for brand new Model Ms.

Wired Ethernet

[Rosonowski]

Hence the name Ethernet.

The original plan was to be wireless, and then Xerox (I think) needed a cable to get information from multiple computers to the printers quickly.

Re:Wired Ethernet

[Hornstar]

Well, all I have to say about your sig is...

01001101 01100001 01111001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00101100 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110010 01101011 00100000 00111011 00101001

4E 65 78 74 20 74 69 6D 65 2C 20 77 72 69 74 65 20 69 6E 20 41 53 43 49 49

Re:Wired Ethernet

[Rosonowski]

*shrug*
Mabye so, but damn proud of it. (although I'm more a geek then anything)

Re:Wired Ethernet

[Hornstar]

:)) Has anyone ever bothered to decipher that before? Thought it was quite clever but was kind of hoping for something more deep like "If you can read this, you might be a robot" or "Write for your own copy of Dianetics..." ;)

Cheers!

Re:Wired Ethernet

[Rosonowski]

You're the first to have commented on it. I would have gone for something more, but then I would have had to put it in Hex.

AOL

[firebaugh_73]

Who would have thought that crap would make it this long...

Re:AOL

[malfunct]

All the way from its humble beginnings as a failed game server for the atari 2600, which btw has far outlasted my expectations for a game console. I just wish the joysticks that came with it lasted as long as the system itself :P

Amana Radarange

[Anonymous Coward]

Our Amana Radarange has 2 knobs and 3 buttons. It is going strong after 17 years.

My Archos MP3 Player

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone had told me ten years ago that I'd own an affordable device that would contain my entire 250+ CD collection and fit in the palm of my hand, I'd have thought they were crazy.

Now it's almost commonplace. How much more will I be able to store five years from now? And how small will that device be?

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[binaryDigit]

It's lasted, and dominated, because in many ways it's a good design.

No, it lasted and dominated because IBM happened to choose it to be the cpu for their PC. Had that not happened, x86 would be at best a footnote, along with the 65XX, Z80, etc.

Network technologies

[Zen]

In my company we are an IBM mainframe shop. We still have extensive use of SNA, IPX, 16Mb Token Ring, FDDI, switched token ring, and one instance of thinnet. These all still fully support the machines that are running on them with no network based problems in a long time. We've been converting everything to ethernet for 2 years now, but we probably won't be done until sometime mid next year, and even then we still might be using SNA and IPX for some applications.

Light; Bike

[ArmorFiend]

I have a headlamp that runs on 3 rechargable AAA batteries. I've been finding it so useful that I carry it around in my pocket all the time. (Note that even pocket-knives don't make this grade for me, YMMV).

Also, I bought a bike about five years ago. Its been so succesful at filling my transporation needs I got rid of my car. A bike that's good for me might not be the right one for you, but for what its worth its a black trek 730 hybrid.

The nail & hammer

[Anonymous Coward]

still going...

also, alkaline batteries.

Almost All Apple Products

[cbuskirk]

Unless your old laptop burst into flames, if you have owned an Apple product, you understand that Macs are a hell of alot cheaper in the long run than any computer out there.

Re:Almost All Apple Products

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen!

I have a several old Macs ranging from an SE, IIci, IIFX, Quadra 800, and 8600...still working marvelously!!

Re:Almost All Apple Products

[urbazewski]

The Quadra I bought in grad school in 1994 is still in use as part of a home recording studio, basically as a front end for some DigiDesign hardware. I paid $2183 for the machine, and $1138 for 24 MB of added memory, to bring it up to a whopping total of 32 MB. We've added more memory since then but it still screaming along at 33 Mhz.

The Bush Administration

[Anonymous Coward]

Dubya, Dick, John and Don.

As a Mere Non-Physician

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should learn when to use capital letters.

Obligatory mama joke

[MicroBerto]

Your mom. She sure takes a lickin and keeps on tickin! ;)

Maglite

[Anonymous Coward]

My 3D cell Maglite flashlight I got in 1981 in 6th grade. The thing survived drunken college camping trips in which we would *try* to break it by whacking it against trees, etc.

My Sony PEG-S300 Palm OS device

[Wonderkid]

Why this is not still on the market at £75 ($100) I do not know. It has 8meg ram and a spare 8Meg memory stick for on the road backups. It has a very clear screen and the re-chargables last for ages. It never ever crashes, even if I drop it onto concrete from 4 feet up. I use it about 50 times a day (how sad I am), yet have only used 500k of it's 8Meg. I have friends with the sexy looking, but overly complex iPaq, and a number report all kinds of reliability problems. (Not sure if that is MS or Compaq/HP.) Although I will of course buy a colour Sony Palm OS when there is a decent one with a world phone in it too (Tungsten W not good enough), I could happily keep using the PEG-S300 forever as a trusty ideas log, reminder and 'oops, my mobile got stolen' phone number looker upper. Oh, and it has that kind of cool retro look. Sony were still unsure whether to go the silver or bluple route.

Dynakit Stereo Amplifier

[Aging_Newbie]

Purchased and assembled in 1971 and used as my only stereo amplifier since. Never has needed any repairs and still sounds good.

Mars Pathfinder mission

[ethank]

The Mars pathfinder mission lasted far longer than anticipated.

Pathfinder's lander had operated nearly three times its
design lifetime of 30 days, and the Sojourner rover operated 12 times its design lifetime of seven days.

DOS installation from 1991 then Win95 from 1995

[davidsturnbull]

My trusty old 486 had DOS installed on its krad 210MB hdd, then went through Win3.11 and then Win95, without reinstalling etc. I'm sure the cruft level is probably infinite but you can't really tell since 486s are so slow anyway :)
It has quite a few interesting things from the ages.. qbasic programs from when i was 8 years old (print "10 WHATS THE PASSWORD"; A$ 20 IF A$ = "DAVIDRULZ" THEN PRINT "YOU'RE IN!!!!!!!!!!!!" heh), sc2000 saved games with amusing personal references that are so embarrassing it's best not to say :)
The amazing thing is that it's actually been in constant use for all of those years. In 1996 it was relegated to basically a doom/irc box, but in 1998 I gave it to my cousin who used it for light programming until last year, when I got it back and used it for uptime experiments (never did get to the fabled 47 day limit!).

Re:DOS installation from 1991 then Win95 from 1995

[valkraider]

I used to go to SEARS and RadioShack "reprogram" their computers:

10 PRINT "VALKRAIDER KICKS ARSE"
20 GOTO 10

hehe, I was *cool*.

Electric Machines

[Dark Ramon]

Over 99.9% of the motors or generators that are in use today are at least 100 years old. There have been changes in the materials and methodology, but dc, induction and synchronous machines haven't changed much.

Easy one.. Paper!

[k98sven]

Seriously! Given the number of times the "death of the paper document" was predicted
and the amount of "paperless office" ideas floated,
one must say that there is still nothing like good old hardcopy.

In fact, computers have increased the amount of paper used.
A rep. for a paper-mill I once visited said that the laser printer was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Computers are great for distribution. But they've got a long way to go
if they want to beat paper at (text) presentation.

Re:Easy one.. Paper!

[Wonderkid]

Good point! Write on! I won't get into a scrap about this posting! Mulch to do about nothing? (Certainly not.) Let's rip! OK, enough. Cannot thinkg of any more paper puns.

My VW

[DrCode]

My previous car, a 1985 VW Golf, was still going after 16 years and around 200,000 miles with no engine, transmission, or even clutch work.

The Wright's four basic airplane controls.

[DunbarTheInept]

Look at any aircraft, and the main movement is governent by these four:

Throttle.
Ailerons (via "wing warping).
Elevator.
Rudder.

That basic configuration hasn't changed since Orville and Wilber used it in 1903.

Re:The Wright's four basic airplane controls.

[mangu]

Only the elevator was soon placed in the rear, due to stability reasons. Canards in modern planes are entirely different from the Wright's flier elevator, since modern planes still have elevators in the rear, even if equipped with canards.

Re:The Wright's four basic airplane controls.

[mduell]

The Beech Starship has a forward canard and no elevator (or empennage, for that matter).

Re:The Wright's four basic airplane controls.

[DunbarTheInept]

Well, there are delta-wings that combine the function of the ailerons with elevators into one set of flaps, with more complex rules governing their movement. Some canard planes also use this system too, since the wing is at the rear in a canard plane, leaving the canard as a fixed structure.

But that's an odd exception. Most planes separate the elevator from the aileron.

Re:The Wright's four basic airplane controls.

[Anonymous Coward]

The modern cockpit control layout, where a joystick controlled pitch and roll, and yaw was controlled by rudder pedals (or a rudder bar), first appeared on the Bleriot XI.

I believe the first use of separate aileron surfaces was by Glen Curtiss, but you might want to double check that one.

While I'm compulsively nitpicking, I might as well throw in a few others:

stressed skin construction - Deperdussin Monocoque
all metal construction - Northrop Gamma (It was one of the early Northrops, anyhow)
flush rivets - Hughes H-1 racer
the modern podded jet configuration - Boeing B-47

I have to admit though, that the Wright brothers were pretty amazing engineers. They even invented the first aircraft instrument, the yaw string, which can still be found on modern aircraft like the F-14.

Voyager Interstellar Mission

[decipher_saint]

Actually the Voyager missions were extended in 1989 to last another ten or so years after now (to test the heliopause with the magnatometer) and then after that point to do some measurement of interstellar space. Both Voyager I and II were designed with longevity in mind partly for the possibility for VIM missions.

Voyager proves you can get bang for your buck if you plan for the long term...

Re:Voyager Interstellar Mission

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, with all the time travel, Heinlein has now returned to the past with a Charmin Bong that does not create cancer nor mess with your brain.

AC I know, but crying baby.. running now

Books

[Anonymous Coward]

Books, printed on dead trees in the codex (bound leaf) format are just about perfectly adapted to their current uses.

And with the way things are going,

[PotatoHead]

you will still need that loan ;)

Good call on the engine though. There is still plenty of life in the tech yet with alternative fuels and such.

Calculators

[nepheles]

Please! No more stories of death-defying calculators. Really - they're not that complex. Just durable (duh).

Commodore and Amiga Computers

[joetee]

IMNSHO
The best selling computer ever, the Commodore64 will live forever.
It taught more people to how to write programs than any other too. It rewarded learning hexadecimal. It rewarded the user learning how to program hardware registers, which now seems a lost art, alas...
Then was born the Amiga series. Amiga sported a futuristic OS with hardware to match. Amiga did all that is kewl in home computing first.

These Commodore sold computers did it all: Better, faster, cheaper, AND for much much _longer_ than its competition -- even now.

64's and Amigas run all night and day and have rocked the world for decades now. Thats a long lllloooonnnnnggggg time, and I get off on it!

These classics are backed a next generation: AmigaOS4, The AmigaOne, The C-One Omnilator: these should prove just as durable.
I say "You can never kill everything of Commodore."

*(And hopefully Bernies mighty Umithlon too!)

Re:Commodore and Amiga Computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously this gentleman does not remember the infamour "GURU" error on the amiga

Re:Commodore and Amiga Computers

[Anonymous Coward]

That, or the infamous floppy drives.

If you did anything serious with a 1541, you HAD to install your own fans, or your operation quickly ground to a halt. Take it from someone that ran a BBS in the summer heat of Houston - no fans is certain death for your floppies.

It sure pissed off my users every time I had to roll back to the last backup since the 1541 had overheated and scribbled all over the userlog. Screw up a relative file, and the disk is effectively useless.

By the time I finally shut it down, the thing had 3 fans (salvaged from old "real" computers) running full time, cooling the 1541s and the brick for the computer itself. The room ran hot, and it was incredibly noisy.

Be glad that the emulators aren't totally faithful to the original equipment. It's not all good.

Drum machine & synths

[rve]

For some reason both my Roland R-5 and my alpha juno are still working with their original batteries, exceeding the life expectancy stated in the manual by decades. By now they should have lost the ability to remember sounds and presets years ago.

Re:Drum machine & synths

[promixr]

I have a Korg Wavestation SR that after 8 years I had to spend a whole 3 bucks on to change the internal battery. What's great about this was I got to actually open up the case and stuff (which I love doing) This unit still has a great sound. I'm mostly using software synths and my Roland Fantom controller, but I would never part with my Wavestation. Speaking of software, Unlike it's closest competitor, StudioVision, Digital Performer has continued to be the most useful investment I've ever made, the upgrades have been fairly cheap with few bugs and loads of added functionality. Also after 2.5 years or so, my G4 dual 533 seems to me a very stable modern useful computer still, although my 5 year old iMac at work still blows me away due to it's robustness, even if it is for office type stuff...

Apple Computers

[blumley]

Apple Computers have been serving as reliable doorstops ever since they've been introduced.

Re:Apple Computers

[eadint]

wow you use yours for a doorstop. i use mine for a windows replacement.

Z80 processors

[Anonymous Coward]

but also things like WordStar, WordPerfect, and of course... the lever

Microwave

[Salamander]

When microwaves first came out, people thought of them as a new way of cooking the same old foods, quicker. Nice, but not earth-shattering. Since then, though, microwaves have spawned a whole new kind of cooking. Whole supermarket aisles are full of products that have been specially formulated to be microwave-friendly, or that wouldn't exist at all without the microwave. People's lifestyles have changed because of the microwave. If you looked around at all the gadgets in the average person's house, you'd be hard pressed to find more than a couple whose absence would be more keenly felt than the microwave...the computer, the TV, the phone. All of those were expected to be revolutionary though, so they haven't exceeded expectations as the title asks. The microwave has had a much more profound effect than expected.

Re:Microwave

[Anonymous Coward]

If you looked around at all the gadgets in the average person's house, you'd be hard pressed to find more than a couple whose absence would be more keenly felt than the microwave...the computer, the TV, the phone.

I don't know... I'd miss the computer a lot, but probably not as much as the microwave. I wouldn't miss the phone at all, and I haven't missed the TV in the ten years since I threw the damn thing away.

Now, the fridge...

Re:Microwave

[qbwiz]

Part of the reason for this is that the microwave sucks for the old foods. It's great and all, but it was necessary to make different foods that wouldn't be like rubber when they came out. In that way, it had a much smaller effect than expected. How many homes(non-space-limited at the least) only have microwaves?

Re:Microwave

[fermion]

Really the microwave is just a small part of the food (non) cooking revolution. In fact this revolution has more to do with advancement in chemical processing than the microwave. The ability to restore overly proccsed and frozen food flavor with chemical additives and package the food in appropriate polymers that allows the food to remain edible on the shelf until the consumer can reheat it. Many of these developments started long before the microwave was in wide use.

In fact, if we did not have microwave oven the other technologies would probably still have been developed, and would be optimized for self heating elements, or rapid heating in the convection oven.

Re:Microwave

[zoeblade]

The phone was not expected to be revolutionary - the inventor thought that maybe there would be as many as one per village.

Re:Microwave

[TheOneEyedMan]

What about the fridge?

long lasting technology...

[Anonymous Coward]

my 1964 Fender Strat, 1978 Lab Series Amp, my 1954 Martin and my Atari 2600

Magnetic Media

[v1]

I grew up on 5.25" floppies. Never could figure out why they decided to carry the name "floppy" over to the 3.5" 'hard discs', as they were anything but floppy. And then to add to the confusion, they came up with fixed disk drives, and called them "hard disks". Were they TRYING to confuse us? But look at it... we've been in a "magnetic media" age for what, over 30 years now. (anyone remember "drum" or "core" memory?) We were suppsed to be using crystals or holograms or isolinear chips or those spiffy colored rectangles in STTOS by now. I think the tech is getting about played out, it's time for something new.

Radio Shack Scientific Calculator

[jlockard]

I have a Radio Shack Scientific calculator that I bought in 1987 that I still use. It certainly isn't up to the level of most of the low end HP calcs out now, but it's still going strong. I'd say it's been about 5 years since the last battery change as well. Note: I tend to never drop this calculator so maybe that's part of it's livelyhood.

C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[eyefish]

Who would have imagined that after 20 years the C= 64 is STILL being sold in places like china? (last I read it was selling a MILLION units a year).

But that's not all, the machine was hacked so much *in software* that near the end of its life in the western world hackers could display 640 x 480 (oe 640 x 400?) high resolution graphics on a chip hardwired to produce only 320 x 240 (I think those are the numbers if I recall correctly, might be 320 x 200). Hackers also broke the sprite (i.e.: high-speed moving/animated graphics blocks) barrier from 8 (or 16?) to basically an unlimited number. Hackers also figured out a way to display graphics in the "overscan" area (i.e.: the black area around the display), thus increasing even more the resolution. You can also find software-based synthesizers that could extend the number of sound voices to 6 (or 8?). There were also hacks to make it seem as if it could display hundreds of colors (as opposed to 16).

Up to this day millions are still used for all kinds of control applications (robotics, telecom, industrial, etc).

I guess we could call this machine the world's most hacked machine ever (and pretty close in second place was probably the Commodore Amiga).

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[teeker]

Yep, and my originial 1982 C64 (with the ugly brown case and the ugly brown keys) still works as well as the day it was new.

Except for the stuipd "A" key (not an "a" key but the "A" key) never works. Commodore never could make a good "A" key. Oh well.

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[Tokerat]

Why doesn't someone make machines like this anymore? Something that could so infinitely be tinkered with? I'd sure buy one. Hell I'd buy parts for it and automate my room. :-)

Oh, and as for old technology, my original Apple ][c is still working (the ugly fat beige one), complete with original disk drives and green monitor.

The green monitor is the neatest part, it takes a standard RCA video cable. It really freaks people out to see themselves on camera on an ancient green computer monitor, but hey, Apples have always had better graphics. ;-)

Where can I buy myself a nice C=64 these days? I'd love to own one, emulation is fun but nothing beats the real deal.

PS One more thing, if you like the C64, you might check out the SidStation, a synthesizer built with the C64's SID6581 sound chip. It has been used in numerous famous songs such as Zombie Nation's "KernKraft 400" (yes, that's right, the lead in that song came from a Commadore 64's sound chip). Kind of neat, and if you're into the whole techno thing, a novelty piece of gear, especially because they're limited. From Their site:

The SID6581 is a very cool little soundchip, built like no other. Its original techniques have resulted in a very special sound with unique realtime control possibilities.

Housed in a 28-pin DIP-capsule it is a mixture of digital and analogue technology with phase accumulated oscillators and analogue multimode NMOS filter. It has inherited the character and individuality from the analogue world, sometimes appearing to have a life of its own.

SID6581 was a part of the Commodore 64 - the computer with the most active hacker community ever. This meant that thousand of hackers and musicians explored every little corner of the chip, trying to beat each other in doing the most advanced and interesting sounds. Over time hackers came up with many original ideas on how to squeeze even cooler sounds out of the chip.

What this means for the SidStation is that not only the SID chip is original in sound, but the way it is programmed is based on over 10 years of experience from the C64 hacker community. No other synth chip has had this chance.

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[puppetman]

You have several good points (4, or 6?) in there.

Someone, mod this up to 3 (or 5?).

The Commodore 64 (or 66?) was definately a cool piece of hardware, but at age 12 (if I am accurately recalling my age; 14?) I had to suffer with a Tandy Color Computer 2 (or 3?). :)

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[NineNine]

It's simple... back in "the day" a single model computer would be bought by millions of people. Thus, there were millions using the EXACT same hardware. These days, with computers as commoditized as they are, I'd be surprised to know that 1000 people somewhere were using the exact same PC hardware.

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[Tokerat]

Yes exactly, but what I was getting at was why doesnt' someone make a computer like the C64 these days, but with a little more horsepower, nothing extreme. Something fun for robotics people, demo coders, audio engrneers etc. to tinker with.

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[NineNine]

I'm pretty sure that the computer you want is made by Lego. I think they're "Lego Mindstorms". A cheap computer that lets people build actually pretty advanced robotics with Lego kits that's already been hacked every which way.

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'd be surprised to know that 1000 people somewhere were using the exact same PC hardware.

Dude, you're getting a Dell!

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[Anonymous Coward]

hackers could display 640 x 480 (oe 640 x 400?) high resolution graphics on a chip hardwired to produce only 320 x 240

Uhm, you are probably talking about a BIG external cartridge with basically was a separate videocard (was it called T-80 IIRC).

The VIC II included in the C= 64 could do 320x200 monochrome (well at least the same 2 colors in each 8x8 rectangle), or 160x200 in multicolor mode (with four colors in each 4x8 rectangle, and the horizontal size of pixel was doubled).

Hackers also broke the sprite (i.e.: high-speed moving/animated graphics blocks) barrier from 8 (or 16?) to basically an unlimited number

VIC II managed 8 sprites (24x24 monochrome or 12x24 in multicolor). The trick with increasing them was simply to change the VIC II registers in sync with the electronic beam (i.e. when at half screen), thus making the chip believe it had to superimpose the sprites again. The only limit was you couldn't have more than 8 sprites in the same row.

Hackers also figured out a way to display graphics in the "overscan" area

Again, by appropriately changing the VIC II registers when the electronic beam was in a specific position, the VIC II ceased to draw the side borders. While no conventional graphics could be displayed there, sprites were still visible, so (using the trick above) you could use them to display actual graphic.

You can also find software-based synthesizers that could extend the number of sound voices to 6

Never heard of those, but it could be... the SID had 3 separate waveform generators (geneating either a sine wave, a square wave or a triangular wave or combinations of them) at several frequencies. Software speech synthesis was possible (and has been done).

There were also hacks to make it seem as if it could display hundreds of colors (as opposed to 16).

Basically this was done by swapping colors each other video frame, so the resulting color was approximatively a mix of the two. Talk about flickering. Ugh. Nonetheless, an interesting idea.

Other than that, there were TONS of external interfaces made for it: modems (300 baud), MIDI interfaces (made by Siel), printers (C= 802 and 803), a mini-plotter, a 5 1/4 floppy driver, a 3 1/2 floppy driver, an hard disk, an adapter to use an audio CD to load games instead of the tape recorder, mice (for the GEOS 64 graphical operating environment), memory expansions (256KB, mostly used as ramdisks since it was an 8 bit computer after all), optical pens (I still have mine somewhere), audio digitizers that plugged in the joystick ports (which incorporated an AD converter), and much, much, more.

Unfortunately, Commodore never managed to replicate that huge success by itself (Amiga does not count since it was acquired by Commodore, remember). But it's nice to hear the real thing (and not just emulators like Vice, even if it's excellent) is still going on somewhere.

sys 64738

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[Tokerat]

Mindstorms is cool, but I want a computer I can hack the crap out of and rewire, like the C64. I never got the chance. :-\

Re:C= 64 - The Commodore 64

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, do a search for the Commodore One, or Commodore 1. It's a rebirth of the C64 in an FPGA with extra stuff!

Sad, I think

[GCP]

A free knockoff of a 30-yr-old OS is the "latest thing from the 'bazaar' of great ideas". I think it's really Unix that is exceeding expectations, in its Linux avatar.

I just find it depressing that, as good as the ideas embodied in Unix were 30 years ago, they haven't been dramatically surpassed, perhaps two or three times, over a time span in which hardware performance has offered four or five *orders of magnitude* increase in power.

The GUI probably counts as one, but it's not as if the CLI itself has improved dramatically (except in performance), or the GUI and CLI have joined forces to dramatically increase the power of the combination. The closest you get is running a GUI to do GUI-only things and to open several simultaneous windows in which you can do 30-yr-old CLI-only things.

I guess a technology can exceed expectations by virtue of the fact that no significant improvement has occurred in years.

Re:Sad, I think

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the lack of improvement reflects on the well thought-out design of Unix-like systems.

Re:Sad, I think

[kfg]

One might point out that the steering wheel is a technology that hasn't moved much in 100 years.

Technology isn't supposed to change. It's supposed to *optimize.*

I would suggest that since it hasn't changed significantly for decades is an indication that its users, at least, consider it something near optimum.

It is the *fact* that it hasn't changed much, and your objections to this, that combined serve to prove it has exceeded expectations.

Further proof that it has exceeded expectaions can be found in the fact that your premise is essentially flawed. The developers of UNIX have since gone multiple generations beyond in development, i.e. it *has* changed over time, but the users see no particular reason to make any switch.

About the absolute worst you can say about the 30 year old technology of Unix is that "it suffices."

KFG

Re:Sad, I think

[RDPIII]

but it's not as if the CLI itself has improved dramatically

Don't you think that command-line interfaces have outlived past predictions from around the time when GUIs started to become mainstream? I find having to go back to plain (Bourne) sh or DOS command.com a painful experience, compared with modern shells and CLIs. Readline and editline are terrific, productivity-enhancing tools/libraries. Programmed completion in modern shells is just fabulous. I definitely see dramatic improvements compared with vanilla sh and even old ksh.

The one major feature that's missing from the CLI is the ability to switch between multiple sessions, but thankfully that's made easy thanks to screen, virtual terminals, multiple xterms, and tabbed terminals like the GNOME 2 terminal. Isn't that an area where GUIs have enhanced the CLI?

Re:Sad, I think

[malfunct]

I'm pretty sure that linux provides you multiple "virtual terminals" without resorting to using X. I think that would qualify as multple sessions from the pure CLI

Re: Sad, I think

[voodoo1man]

Just because the ideas that surpassed Unix haven't become popular, doesn't mean that they are not there, or weren't even there when Unix was still 'young.'

You bring up the idea that the CLI hasn't improved or been integrated with the GUI, but you completely ignore Emacs and the UI development that has gone on in Smalltalk and Lisp systems. A particularly striking example are the constraints-based GUIs - Ivan Sutherland first had this idea all the way back in his Sketchpad paper, and there have been multiple UI systems built afterwards on the principle (and I know of a new one that is being built right now), yet when was the last time you've even heard of constraints?

I find it depressing that all the wonderful techniques developed aren't being utilized, and some users think that because the systems they work with are based on 30 and 20 (even 20 years ago the X approach was considered a poor man's window system) year old paradigms there isn't anything else out there.

Re:Sad, I think

[Sentry21]

I just find it depressing that, as good as the ideas embodied in Unix were 30 years ago, they haven't been dramatically surpassed, perhaps two or three times, over a time span in which hardware performance has offered four or five *orders of magnitude* increase in power.

The GUI probably counts as one...

I think Access Control Lists are worth it too, for what it's worth. For that matter, database-style file systems, even at the BeOS level, and even HFS (well, HFS+) are at least somewhat more advanced than typical UNIX filesystems.

Still, after 30-years, it's still holding tight, I'd take that to mean it was a good and future-proof design, not that we've failed to innovate. Innovations have been made, but in networking, data processing, circuit and chip design, and algorythms. Unix has been a strong platform for all of these.

--Dan

Re:Sad, I think

[Sarcazmo]

I agree completely. Just the other day I was looking at the source code for ttcp. The damn utility was written when I was being potty trained, and it's still very useful and relevant today. That's more than can be said of most technology.

When I look at projects like KDE, I really cringe. Everything is huge and buggy, based on the supposedly superior object oriented paradigm of C++, with a passion for being as much like MS software as possible.

Re:Sad, I think

[kfg]

I've had to try to explain this on any number of occassions. People take a look at Linux for one reason or another and what they see is KDE or Gnome, and believe that Linux, and perhaps, by extension Unix, is buggy and lacking fit and finish.

KDE has its legitimate place. It is overtly a generic GUI, intended to be as vaguely similar to other such interfaces as possible. When I move my mom from her Apple OS8 box to Linux KDE is what she'll get, and she'll be happy with it right off the bat. ( In fact the move is going to take place because she likes it better).

However, for those that can appreciate it, the old command line, C based, tools have been so finely polished by generations of hands running over them that they gleam in the sun.

This is not to say that the core system of Unix couldn't be improved or replaced, but it has certainly at least reached the point where the last ten percent of the job takes ninety percent of the work.

KFG

Re:Sad, I think

[Anonymous Coward]

...a 30-yr-old OS...

As opposed to the "innovations" from Microsoft?

Remember, too, that expectatations are a lot higher. You want others to use your brand spanking new, OO, garbage-collected, persistent, experimental OS? Then you need

• a nice, easy-to-use GUI
• TCP/IP networking, both over a LAN and dial-up
• Internet apps, e.g. graphical browser
• MP3 audio player, MPEG video player, other multimedia apps
• Games
• SDK. I'd settle for a ported version of GCC and binutils.

Whew. A lot of work on top of getting your new kernel architecture to function.

Re:Sad, I think

[Ulwarth]

I disagree about the CLI. When I sit down at a decade-old SGI or even a 5-year old RS/6000 running AIX, I find the CLI so primitive as to be almost useless. The GNU readline characters don't work for command editing, the history is almost unusable, there is no tab completion of binaries, filenames, or hostnames. ls is not in color, tar can't gunzip or bunzip2 (it requires a separate step), and tools like head and tail are missing command line options that I find invaluable.

And this is just the simple stuff. Since most of the afforementioned machines probably have tcsh as their best shell, doing something like a for loop on the command line is impossible. Don't even get me started about the pain of using an old version of Perl, "real" vi (rather than vim), or the very limited regular expressions of standard grep.

IMO comparing the CLI from a decade or more ago is like comparing the GUIs of then to those of now. Sure, Windows 1.0, a Mac circa 1985, or even a Lisa had a mouse, overlapping windows, and scrollbars. But it was crude and primitive compared to the powerful and polished GUI elements of KDE, Mac OS X, or even modern Windows. The CLI is just the same - it looks about the same to the untrained eye, but if you sit down and try to actually use it you'll see how far we have come.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

27 year old calculator, with original batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

Bought it on sale in 1976 for $2.00. A simple 4+ function calculator with memory - Technico HC-702.
A little text on the front says "2 penlight batteries for over 22,000 hours continuous use". And it still has the original OEM batteries, Casio AA, which look brand new. I use it several times a week, and have done so for 27 years now.

My mother in law?

[Jondor]

Ok, not strickly a technology.. but still..

Is it too obvious?

[ressu]

Well one this that most likely has outlived it's expectations is slashdot itself, i'm quite certain that when the first news was posted on slashdot, nobody expected it to become as big as it is now..

maybe it's just too obvious to notice.. =)

Re:Is it too obvious?

[chinton]

How long after the first news story was the first "First Post" troll?

My Casio Databank Watch!

[Jon Abbott]

This isn't a technology per se, but it's still something that has exceeded my own expectations. It's my Casio Databank watch. I have had it for eight years now, and it's still happily chugging along (I had one before it as well, but it was submerged about 1m deep in water and didn't last too long after that). The Databank takes CR2032 and CR2016 batteries (the CR2032 lasts much longer in this watch, somewhere around a decade), accepts 21mm metal link watch bands with ease, and is still the only form of "PDA" I will bring with me, ever. If only Casio came out with one that had scientific functions and unit conversions, I would be in heaven.

Re:My Casio Databank Watch!

[pauljlucas]

8 years? I've had my Casio watch (not the Databank model) for about 15 years and it's still going strong.

Re:My Casio Databank Watch!

[Anonymous Coward]

8 years - so about 1995? If that's the one that doesn't have the big [LIGHT] button on the top, be careful. I had to stop using two of them because the little "legs" on the body where the band's pins live bent outward. It's simple fatigue of the material in there - something splits, it bends out, and now you have a band that won't connect to the body.

The good news is that their somewhat newer models with the top light button rather than the side light button seem to have a more substantial body. My new-style watch is now 6 years old, and is on its third battery. Its two (!) old-style predecessors never made it that far.

Now I see that they have one that sets the time from WWVB or the local equivalent if you're in another country. Considering that these things lose or gain quite a few seconds every month, it may be a worthy upgrade.

Re:My Casio Databank Watch!

[Jon Abbott]

I'm only 23, so eight years is a long time for me. :^)

Re:My Casio Databank Watch!

[Jon Abbott]

I bought this one shortly after they switched to the new design... It is much nicer, as the keys are much more durable. The only problem is that countless people have pressed the "LIGHT" button and "Illuminator" pseudo-button and asked, "What does that do?"

About switching batteries, next time buy a CR2032 instead of a CR2016 -- it will last much longer. The battery will fit into the watch case (with a tiny amount of force). According to the specs, the CR2032 has a capacity of 220 mAh, while the CR2016 only has a capacity of 90 mAh. The only physical difference is the height, of which the CR2032 is 3.2 mm vs. 1.6 mm for the CR2016. It will fit though, trust me. :^)

Technologies that Have Exceeded Their Expectations

[Anonymous Coward]

I still use my old K&E Log/Log slide rule. I inherited it from my older brother. It's over 50 years old, and I consider it to just now be getting broken in good.
This is great technology: we managed to go to the moon in spaceships designed by slide rule, but we haven't been back since we switched over to computers.
On the other hand, I'm probably getting a little bit off subject here. Yes, my slide rule is getting old, but everybody expected it to last 50+ years.

The B-52 Stratofortress

[brunnock]

Turning enemy countries into parking lots since 1952.

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/b52-s trat/b52info.html

Re:The B-52 Stratofortress

[LtDave]

5 million rivets flying in close formation!

coax cable, wow

[hornal]

I'm still amazed with the amount of information that can be passed through those radial bands of wire mess surrounding a crimped length of insulated wire. My internet. My cable tv. My signal from my Satellite dish. What can't cable do?

Pioneer 10

[jarnot]

Pioneer 10 was just in the news the other day. After 30 years, NASA finally lost contact.

"Originally designed for a 21-month mission, Pioneer 10 lasted more than 30 years. It was a workhorse that far exceeded its warranty, and I guess you could say we got our money's worth," said Pioneer 10 Project Manager, Dr. Larry Lasher.

Re:Pioneer 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, yeah . . . . wasn't that the original topic . . ?

Posted by Cliff on Friday March 07, @12:45PM
from the didn't-know-it-could-do-that-didja dept.
drfunch asks: "With the recent 'passing' of Pioneer 10 after over 30 years of service, I wonder what other technologies have far exceeded expectations. One example from my own experience is my trusty HP calculator, which is still going strong after 21 years. What technologies or devices have gone far beyond your expectations?"

LCD Digital Watch

[Anonymous Coward]

No Hitchhiker's cracks please. 6 years ago I bought one for a dollar. It still runs, keeping way better time than my $1000 computer.

hey it's a sony

[thexdane]

i have a sony tape player/radio, that's over 25 years old, if not more, i forget cause i've had it since i've been little.

as of now, it still works partially, the tape motor is on it's dying days but the radio works fine. the battery slot doesn't work and hasn't for a while but i've never really needed it. i'm just amazed it still works.

this thing has been dropped countless times on concrete and pavement, grass, dirt and other such surfaces, i've taken it camping and on various trips here and there. it's taken a good licking and still works after all this time.

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[GlassHeart]

It's lasted, and dominated, because in many ways it's a good design.

Depends on what you mean by good. If you mean the Darwinian sense, then yes, it's phenomenally successful.

However, you write like a person who has never had to work under the 8086 real mode in assembly language. Here are a few things wrong with it (the whole family, over the years):

• Too few registers
• Registers have special purposes, and are not generic enough
• Many instructions are very rarely used
• Did not have a supervisor mode (pre 386) or MMU support
• Unbelievably lame 16-bit segmentation
• Overcomplicated memory protection (few if any OSes take advantage of segmentation)

These are design failings that are not "in the eye of the beholder". Intel overcame the first two by going to a hidden RISCy core with many more registers, the third by implementing many rarely used instructions in microcode, the next two by essentially discarding the 8086 and 80286 architectures in going to the 80386. Intel deserves a lot of credit, but they had to work very hard to overcome these problems.

Comparing it to the 68000 is left as an exercise for the reader.

FM Radio

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, when MTV debuted, the first video played was "Video Killed the Radio Star."

Home taping didn't kill it, Internet Radio hasn't killed it, CD Burning hasn't killed it, Napster didn't kill it...

I'm floored that FM Radio is still the powerhouse that it is in the music industry.

Tons of stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

My 8088 still works, as does my old 486/33 with 8 MB of RAM which was, up until 2 years ago, running an older incarnation of RedHat, barely squeezed onto a 550 MB hard drive. It was a MUD and web server passably for years until I got tired of 45 minute compile times for the MUD. Now it's crunching numbers for Distributed, alnog with its first successor, a P166 that only lasted a year or so.
The fan on the 486 went out in 1998 and I never fixed it. The thing STILL works. It's outlived 3 hard drives.

I have a cocktail-table sytle vintage Pac-Man machine from 1982. The monitor blew out on it but the PCB, sound, and controls all work fine. I'm in the process of refurbishing and re-wiring the cabinet on it. It's a blast. I bought a new monitor but I haven't figured out how to hook it up to the 21-year old connectors from the PCB! (If anybody has any experience with this, email me: here, PLEASE!. I'm too much of a chicken to just plug it in and turn it in in case I do something Incredibly Stupid and Wrong and ruin it.

My dad's an accountant and he had an old adding machine from the early 70's that he kept on his desk when I was a kid. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I'll bet he's still got it somewhere. He also kept his first-ever calculator, which cost $100 at Sears. They had to make payments on it. Still works.

My desktop gaming PC pre-dated the advent of the Athlon chip, and despite it having never once received any hardware upgrades beyond a new Ethernet Card (it didn't come with one, that's how old it is), it still plays EQ, DAOC, MOO3, CIV3, Quake3, and every other game I'ev thrown at it. It's not always smooth, but it more than works. This isn't really old but I'm still amazed. I used to upgrade machines once every 2 years and add new hardware - never again. This was an $1800 machine when I got it and it's not received another penny of work yet and it's more than good enough. I expect it to begin to fail by this summer.

I have my original 8-bit NES. I mowed lawns for an entire summer to buy one of these in late 1984. All of my original carts still work, too. Mario 1-3, Final Fanyasy, Zelda 1 and 2, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Dragon Warrior, Ultima. Got 'em all, and the save-game batteries are all still good. Mario 3 gives me trouble sometimes and Zelda 1's battery is getting flakey, but they're in good shape.

My Atari 2600 still works but sadly I sold it before it was worth any money, but its current owner insists that it's still working fine.

I've got a 30-year old dishwasher in our house that still works well enough. Our water heater is pushing 16 years, which is ancient as far as water heaters go. Our furnace was 30 years old before we replaced it, which we only did because the 30-year old A/C unit went out and we figured we'd replace the whole mess now and not worry about it.

I bought a DVD player in 1995 that still works. Never been cleaned and it works fine. Sadly, it can't play some of the newest DVDs, I'm not sure why yet. It also can't play burned CDs or copy-protected CDs. Also have a VCR from 1981 that sometimes works, and a color TV from 1972 that just died a few years ago. Actually, it still worked but it was developing a big yellow blotch and it was one of those big monsters in a wooden cabinet that was twice the size of the TV. So we got rid of it.

Re:Tons of stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

(Same AC guy)
Also, my current desktop gaming machine is so old that the CD-ROM drive cannot read copy-protected games. I have to play stuff like Civ3:PTW and MOO3 by running it through the DVD player. I'm trying to remember when I got this machine... I think it was RIGHT before the K7/Athlon emerged. I know, I know. People haev much older machines but how many of them are playing modern (albeit low-intensity) games on them?

Turbines

[Enrico Pulatzo]

I am astounded at the lack of more viable options for generating electricity. When I took Nuclear Engineering 101 and found out that a fission reactor's job was to boil water to create steam which turns a turbine, I was flabberghasted.

My IBM PS1 Monitor

[meteau]

This thing just won't f'ing die! My wife says I can get whatever new one I want as soon as it croaks. I'm too damn honest sabotage it though.

Electrical generators

[SAN1701]

Technology is the same for more than 100 yrs. Some improvements in geometry and isolation materials, apart from that, they're essentially the same.
I worked for sometime in a engineering company, and we were making an upgrade on a 80yrs old small hydrogenerator. The only stuff we changed was the isolation materials and the wiring. The core essentially remained untouched.

The Toshiba Libretto

[Anonymous Coward]

This small ultra-portable came out in ... 1995 ?

I still use mine for almost all mobile computing. FreeBSD runs wonderfully on it and I can just as easily dial into Earthlink as I can hop on a wireless network - and with _two_ pcmcia slots, I can even set up a rudimentary wireless AP.

I bought a thermos can, too.

[El Jynx]

But I turned it inside out and use it to keep the universe at a steady 2 degrees Kelvin. Well, it hasn't reached that point yet, but nor does coffee when you've just poured it into a mug.

Jynx

Oh, er... technology? Try wristwatches. Those things have been around for ever. Remember Pulp Fiction.

Here's one...

[anthony_dipierro]

The copyright on Mickey Mouse.

Light Emitting Diodes

[cindik]

What technologies or devices have gone far beyond your expectations?

The feeble red light from the first light emitting diode could never have suggested full color displays and replacements for automotive tail lights, traffic lights, and even indoor area lighting. I was amazed to find white LED-based 120V incandescent light bulb replcements.

And to think there are still so many Earthlings who think that LED watches are a pretty cool idea.

Ogg like fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire. Been in use for tens of thousands of years, and keeps getting new applications, like metal smelting, just a few thousand years back.

Calculators?!

[bplipschitz]

How about my trusty K&E Slide Rule, it's used every day by me. I like the notion that math has some tactile component to it, and that it can be expressed easily as analog physical relationships.

Plus:

- never needs batteries

- Y2k compliant [and Y3k, Y4k, etc.]

- has ultra-geek factor all over it

- confuses the shit out of the Marketing people.

Rotating Magnetic Media

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember magnetic bubble memory? How is crystal based holographic memory coming along? How about ANY kind of solid state memory?

The old hard drive has a lot of life left.

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[GlassHeart]

No, it lasted and dominated because IBM happened to choose it to be the cpu for their PC.

Initially, yes. However, it lasted this long because Intel worked very hard to keep it alive. If the x86 trailed, for example, the PowerPC-based Macintosh by 50% in performance, many things may be very different.

Had that not happened, x86 would be at best a footnote, along with the 65XX, Z80, etc.

The 6502 and Z-80 are not "footnotes". They deserve prominent spots in CPU history marking the beginning of personal computing and affordable gaming consoles. When the x86's time finally comes, it will also be a major milestone marking the maturing of personal computing.

Not the engine itself...

[TWX_the_Linux_Zealot]

... the spark plug.

Spark plugs have not changed at all in at least 60 years, as far as the OEM styles go. They have been remarkably similar since their original designs, a graphite core surrounded by a ceramic insulator surrounded by a metallic threaded ring. Amazing.

My GE hand-held electric beater - 1969

[Anonymous Coward]

Making delicious things since 1969 and never needed repairs.

Douglas DC-3

[spagiola]

The Douglas DC-3: the first airliner design that could actually make money just carrying passengers, and still in service some 65 years after it's first flight.

Some recent pics of examples still in service: in Alaska, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Florida, England, and here's a military example from Guatemala.

SEAGATE ST-225 Hard drives

[BoneFlower]

Those things ruled! Well, back when a 20MB MFM drive was acceptable they did. Drop it, from 3 feet, onto a hard surface, during heavy disk access, and watch it keep going without skipping a beat.

BTW, the drive was 14 years old when we did that. Of the half dozen or so of those that I had my hands on, all of that age, only one had failed. I had known of several more in operation that my friends had, and those were still going strong.

What other hard drive, can last close to 15 years with that sort of durability, and only a 10% failure rate?

Our ST-225's have been retired for about 6 years now, but I trust if I ever needed one, it would come online grinding away as those old motors do, and serve me well even in the 21st century.

Re:SEAGATE ST-225 Hard drives

[Crash Gordon]

What other hard drive, can last close to 15 years with that sort of durability, and only a 10% failure rate?

How about the Shugart SA712? Spec'ed for 10MB at 306 cylinders, actually had 350 usable cylinders for 12MB -- but wait! Works with the "new" 2,7RLL controllers, so that's 18MB. And then you run DoubleDisk on it and you've got a half-height 30MB+ drive, using mid-1980s technology.

I have to support some ancient boxen around here, and last year I whipped out one of my SA712s to replace: a failed ST225 :-)

Re:SEAGATE ST-225 Hard drives

[BoneFlower]

Heh. Well, you have to admit the ST-225 was rather well built. I'm not sure if its the amount of money I paid or lack of faith in it, but I wouldn't dream of dropping my WD drive unless I was falling off a cliff and I had to grab on or I'd die. But the ST-225s... Those were built like a tank.

Re:SEAGATE ST-225 Hard drives

[Crash Gordon]

the ST-225s... Those were built like a tank

So were the 712s. Airfone (before they were "GTE (now Verizon) Airfone") used them in their ground stations (many of which were on mountaintops and such) because the 700 family drives were spec'ed for high altitude use -- less air to fly the heads at 10,000ft MSL.

I once ran a 712 with the cover off for a couple of weeks without errors until some jamoke spilled coffee on it. It had been damaged in shipment; the cover was dented. It worked but QA said we couldn't put it in the field so it was mine to vivisect :->

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K

[Anonymous Coward]

Speccy's not dead, he's resting...

21 years and counting.

Atari 2600/7800

[kmhebert]

My old video game systems! My Atari 7800, Intellivision, and Odyssey2 all work great even after going on 20 years. These dinosaurs seem to keep going forever; even after one of my old NES's starts with the blinking screen necessitating a connector-bending session, the Atari will always come through.

GODDAMIT! PC != WINTEL

[Thud457]

Those were P.C.s - Personal Computers.

Microsoft & Intel have brainwashed people into thinking PC == x86 + Windows.

Apples are PCs!
Macs are PCs!
So are : TRS-80s, Atari 800s, Commodore Pets, Texas Instruments TI-99/a-s, Exidy Sorcerers, Tandy Color computers, VIC-20's and Amigas!

/rant

NTSC

[Anonymous Coward]

The TV broadcast standard hasn't changed in what 50 years? You can still watch Fear Factor on your Grandpa's console TV from the 50's if it still works.

HDTV in Canada in our lifetime?

Re:NTSC

[rongage]

If I remember from my College days (Broadcast Engineering major), NTSC == Never Twice the Same Color.

FCC == Friendly Candy Corporation

Re:NTSC

[Anonymous Coward]

Still in use != still works

It has never worked. It sucks. There's no proper color television in North America. Never has been.

The Hammond B3

[Anonymous Coward]

For all those musicians out there, think of the Hammond B3. Though most have been modified by now, the tonewheel generator is still the best way to produce that sound. Invented in the 1930's if my memory serves me correctly, and still you see one on most every stage. That's impressive.
Also must mention it's companion, the Leslie speaker.

Velcro

[njdj]

My parents bought a pair of swimming trunks for me in about 1962. They had a pocket with a Velcro flap. Velcro was pretty new at the time. I expected the Velcro to stop working after a couple of years.
The elastic in the waistband failed after a few years but the waistband also had a drawstring, so it didn't matter. The stitching started to give out in the early 1990s. I lost them in about 1995. But the Velcro fastener was still working.

Definitely: CIVILIZATION

[LINM]

Back in 1992 I could play Civilization on a friends computer in his room so long that I would still be there when he woke up in the morning. Do not even need to mention those who would watch the game for hours in a trance.

Years later, I could play a slightly updated version all weekend long, blowing off friends, dates, and food. This would typically only end by an uninstall followed by smashing the CD . Freedom

Now, I somehow manage to stay away from the (roughly identical) decendants of Civilization, but who knows how many poor soles are still slaving away laboriously...

Vacuum Tubes

[brotherfish]

My 40 year old vacuum tube stereo system is still going strong and performing better than the average black box from Circuit City - there have been no real advances in audio amplifier technology in the last 40 years other than making things smaller, cheaper and disposable. Plus, ask any serious guitar player and they'll tell you that tubes are still better than transistors no matter what the industry is pushing. The death of vacuum tubes has been forcasted many times since 1950 yet they are still being produced and new equipment is still being designed around this "antiquated" technology.

BzZzZZzt (was: Re:HTML)

[migurski]

Now you can plug so much junk into HTML that you can create whole applications. HTML is bursting at the seams because of all these hacks and extra languages tacked on to the end, but it still works. I think that's amazing.

Uhh... no. HTML now is basically the same as HTML then, with a few minor add-ons (tables, frames) and some structural re-tooling and semantic refinement (xHTML).

The differences that allow for app creation and extra hacks are either technologies that reside next to HTML, such as client-side scripting languages, display specifications that apply style to content (CSS), file formats that are displayed in-line with HTML via plug-ins such as flash or quicktime, and development environments that generate HTML as output, such as CGI.

The key is that none of this was impossible in 1995 - the HTTP spec has remained pretty much stable since that time, and the basic HTML tagset remains valid today.

I think what you're getting at is the proliferation of new browser technologies that make all this stuff run more quickly and predictably, and the refinement of web design and development methodologies. The junk, as you put it, is David Siegel's fault. :)

Adcom GFA-555

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought the Adcom 2x200W amp in 1986. It's only been powered down a few times for various moves.

After almost 17 years it still sounds great. Granted, it's no Krell, but it still images better and sounds more authoritative than the amp section in most current consumer receivers.

Wha'ts Aztec? sounds familiar.

[BoomerSooner]

I still play (occasionally)
Ultima III, Ultima IV, Karateka,
Deadline (I still havent beat that
damn game! INFOCOM>>>>> DAMN YOU)
Snakes (still better on the Apple
than on my phone), What was the
name of that tank game? Battlefield
or something (they remade it recently),
Bolo, and of course I have all
the Original Bard's Tales (1-3) and
the AD&D Character Creator Disk.

Those were the days..... I have
Appleworks as well but the keyboard
on the Apple //e is so freaking small.
I just bought (last year) a complete
Apple IIc with the monitor, mouse,
external disk and carrying case. Sweet
deal.

The mother of all inventions!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sliced Bread.

You can not go a day without something being compared to it. I do not think the person who thought to actually sell sliced bread to all the lazy people in the world knew what a hit it would be.

Re:The mother of all inventions!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but what was the invention of sliced bread compared to?

Re:The mother of all inventions!

[ICEelemental]

"So this is it huh folks? Couple thousand years. The fuckin' pyramids for Christs sake, the Panama canal, the Great Wall of China, even a lava lamp, to me, are all greater than sliced bread. You've got a knife, you've got a loaf of bread ... slice the fuckin' thing ... and get on with your life."

George Carlin

The Z80

[evilpenguin]

The Zilog Z80 exceeded my expectations. It is still used in embedded systems that just don't have to be that smart or that fast. It was a brilliant CPU architecture that extended and expanded intelligently the Intel 8080 architecture and instruction set. The register set and prime register set made "two thread" programming easy and fast.

To this day I use a z80 emulator to maintain code that runs an amateur radio repeater. Its just a great chip.

My Acorn A3000

[no_demons]

My old BBC Acorn A3000 - one of the first ARM machines back in the early 1990s, still going strong today. With 4 meg of RAM and no hard drive, it still plays some kick ass games, and has some of the best DTP software around. Not sure these made it over to the States, but they were really popular over here in the UK, especially in schools. Cut my teeth with everything from Basic to assembler on this little beauty. : ) Ahh - got me all nostalgic now...

Simple things, like shoe strings~

[L0stb0Y]

I don't know if I'd consider it "technology" per se, but look at your shoes. We still punch a bunch of holes in them, and secure them to our feet with a stupid piece of string. (Unless you are 'older', in which case you might use velcro)~ Even "new technology" basketball shoes still use a simple stupid piece of string~ It just seems primitive, but hell, it works~

Perfect example:

[xScruffx]

My pacemaker's been going strong for . . . .

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[binaryDigit]

Initially, yes. However, it lasted this long because Intel worked very hard to keep it alive. If the x86 trailed, for example, the PowerPC-based Macintosh by 50% in performance, many things may be very different.

I was replying to the original poster that said that it lasted on it's "good design". But the reason that it's performance has lead is because Intel has been able to spend beaucoup bucks on R&D. And they've been able to do that because of the relative monopoly that was created by virtue of their selection as the cpu for the PC. Note that Microsoft benefitted similarly.

The 6502 and Z-80 are not "footnotes". They deserve prominent spots in CPU history marking the beginning of personal computing and affordable gaming consoles.

Well footnotes in the sense that they have no presence in todays computing (other than retro). They had their (relatively short) time and are now gone. If IBM hadn't chosen the x86, they'd probably be in the same boat, maybe even of lesser stature than the 6502 esp. If you remember "back in the day", pc's and clones were pretty much the ONLY computers to use the x86. 68K had the high end and 6502/Z80 held the low end.

So maybe footnote is a bit too strong a word, didn't mean to raise your hackles ;) I got my start on a 6502 so I definitely have a strong attachment to it.

Aztec...

[netsrek]

Sheesh... That game was incredible. It's probably nothing like I remember, but it used to just seem so huge.... with an incredible variety of weapons and objects and enemies and rooms and puzzles... Trying to remember this other //e game I played heaps... "Masks of the Sun" or something? Kind of like a text adventure with pictures... lots of driving a jeep around at the beginning after you got off the aeroplane...

Re:Aztec...

[Hubert_Shrump]

Not to go too TMI on you:

The mask of the sun: Broderbund, by Ultrasoft. (C) 1982

I uploaded the C64 English version to Arnold. The only other copy floating around was in German.

Good game.

Toyota PU

[mysterious_mark]

Shortbed Toyota Pickup 22SR engine, mine has 280k and runs great.. Mark

RADIO BROADCASTING

[contrabassoon]

When you think about it, KGO WBZ and all the broadcast stations are using the same basic technology that was used by Marconi over 100 years ago. As someone who owns a small jazz radio station, I am constantly thinking about how in this age of TV and the internet, radio is still there, still popular, and still enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people every day. In fact, the mixing board in our production studio is older than Voyager! - J

Atari 2600

[vrocket]

the Atari 2600 came out came out in 1977, and is still going on strong today! nothing beats a quick game of Space Invaders for sheer nostalgia drenched fun.

Apple Newton

[Presence]

The Apple Newton is, in my opinion, a great example of technology living beyond its expected lifetime and abilities:

There's a very strong and active user community, plenty of help, and gobs of software. An incredibile amount of work has been poured into the device with addons like wireless networking, CompactFlash ATA support, Shoutcast and MP3 playing, web serving, and desktop synching. All this adds to the Newton's built in PIM, notetaking, and email support.

I use my Newton for a telnet client, guitar tuner, notepad/to-do lister, and MP3 player.

The first usable Newton was put out in 1996 and the most powerful and expandable Newton was released middle of 97. The thing's lived a long life and looks like its gonna keep on chugging for a long time more, expecially since they can be found for just over $100 on eBay and the continued support of the Newton community. I know I won't ever ditch it.

HP calculator

[slugstone]

My HP 11c calculator is over 30 years old.

Re:HP calculator

[Anonymous Coward]

My HP 11c calculator is over 30 years old.

All you sob's with old calculators... no wonder my HP stock is in the toilet.

Re:Might as well add the C130 to that list too...

[Lester67]

Although not nearly as old as the DC-3, both are incredible birds. I don't know why, but prop aircraft look graceful when they fly. :-)

Too bad we don't have any B-26's left to say the same thing about.

Monitor

[Anonymous Coward]

My monitor has lasted me for over 9 years now; although I can only run 800x600 it does the job. I wouldn't trade it for anything less than plasma.

but you can't do 'blink' anymore!

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss blink. Really I do, are there any practical uses of it?

Re:but you can't do 'blink' anymore!

[foonf]

You obviously need a more standard compliant browser, such as Mozilla, which supports the blink tag in its full goodness.

My alarm clock

[ProlificSage]

I still have the same digital alarm clock (no radio) I had in 1983 and it still works just as well.

Tektronix 561a O'scope

[CharlieG]

My Tektronix 561a O'scope - made in teh mid 1960s, and still going. I worked for a company that had these in a production environment into the 90s, and probably still does - The first tube to go is usually the CRT - the phosphors go

My old vacuum tube TV...

[dimss]

My old vacuum tube TV was made in 1980. I replaced it with newer one last year after 22 years of operation.

Browning's M1911/M1911-A .45 pistol

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely a long-term design. It's getting close to 100 years old, and still in official service in certain branches of military and law enforcement, as well as keeping a foothold as the most common design for modern semi-auto pistols of many calibers. And still a hell of a lot of fun at the range. ;)

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[binaryDigit]

Did not have a supervisor mode (pre 386)

You mean pre 286 right. The 286 did have a "protected mode", but it was certainly lame (at least the way you "switched" into and out of it).

your sample size is small

[mikey573]

The Pioneer and calculator examples suggest "technology that has long surpassed its expected life time (durability)", while the main question asks about items that have exceeded their original expect uses (functionality).

I'm not too impressed with durability claims when it only involves a sample size of one. Do you know anyone else who owns the same model of your calculator?

Re:French Tank in Sig

[p0rnking]

I thought it was the italian tanks that only went in reverse (well, in the last wars)

will Telephone quality ever improve?

[roxy-skya]

Does anyone know when the quality of a telephone signal will ever improve past "AM radio" quality (without the use of an ISDN line)? While on this subject, when will cell phones provide duplex communication? I mean, come on.... what are they waiting for?

Re:will Telephone quality ever improve?

[binaryDigit]

I think both issues are financial. They're always trying to squeeze more content (calls/data) into the available spectrum. They surely wouldn't do anything that would cause a decrease in the data carrying capacity of their networks. Currently cell phone use is exploding DESPITE the two drawbacks you mention. For the audio quality, they have 0 incentive to increase the audio quality. There have been a gazillion studies done by AT&T alone about just how much then can compress and what frequency range makes for usuable quality in phone calls and they're quite happy with the quality being delivered to their customers. What it would take I think is for someone (say Sprint) to make some radical marketing move and provide those features. If enough people jumped ship then the others would have to follow. This would be an expensive move however (unless they have a lot of underutilized bandwidth).

Re:will Telephone quality ever improve?

[dildatron]

I'm sure you know the answer, and I would love higher quality phone service.

But bottom line is money. They already have an existing infrstructure that works. It took a long ass time to install it, and it will take a long ass time to replace it. When fiber is run to every home (and utilized), is when we will get better quality. That will probably be around 2020, because that is a number I pulled out of my ass.

There will be early adopters. And kludges, etc - to get good quality out of copper (like ISDN, etc). But they are jsut extending the life of copper until fiber is in place.

And the customer will gradually pay for all this transition. maybe.

Unless cell phones completely dominate phone companies even more than they already do...

Re:will Telephone quality ever improve?

[mkldev]

You'd be shocked at the quality of the signal. Those same phone wires can carry DSL signals that shove a megabit plus across the wire. The limitation of phone quality has nothing to do with the line quality, and very little to do with the infrastructure. It has everything to do with the shitty little speakers and microphones they use in consumer telephones.

I used to work in FM radio. We had a relatively low-tech solution for remote broadcasting. It involved a telephone interface box that hooked a decent microphone up to the phone line through hgh quality amp circuitry and an appropriate isolation transformer (or maybe an optical coupler, not sure). The other end was similarly equipped.

The quality was surprisingly good, sufficiently so that we broadcast a (mono only) feed from a live concert once as an experiment. Were it not monaural, I might actually have considered doing it regularly. There was a bit of roll-off in the highs, but it blew the heck out of AM radio quality.

Granted, this was just across campus, and the signal quality of various parts of the telephone network probably varies widely, but most of the quality limitations in telephone are simply poor quality hardware at the endpoints, not inherent limitations in the medium itself.

Re:will Telephone quality ever improve?

[unitron]

"Does anyone know when the quality of a telephone signal will ever improve past "AM radio" quality (without the use of an ISDN line)?"

Considering that the voice channel is pretty much defined as being the 2.7kHz between 300 Hz and 3kHz, probably never.

Aircraft, IBM, DMV, GE

[mendax]

The Douglas DC-3. First built in the 1930s as the first real modern airliner they're still flying today all over the world.

The 707 airliner was developed about 1954 (I think). 707's are still used in the passenger carrying business a bit and are more common now in ferrying freight.

The F-4 fighter plane was developed around the same time and that thing is used in the world's militaries, including our own.

On the computer side, IBM has done an amazing job over the years in making its systems compatible with older incarnations, the result being that it is theoretically possible to run an old Fortran accounting program written in the 1950s for the IBM 650 vacuum tube beast on the latest and greatest IBM mainframe.... or so it is said. We in California should be grateful for this fact because the Department of Motor Vehicles, despite throwing tens millions of dollars at futile attempts to modernize their software and database, still uses software from the 1960s on much more modern hardware.

But all the kudos I have goes to my General Electric digital alarm clock that I've owned for nearly 20 years now and is still going strong despite numerous power spikes in the dorms early in its life and being dropped uncounted times.

Re:Aircraft, IBM, DMV, GE

[otis wildflower]

The 707 airliner was developed about 1954 (I think). 707's are still used in the passenger carrying business a bit and are more common now in ferrying freight.

IIRC the 707 also forms the foundation for the C-135 series.

The F-4 fighter plane was developed around the same time and that thing is used in the world's militaries, including our own.

I'd also point to some of the MiGs (particularly the 17 and 21) as examples of really popular, hardy planes.. Experiencing new lives as toys of the rich ;)

Re:Aircraft, IBM, DMV, GE

[homer_ca]

DC3 was one of the first all aluminum planes, and it was massively overbuilt. Any aluminum structure optimized for light weight will start cracking from metal fatigue when you put it through enough stress cycles. The trick is to predict metal fatigure and either build it strong enough to not crack during its useful lifetime or publish a maintenance schedule for inspecting and replacing the part.

The ultimate technology.

[Angelwrath]

The drying of a cheese-based mixture that, when combined with boiled, complex carbohdrates makes something relied upon by Men and students all over the world.

Ah, Kraft Mac & Cheese....

Re:The ultimate technology.

[smallduck]

Ah, Kraft Mac & Cheese....

You mean KD

what about video games

[darkshades]

I can remember having to type in go n and go e. Now they have rumble packs, VR goggles and gloves, SOUND, crap you wear so when you get hit you feel it, etc. I am wondering what is next breakthrough in the gaming industry. Reality gaming with real blood and real death? Oh wait we already have that. I think it's called a gang 1.0. What will they think of next!!

Lamp

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a light in my dinner table overhead lamp that is an origional from the lamp. all i know is that we got the kitchen redone when i was about 5 and im 19 now. so that means that this light bulb has been going for about 14 years. thats way past the average 1000 hours life of a lightbulb.

Sex

[roman_mir]

I mean... it exceeded.... didn't it? Shouldn't we be all clones by now only having tasp induced orgasms?

LOCKS

[queenb**ch]

Key locks - who thought that those would still be around? They date back to the Middle Ages at least. Where's my iris/retina scanner to let me in? Something's really wrong if I get locked out then!

Queen B

"Legacy" Code

[Michael_Burton]

Millions of lines of COBOL source code.

Heck, millions of lines of any kind of legacy code.

A few years back, we all spent a bit of time trying to plumb the mysteries of that huge, virtually forgotten trove of tech that just keeps giving and giving.

USAF plans for B-52 in service until 2030

[ObiWonKanblomi]

I mean this plane in the main form has been in service since the early cold war, and the USAF plans to keep the plane in service until 2030....though i've heard recently it may go until 2040.

Power Plants

[Chris Y Taylor]

http://www.pratt.edu/campus/engine/index.html

http://www.asme.org/history/roster/H025.html

http://www.tva.com/heritage/littledam/index.htm

Staedtler Mars Plastic "Grand" eraser

[Anonymous Coward]

From the time I started college to the time I finished, almost 12 years elapsed. During that time, I took intro calculus four times, failed it every time, took it at community college again and got an "A", took a required EE class for my CS major three times, did various other math classes and lots of CS classes that required lots of pencil and paper work.

Though I went through stacks and stacks of notebook paper, graph paper, printouts from the computer, etc., the Staedtler Mars Plastic "Grand" eraser I bought as an incoming freshman never ran out, never got hardened, and always was there for me when I went down the wrong track and had to erase almost the entire page and start over. I don't think the eraser ever even tore through the paper.

Well actually, I did manage to lose it toward the very end, and I had to go out and buy a regular, mortal-sized Mars Plastic eraser to replace it, but the new one that I bought was definitely smaller than what was left of the original one that I lost.

In summary, sheeeesh I'm really glad I finally graduated.

Not the cutest reply, but bikes are up there

[juushin]

Clearly bicycles would be at the very top of the list. Computers and software - yeah, yeah, yeah... they do their job. Cars - blah, blah, blah.. A truly innovative technology that will never cease in its importance is the bicycle.

In Western countries bicycles are more of a recreation than a real means of transportation. In far-eastern countries, millions and millions of people ride a bicycle every day for tranportation.

Only a few things come close to the feeling of liberation and freedom that accompany a good bike ride.

Kudos to Baron Karl von Drais....

I've got 2

[Bobke]

My trusty old Mercedes 190E (2 liter injection powered engine), built in the 1st year of production (1984), they made these for like 10 years. It still kicks all of my friends cars asses, muhahaha. But I live in Europe... The other has to be the telephone line I guess. I live in Belgium and these lines are lying here for like more than 50 years. It reaches 3.3Mbit today and the future only looks brighter, not to mentions those lucky scandinavians. I'm using TV cable (8Mbit), but still...

The only keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

42H1292!!

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[renoX]

> Intel overcame the first two [ Too few registers AND Registers have special purposes, and are not generic enough ] by going to a hidden RISCy core with many more registers.

"Overcame" is too strong IMHO, the number of exposed register that the compiler can see is still ridiculously small.
Using additional hidden register helps but still, sometimes the compiler has to add instructions to store registers in memory because he can't directly use those additional registers.
So this work-around of the ugly 80x86 architecture has its limit..

PS: even though RISC CPU have much more exposed CPU they also use "hidden" additional registers for register renaming purpose, for example.

except me

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I am the one remaining person in America
who doesn't have a cell phone.

Stack based computer

[Anonymous Coward]

two pass assembler
top down compiler
bottom up lalr compiler
virtual memory
random access memory
sliding window protocols
magnetic tape
telex
photographic film & developing
th' transistor

Not everyone can do every job

[hellfire]

People like to discount other people as stupid if they don't know one thing. While on one hand this guy worked hard on his PhD, On the other hand, your job is pretty invaluable too, because the damn hard drive needs defragging and if he can't do it...

My mother is a massage therapist and has most of the muscles in the body memorized and has an excellent grasp of physiology, but she can't remember how to create an Alias or find a document on her Mac to save her life. Its not just a knowledge thing, I tell her several times and she just doesn't get it. And its a Mac! Good god I'm glad I don't try this in Linux or Windows!

I don't fault this PhD guy for not knowing how to defrag a hard drive, but I don't necessarily think its all that impressive that he has a PhD and does NOT know how to defrag a hard drive!!!

Re:Not everyone can do every job

[tconnors]

I don't fault this PhD guy for not knowing how to defrag a hard drive, but I don't necessarily think its all that impressive that he has a PhD and does NOT know how to defrag a hard drive!!!

Defragging a HD is not an obvious concept. Hell, on a decently designed system, one should never have to invoke a defragger!

But it doesn't seem to occur to everyone here, than most physics PhD's never use windows. Why use windows when you can use UNIX? The guy has probably used UNIX all his academic life, simply because that is what we use in academia. So he uses a Windows box for the first time, and hasn't heard of defragging or know how to do it. Big deal.

Re:Not everyone can do every job

[hellfire]

Defragging a HD is not an obvious concept.

Neither is the dual particle-wave theory of light. Hell in a decently designed TV one should never need to know it in order to repair it ;)

(apologies to the physicists if I got the name of the theory wrong)

But the more you know the better you can work in the world. Its like the stereo type of being the worlds top scientist but not having the basic knowledge to match colors in the morning or cook their own breakfast.

I'm not talking about specific computer concepts, I'm talking about the ability to learn period. Some people have the ability to learn some things, and can't learn others, because of the way their mind is structured. Others absorb all information and process it in a very logical manner because their brain is highly critical, analytical and logical.

And it impresses me to be good at more than one thing at one time more than being the best at only one thing and lousy at others.

Re:As a tech support person...The "BOOM" Factor.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The thing that gets me are the people that take NO iniative when it comes to computing. They somehow have convinced themselves anything they do will destroy the machine."

Well if they're only exposure has been to a certain monopoly os, then that's going to happen.

K & E sliderule

[fancypiper]

I still pull this out when I can't find my calc and don't want to pull one up on the computer.

The internal combustion engine seems to have lasted much longer than I had expected.

Plutonium 239

[tchdab1]

With a half-life of 24,000 years, it takes a lickin' and still keeps you from tickin'.

Re:How about.."Crappy" inventions.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Surely no technological advancement is better than that"

The toilet.

GalileoSpace Probe!

[Arcturax]

Launched October 18, 1989 by the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It had some technical problems in 1991 (high gain antenna wouldn't deploy) but they were able to use the low gain antenna to send data back at a vastly slower rate).

It became the first spacecraft to take a close up photo of an asteriod and when it reacher Jupiter in 1995, the first space craft to drop a probe into a gas giant. It's mission was to last only until 1997, but it was given a two year extension. The mission continued another three years AFTER the extension, sending its last scientific data back in November 2002 as it passed the moon Amalthea. In August of this year it will burn up in Jupiters atmosphere.

The spacecraft has operated over twice as long as expected and has taken three times the radiation it was designed for, and still it mostly works. The plunge into Jupiter is because the craft is running low on fuel and they would rather burn it up than risk having it possibly slam into Europa, contaminating it before we can check for native ba cterial life there.

While it's certainly not lasted as long as Pioneer, it has taken one hell of a beating from the intense radiation of Jupiter, the tidal stresses of orbiting the gas giant and its planet sized moons as well as flying through toxic (and possibly caustic) volcanic plumes kicked off of the surface of Io by eruptions.

So I would say that Gallileo is in fact in the same class as Pioneer when it comes to be being built tough.

You can't beat

[DaveAtFraud]

Pocket artillery. I like the idea that what I hit is going DOWN.

SDRAM of course

[victorchall]

We're still using SDRAM after almost a decade. The only real big change has been doubling the data rate. Everything else has been incremental, such as timings and clock speed. I consider bus width an outside factor.

Even the promise of RDRAM hasn't been able to topple SDRAM. It knocked a dent in it at best.

this place?

[FFON]

a little over 5yrs and still going.. almost like that dammed energizer bunny

Unix is a stripped-down Multics

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some good ideas in Multics that Unix couldn't manage way back then, and hasn't yet even though computers have the power for them now.

without a doubt...

[Lobster Cowboy]

Game Boy. amazing how long nintendo has been able to milk that system

top inventions

[cureless]

here's a list of things I consider really important:

bread
jeans
teflon
duct tape
latex

I don't know if the surpassed the expectations, but they sure fill my needs.

cl

The example in front of your face

[Anonymous Coward]

./

Yup slashdot. When the bubble burst, I expected this place to fold.

V'Ger

[AlienRelics]

Sure, it's gone now, but it'll be back....

My Seiko Kinetic Watch

[Trinition]

I've had several watches throughout my life, but my Seiko Kinetic has lasted me nearly 4 years now. That's a lot considering my usual abuse terminates a watch in under a year. I got this one while honeymooning in the Carribean. I never have to wind it, it never gets scratched (and I've banged it on everything), and it always keeps the correct time!

Here's mine

[Turbyne]

Mechanical watches & clocks. They've been around for hundreds of years. Granted for GPS and such atomic clocks are around, but avid watch people still use a good accurate mechanical clock over a $15 Casio (tho that $75 G-shock is nice..).

Mercedes Diesel cars

[otis wildflower]

The motors on these things, with proper care and feeding, will last a million miles or more. The bodies rust out before the motors go bad.

Mine's moderately broken-in at 373000mi, and it still gets 27mpg @ 85-90mph highway driving. The gas equivalent gets about 15mpg, requiring premium.

I need to apply for some of the metric mileage badges (I qualify for all of 'em up to 600k km.. ;)

Duct tape!!!!

[Unknown Poltroon]

Paper Clip. Nuff said.

WInsheild wipers. Any real innovation in the last 100 years? THeyre on everything from dodge darts to the space shuttle.

Karateka, bah, Bilestoad, now there's a game

[Anonymous Coward]

First game where you could chop your friends into little pieces

The B-52 Bomber

[Michael_Burton]

The B-52 Stratofortress was put into service in 1955.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

My Intel Celeron 300A

[Thumb-One]

lasted way longer than any other CPU I've ever had in my main, gaming machine. Something like two years. And by "last", I mean was able to play whatever games I wanted to play on it, without getting my but kicked. Obviously, I had it overclocked to 450mhz, but it was rock stable in my system. Best of all, I think I paid like 90 bucks for it, plus another 30 for a fancy-schmancy fan.

The MIR space station

[sankoz]

Although not alive now, the Russian built space station spent fifteen years floating above us while the initial expectation was only for seven years.

Linux and the GPL

[McSpew]

To dismiss the wild success of Linux as merely an avatar of Unix is to miss the point. Unix has been around for 30 years, but it never came close to the kind of ubiquity we see today with Linux. Why? Because most implementations of Unix were proprietary in one way or another. I used to laugh when I heard the euphemism "open systems" used to describe Unix systems. There was never anything open about commercial Unices.

Today, we have truly open systems and we see a lot of companies spending money contributing to a GPL codebase because they can make more money by selling hardware or support for that code. It's interesting that BSD has been around in various flavors since the '80s and has done well in a commercial and non-commercial way, but it has never managed to get the mindshare and corporate muscle behind it that Linux has. I suspect the GPL has a lot to do with that.

I, for one, never imagined that the GPL would have the kind of far-reaching effect it's had so far. I'm sure RMS always expected far more than he's already achieved, but let's face it. The first time you heard about the GPL, could you honestly imagine IBM investing a BILLION dollars a year into developing GPL software?

Re:Linux and the GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think the infamous lawsuit against BSD has far more to do with it than the GPL.

DC-3/C-47

[sharrestom]

amen to that. What about adding the DC-3? I expect that these will be flying until internal combustion engines are obsolete.

Old stuff, durability, costs, & the space prog

[raygundan]

That, my friend, is because the only things that are still around from 30 years ago are the ones that were durable. In another 30 years, people will say the same thing about today's things, because the crap will already be broken and disposed of. Sure, there will be millions of Huffy bicycles in the trash. But people will have forgotten them, and will marvel at the amazing durability of the high-end Treks and whatnot that survive.

And the space program differences are all about cost. The Pathfinder mission (which landed on mars) was part of the Discovery series of missions, capped at $150 million. Cassini, the last of the Voyager/Pioneer-type "heavy engineering" designs cost $3.4 BILLION. Pioneer 10 cost $350 million, in 1970. Voyager 1 and 2 cost $875 million together, in 1977. (those obviously need some inflation adjustment to be fair to a 1996 mission, but even Pioneer is more than double the cost without adjustment!) Of course there's going to be a performance difference when you pay many times as much. Even so, Galileo (another old-school nasa design) cost $1.6 billion, and its main antenna never opened. Would you rather have 10 cheap missions where 8 fail, or one expensive mission that fails?

Sure, we've lost lots of recent mars missions. But all added together, they barely cost as much as some of those single probes.

Links:

pioneer cost

cassini cost

voyager cost

pathfinder cost

Technics SL1200* Turntables

[Seph]

They're like 30 years old and are still the best thing you can get.

Re:Technics SL1200* Turntables

[rasjani]

Indeed. Ofcourse, there's even better vinyl players (i cant remember the name right now, i have the link somewhere) which have been said to be even better than 1200's and they are about 2-3 times older than technics..

(Jah Shaka's soundsystem uses that player)

USENET!

[callipygian-showsyst]

The death of USENET was predicted many times (like, "when those AOL people get access, it'll all be over), and it's still going strong.

It's still a little weird; may people post without having any idea what USENET is, but it still works, and is still (sort of) useful even with trolls and spam.

Re:USENET!

[dacarr]

Imminent death of the net predicted!

Cars go vroom

[DumbWhiteGuy777]

I think cars and gasoline have been going for awhile, maybe too long tho. Think way back in the day, everyone thought we'd have hydrogen powered cars that fly in the sky and have lazer guns strapped on them, and stuff. I don't think cars were even meant to stick around, they were just a stepping stone to those hover cars, and stuff.

What is a 3.5" floppy?

[mojoNYC]

what was this 'floppy'? was it like a CD?

The bicycle

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a bicycle for $125 bucks when I started college way back in . . .oh, 1977. It was my principle means of transportation throughout my college years and often thereafter.

Many times I would use it to travel more than thirty miles in a day and I found I could carry large loads with it.

I have since upgraded to a newer model with smoother and shinier fittings, but I still have the original and find it works as a commuter vehicle in areas where parking is impossible to find.

It is often said that the bicycle is one of the most efficient machines designed by man. When you consider that it is *the* principal form of transportation for much of the world's population, you'd have to say it is a tremendous technology, indeed.

Sony trinitron TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Mine is coming up on 30 years now, and I still use it every day (hooked up to my Tivo, of course!)

Re:Sony trinitron TV

[kalislashdot]

Yep I have a 20 inch trinitron that is now 10 years old. Works perfectly and the picture it perfect. I just replaced it with a 27 inch Panasonic Tau only because the Pansonic was bigger and had stereo sound. Sure wished I blew the extra $50 and got the strero triniton back then. It will work well as a bedromm TV as soon as I move out of my studio apartment.

what about coffee?

[heff]

Coffee works everyday, hands down.

The only time I've been let down is when i purchased coffee from a little gas station on interstate 5 in CA (aka the green spot on the map of CA). It tasted like toilet water and probably was.

The Fender bass guitar & tube amps

[Scodiddly]

OK, it's not especially geeky, although I could cite a recent Simpsons reference if necessary.

Leo Fender probably didn't 100% invent the bass guitar, but probably is close enough in so many essential details. The first Fender "Precision" bass guitars were meant to make road gigs easier, and were also designed to be played by a guitarist doubling as a "bass" player. The earlier models (before mid 60's) had a "finger rest" so that the fingerpicking guitarist could play a bass line with his thumb - the finger rest eventually migrated to a new position and became the "thumb rest".

Fender also didn't really invent guitar amps, but the various Fender models are still a standard. Basically they just took standard designs out of the RCA applications books, put them in a really heavy duty box, and rock music as we know it today evolved around those amplifiers.

Re:The Fender bass guitar & tube amps

[GeorgeTheNorge]

I have a 1965 Fender Jazz bass that I used on over 2000 bar gigs. It still sounds and plays as good as the day I bought it.

Pre CBS (1965 was when CBS bought Fender) Fender instruments were legendary for their durability. There are countless stories of musicians who beat their way out of a bar room brawl with a Fender, and used it the next night on a gig. However, I don't know if the people who took a Fender upside the head were at the bar the next night.

I bought a 1959 Fender Precision bass this year. Not only is it still playable, but the funk never left it. Great bass lines just pop out of this thing - suddenly I feel like I am in the Motown snakepit with Benny Benjamin and the rest of the Funk Brothers.

Were these expensive instruments to make and buy? No. The necks even bolted on so you could send it by itself for a quick repair trip to the Fender factory.

Which do you prefer: Art disguised as pop culture, or pop culture disguised as art?

Let's see...

[Sirius]

Stuff still going strong:

Marantz integrated stereo amplifier - 20 yr+
2" LED Alarm Clock - 20 yr+
IBM P-70 portable (luggable) computer w/amber plasma screen - 14 yrs
Analog VOM - 25 yr+

The Wheel, and Fire

[Orthogonal Jones]

Man, I love those things. I have to thank the guys who invented them.

JCL, COBOL and IMS

[DeltaOne18]

JCL, COBOL and IMS are still here after quite sometime. They are still the major backbone for most large insurance companies data processing and storage. Oh yeah and they are still a royal pain-in-the-you-know-what to work with!

Re:your sample size is small MOD PARENT UP ++

[heff]

this is the most intelligent response I've read yet.

Not a //e but still...

[RealisticWeb.com]

The server running our family domain is an old SE/30. It runs totaly headless because the onboard video went out, the ram is maxed way past what you are supposed to be able to put in it, it runs MK linux, and at last count was hosting 15 domains. The surpizing thing is just how fast it is! I never notice any lag when I connect and I'm about 1500 miles away!

Re:Not a //e but still...

[madmancarman]

The server running our family domain is an old SE/30. It runs totaly headless because the onboard video went out, the ram is maxed way past what you are supposed to be able to put in it, it runs MK linux, and at last count was hosting 15 domains. The surpizing thing is just how fast it is! I never notice any lag when I connect and I'm about 1500 miles away!

Can you post a link? That way we can really test its speed. In fact, you might want to post a link as an Ask Slashdot article and see if we can't take out the ethernet card for you as well.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi

Re:Not a //e but still...

[stonecypher]

> I never notice any lag when I connect and I'm
> about 1500 miles away!

This being surprising based on Borkman's principle, which states that the further you are from a computer the slower it goes?

Help me out here.

How about silver nitrate substrates?

[dacarr]

Of all the things that people thought would die out with the Latest In Film Technology, 35mm film still enjoys wide popularity and has been around since the 1930s. Extremely versatile that - everyone from pros shooting models with their $3000 SLR to Fred Bloggs getting the picture of his family eating dinner with his cheap $10 knock-off camera. Easily can be said to survive the Next Best Thing in ease of use anyway you look at it - 126 was recently discontinued, "disc" cameras don't exist anymore, and 110 is all but on its way out - and even APS cameras seem to be broken as designed, not allowing much in leeway for anyone beyond your home user..

Gateway AnyKey Keyboard

[drivers]

F1-F10 Function keys on the left side... yes, those rule. Especially for playing Flight Sim (3-5 anyway) for adjusting the flaps, and in Linux, using olwm (OpenLook Window Manager) because the function keys were used for quickly moving windows to front/back. But it also has F1-F12 function keys across the top, which I just realized I always use instead of the side ones now. Besides that, it has nearly useless "diagonal" keys which issue a horizontal and verticle keypress in succession. But the coolest thing is that you can reassign any key or even program a macro assigned to any key. It's still my primary keyboard at home, connected using an AT to PS/2 adater cable.

Re:Gateway AnyKey Keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

Those keyboards start to suck after the third or fourth time you hit the 'remap' sequence and end up turning your CTRL into something else. Now you have no CTRL key, and no way back into the remapper.

Guess what - if you don't have a box with DOS and anykey around to reprogram the keyboard from the computer, you're totally boned.

There may be a solution, but I no longer need it, as I killed the bloody thing a few years ago. My replacement is a genuine IBM model M from 1991. You could swing it around the room and it would pull through without a scratch. This thing is heavy, clicky, and nearly indestructible.

It also sounds great over the phone when talking with clients. They think you're moving at warp speed. Even if you're already a fast typer, this thing makes it sound even better since you get two loud clicks for each key.

My vote goes to...

[NewbieV]

The humble paperclip.

From a history of the paperclip on about.com:

"Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian inventor with a degree in electronics, science and mathematics, invented the paperclip in 1899. He received a patent for his design from Germany in 1899, since Norway had no patent laws at that time. Johan Vaaler was an employee at a local invention office when he invented the paperclip. He received an American patent in 1901 -- patent abstract "It consists of forming same of a spring material, such as a piece of wire, that is bent to a rectangular, triangular, or otherwise shaped hoop, the end parts of which wire piece form members or tongues lying side by side in contrary directions." Johan Vaaler was the first person to patent a paperclip design, although other unpatented designs might have existed first."

Over 100 years old and still going strong...

Re:My vote goes to...

[Brane2]

What's even more interesting, it survived the jump to electronic media quite well. Up till recent versions one was in each copy of Microsoft Word, too...

DC-3

[perfessor multigeek]

No doubt, the SR-71 is/was purty, but nothing ever has beat the record of the good old Gooney Bird.

So durable that eventually the FAA gave up and declared it exempt from end-of-life regulations.
So durable that some have been flown under combat conditions with a third of the wing blown off.
The only thirty year old cargo plane ever to be reconfigured as a combat gun platform (the Dragon, a.k.a. Spooky, a.k.a. Puff the Magic Dragon)
Rebuilt as a turboprop and outperformed new aircraft.
Left abandoned in a field of snow up past the Arctic Circle for an entire winter and then, dug out from under the snow, started up, and flown home.

No longer manufactured after 1946, still in use to this day.

The one, the only, The DC-3!

Yay!

Rustin

Re:DC-3

[cpt kangarooski]

Have you ever seen the DC-2 1/2 that CNAC wound up having to fly at one point? It's hilarious.

Re:DC-3

[ICEelemental]

>>The only thirty year old cargo plane ever to be reconfigured as a combat gun platform

How about the AC-130?

Re:DC-3

[perfessor multigeek]

Ah, the famed DC 2 1/2. Kinda makes our kind of part-swapping seem mundane.

For those of you not familiar, the DC 2 1/2 was a DC-3 trashed by the Japanese during WWII. One wing wasn't repairable and no DC-3 wings could be found, so they strapped a DC-2 wing to the underside of, you guessed it, another DC-3, delivered the wing to the crippled plane, attached it, and flew the rebuilt plane out of the combat zone with one DC-3 wing and one DC-2 one.
This wasn't *quite* as insane as it sounds since the DC-2 and the DC-3 used the same root design. In other words, the point where the wing attached to the fuselage was the same on both planes so very little modification was needed. IIRC they pretty much just adjusted the trim *way* to one side and bopped on out.

I say again, three cheers for the unassuming, the unassailable, the unmatched DC-3.
All-time champeeen.

Rustin

Re:DC-3

[perfessor multigeek]

How about the AC-130?
Lessee, DC-3, first deployed 1935, converted to "Spooky" system, 1965.
AC-130, first deployed 1972, first used as combat gun platform, 1972.

No comparison.
The AC-130 was designed in part to replace the DC-3s.

Now, the truth is, improvised side-mounted guns in DC-3s were used in WWII by the Americans, the Japanese, and *maybe* the Russians (though, of course, the Russians IIRC, called theirs the LI-22 and claimed to have invented the plane themselves.) But even then it was an established variant of a civilian cargo plane design designed to an airline spec. (For example, the altitude test for take-off was determined by where US commercial airports where in the early Thirties.) Until the "Spooky" variant, which was not only gear but the idea of a pylon turn as a ballistics approach, it was all just improv done to last out the wait for "real" armed aircraft.

Of course the Herc has since built quite a field record of its own, but on this front it just can't compete. No, no comparison at all.

Rustin

Re:DC-3

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the still hard-working C-130 Hercules.

Re:DC-3

[Anonymous Coward]

AC-130, first deployed 1972, first used as combat gun platform, 1972.

Way to miss the point, sparky. The A in AC-130 is the Attack designator for that particular variant of the Herky Bird. The C-130 was first flown in 1956- sixteen years before the gunship variant was built.

Re:DC-3

[budalite]

Well, if the category is military stuff, you can throw in the M-16, combat boots, etc. On the large side, how about the carrier, USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63). Made around 1961, I think? Still going strong. I was stationed on it in 1976, nearly 30 years ago. (yeesh.) Not sure about its sister ships, Ranger(CV-64) and Constellation(CV-62). (I may have the numbers reversed.)

Re:DC-3

[perfessor multigeek]

Oh, hell yeah! Contrary to popular belief the military has experienced quite a few amazing cases of longevity. Personally, on age I would say battleships win, on perfectness, the P-38 can opener, on saturation of our society, the Jeep.
There are plenty of others.

My question is, who knows of a viable candidate from the past twenty years? I don't.

Rustin

Re:DC-3

[perfessor multigeek]

Yup. My bad. Actually, since IIRC, the DC-3 was pulled from gunship use by 1969, the improvised variants on the AC-130 may have come earlier. Frankly, I don't remember and am too lazy on a sunny Saturday morning to check.
That's what I get for writing entries late at night while doing two other things. Again, oops, my mistake.
But even so, thirty years versus sixteen. DC-3 still wins by a country mile.

Don't get me wrong, the Herc is an amazing plane, and has by now had an almost DC-3 scale legacy of morphs, not to mention the F-4 (which I believe is still in use somewhere out there) and, of course, the impossibly indispensible B-52.

But the DC-3 is still champ. Among other things, none of the other planes above could ever tolerate the abuse a DC-3 can or get by on anywhere near the level of maintenance. Christ, they've flown them with vegetable oil as lubricant.
The only way we would ever get another plane of that class of durability would be to change design philosophies. Not to mention breaking several dozen laws for aircraft design that didn't exist back in the days of yore.
If there is ever to be its equal it will not be built in America. We're too liability-happy and feature-drunk to allow it. Show me a car being manufactured with as few parts as an original VW bug and I'll believe that we can match the Gooney.

Rustin

Re:DC-3

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad just died. He flew C-47s (the military version of the DC-3) as a navigator "over the Hump", that is from India to China, for two years in World War II. Those were quite some planes.

The *really* obvious one!

[djkitsch]

I think there would be a market for about five computers in the world
- Thomas J Watson (IBM in the 1950s)

Well, that panned out!

Re:The *really* obvious one!

[ICEelemental]

how about a few more . . .

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a `C,' the idea must be feasible."
-- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
-- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make."
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
-- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" notepads.

"So we went to Atari and said, `Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, `No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, `Hey, we don't need you. You haven't gotten thru college
yet.'"
-- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
-- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training."
-- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
-- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

Why don't we send a relay probe?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would collect Voyager's transmissions, and relay them back to us.

Re:Why don't we send a relay probe?

[haedesch]

My laymen's guess is that it would go at least as fast as voyager, and would therefore be even costlier to launch, as it wouldn't be able to use the beneficial effect of being accelerated by the planets it passes as it would have to go in the same direction as voyager is now, and its too soon for the planets to be in the same positions.
Also, I guess voyager isnt collecting all that much usefull info as its information gathering devices werent built to "read" the info in deep space
(excuse the spelling errors, Im a bit drunk)

Re:Why don't we send a relay probe?

[Anonymous Coward]

My layman's guess is that (1) the RTGs are probably running out of power, so the signal will drop off exponentially as they near the end of their life, and (2) you need DAMN BIG antennae to get a signal from as far away as these probes. If you got close enough to get a signal with a small antenna, you might as well just "replace" the probe.

Re:Why don't we send a relay probe?

[Anonymous Coward]

To receive transmissions from far away (say, 1 AU or more) you need a big old dish. A little interstellar probe antenna will not do the job.

Re:Why don't we send a relay probe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oops, I mean interplanetary probe antenna. Heh heh.

Re:Why don't we send a relay probe?

[TheRealBlueEAGLE]

One of the immediate problem is discussed as we speak on another thread. The fact that the planets are not in the same possition now as they were when voiager was launched creates the problem of how much fuel it will take to follow voiager.

Re:Why don't we send a relay probe?

[SanityMan]

Have you considered ion propulsion as in the recent DeepSpace 1 mission? Don't need the planets. Some day it will even overtake Voyager.

Oyster blender

[mabu]

My mother gave me her Oyster blender about 20 years ago. It still works flawlessly today. She got it when she was young. It's one of those big stainless steel models that they now call "industrial" even though back then they were just the regular models.

My JVC "ghetto-blaster" ... 18 years?!

[dandelion_wine]

and my penis.

my manual typewriter

[abelaye]

Hands down.

Doesn't need electricity, batteries, and I don't need to worry about getting spammed for a "free" upgrade from Underwood or Royal. The only bug is when I type a sequence of keys too quickly and the metal levers get tangled. I'm a lot more productive while using one because there are no distractions, like the Internet, Usenet, video games, MP3 downloads, all that online/wired/wirelss crap that sucks the life right outta you and keeps you from doing what really matters, like writing rambling, stream-of-consciousness replies to Slashdot posts.

-- anthony

Is the Frisbee a technology

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the Frisbee could be a 'technology' that hasn't changed much but has lasted ~50 years in a form true to it's origins. What say you?

vinyl?

[carpe_noctem]

I still listen to records. I love the sound and audio quality they produce. I don't spin, but any DJ that does still heavily depends on this technology.

For that matter, CD's have aged pretty well. When you think about it, they've been around for the better part of 2 decades, and desipte several attempts to replace them or phase them out, they are still around (minidiscs, anyone?).

My 286 Laptop

[comp.sci]

I dont even remember when my family bought it but it was the one that got me started with computers.
After neglecting it for many, many years I finally decided to look back into my childhood and discover what software and data I had back then.
Actually it was the only time I personally got affected by the Y2K-bug, but loading with the boot-floppy (still perfectly working) solved the problem. (My organizer complained a bit about it being the year 1900 but everything else went smooth).
Afer all these years of leaving this Laptop down in the basement collecting dust it was still working. I never expected that. (well I was a young kid back then when my family got it)
I had hours of fun reading the notes in my old organizer...

. . . and a negative one

[Anonymous Coward]

How many sysadmins remember skipping New Year's Eve celebrations on December 31, 1999, because some management folks were concerned that everything would crash when the numbers rolled over?

Let's hear it for two-digit year representations in databases and applications. It was a simple coding technique that began decades ago, but this shortcut created financial implications many years later. Although this is not a technology per se, it is an instructive example of the long-lasting effects of technology, poorly implemented.

Re:. . . and a negative one

[kcurrie]

Right here baby! Bob and I (hi Bob!) had our families in the office for the night though, and I streamed the ball dropping in NYC over the net via ICraveTV (remember them!) and projected up on the wall with a Proxima. What an uneventfull night! :-)
We managed to have some fun anyway :-)

Landmines

[drivers]

Landmines... decades after they were planted in the ground they can still blow off some poor kid's legs. They don't make them like they used to. Oh wait, the US still does. Speaking of B-52's, every once in a while they'll be doing some construction work in Germany and find an old undetonated bomb they have to carefully move and detonate.

Re:Landmines

[Anonymous Coward]

B-52s weren't used to drop munitions on Germany. You're probabaly thinking of B-17s (or numerous other types of bomber). Every once in a while in London (or any other bombed, allied city) they uncover unexploded luftwafe ordinance. Quel surprise.

Re:Landmines

[Skater]

They find shells and such in Gettysburg, PA (site of one of the most important battles of the US civil war), from time to time, too.

What's your point about the bombs?

Re:Landmines

[CommieOverlord]

That 85 and 60 years after the two wars, munitions are still exploding and killing people throughout Europe. That this is long-lived (if malicious) technology.

HP Laserjet II

[tadas]

Built like a tank (and weighing like one, too), and they just keep working. I'm responsible for one aquired in 1986 that's still churning out pages...

2 Technologies becoming a single tactic.

[grumpygrodyguy]

Stealth technology, and smart weapons.

Of Course, the Internet

[serutan]

Starting as a mere communications and education system, it has evolved into a multibillion dollar entertainment, marketing and anti-privacy engine, becoming a huge single point-of-failure that could collapse the world's economy within days.

Who woulda thunkit.

Mine goes for days too.

[Mustang Matt]

Kyocera 6035.

Of course they've got a huge battery on it since it's a PDA/cell.

Shuttle software

[drix]

No, this is not sarcasm or irony. The software that runs the Space Shuttles, to this day, was written in the early 70s. The computers they're running on, IBM AP-101s, were designed in the 60s. There have been a few upgrades over the years but nothing major, e.g. in 1992 they went from magnetic disks to solid state storage. The guts of the system, 400,000 lines of HAL/S, remain the same. NASA has no plans to change that, either; the software just works too well. The difference being able to read gyro data at 1000 times a second with 1960s hardware, versus 10,000,000 a second with today's, is meaningless. Statistically, the software has <1 bug, and none that impact the performance. Basically, it's perfect, and it will continue to exist as long as the shuttles themselves do. (Speaking of outlasting your design, NASA recently decided that the shuttles wouldn't be replaced until 2020, meaning that they could theoretically be launching a 40-year airframe some day. That's older than any school bus you ever rode on, and your school bus wasn't being frozen, pressurized, launched at 3Gs, and torched to 2500 degrees, six times a year, either.)

Re:Shuttle software

[serutan]

your school bus wasn't being frozen, pressurized, launched at 3Gs, and torched to 2500 degrees, six times a year, either.

You obviously didn't go to my school. We did those things to our buses routinely!

Re:Shuttle software

[cpt kangarooski]

At least _you_ lived in an area with a school bus. I lived slightly too close to school, so I had to be frozen, pressurized, launched at 3Gs and torched to 2500 degrees myself. It was hell on my sneakers.

Re:Shuttle software

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope Shuttles get replaced as soon as ANYTHING capable of replacing them comes around, hopefully within two or three years. A manned spacecraft with a 2% catastrophe probability is not meeting the specs.

Re:Shuttle software

[SubliminalLove]

We need to find something better than the shuttle before they're forty years old. That last one hit a little more than 2500 degrees.

~SL

Re:Shuttle software

[ChaoticLimbs]

"and your school bus wasn't being frozen, pressurized, launched at 3Gs, and torched to 2500 degrees, six times a year, either.)"
My school bus also never exploded while I was riding in it, never blasted itself to pieces killing me at 18000 mph. Maybe we should replace it sooner anyway.

OS/2

[dacarr]

The little system that tried to this day is enjoying a life in obscurity despite the fact that everyone says it's dead.

Re:OS/2

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

Huh? OS/2? Not BSD?

I thought everyone was saying BSD is dead.

Re:OS/2

[ICEelemental]

BSD? Dead? Isn't MacOS X based on BSD, making BSD the second (or possibly third) most used OS?

Re:OS/2

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

It was a lame humor attempt (reference to the *BSD is dying trolls).

Glass

[thelexx]

Bet the guy who first discovered how to make it would never have dreamed of fiber-optics.

oxygen

[sweetaction]

yeah breathing as it is now is going all right, sure wish i could eek a little more performance out of my body with something better.

Daisy Cutter Bombs

[Mr. No Skills]

Developed in 60's -- still going strong. [Link]

My penis

[Anonymous Coward]

...that thing has been working like a champ for 20 years and has taken more abuse then any other part of my body.

Does anyone have a quality cordless phone?

[Mustang Matt]

I'd be interested in a make and model of a high quality cordless phone.

Wouldn't bluetooth work pretty well for household cordless phones? I can't remember if the range is good enough or not.

Every cordless I buy stinks. I've stayed away from 2.4 GHz just because I don't like it fuzzing out while someone uses the microwave and all the 900 MHz phones I buy either have crappy quality or don't answer half the time when you hit the magic "talk" button.

Does anyone have a high quality recommendation?

Re:Does anyone have a quality cordless phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always had very good luck with Panasonic, especially their digital 900MHz models.

Re:Does anyone have a quality cordless phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

i too have always had good luck with Panasonic phones. I own both a 900Mhz Analog, and a 2.4Gz dss phone.....and both work very well in terms of reception. They're about 2-3 years old, and currently hold about 2-3 hours of talkng time.

Re:Does anyone have a quality cordless phone?

[MustardMan]

The new 5.8 GHz phones have worked really well in my experience. The lack of microwave interference makes them a nice alternative to 2.4. And, as a previous poster mentioned, the panasonic phones seem pretty solid.

Re:Does anyone have a quality cordless phone?

[libre lover]

Try epinions.

Personally, I've had none of the problems you've mentioned with my 900 MHz Spread-Spectrum Sony. Audio quality is better than many corded phones and range is a city block. The only downside is that I'm lucky to get 2 hours talk time out of it as opposed to the 6 hours Sony claims it's capable of (which in my case may be because it needs a new Ni-Cd pack).

Re:Does anyone have a quality cordless phone?

[Darlock]

I would never by a Sony phone again. It was a good phone but when the battery died it was 50 bucks to get it replaced. That is close to how much I payed for the phone! I'll stick with Siemens phones that use normal AA batteries.

Windows NT with IIS 4.0

[QuantumRiff]

My web server at work hasn't needed a re-boot in 9 days.. Thats way better than i've come to expect in the last few years of constant lockups and re-boots.

and only 100 more left..

[eshefer]

elektron, the company that makes the sidstation is running out of SID chips..

last chance to get them..

Re:and only 100 more left..

[Tokerat]

I'll never have enough money in time :-(

I'll have to hunt for used units someday when I'm rich. :-\

Krups coffee grinder...16 years and still going...

[crashthud]

bless it's little heart. Used at least once a day except when I'm traveling, and I'm sure that's averaged out by many, many multi-brew days.

I received another one as a christmas present about a decade ago, and it's still in the box waiting for the call. At this rate I have a lifetime supply.

Now if only I could arrange for the lifetime coffee bean supply to match, I'd be set...

Casio fx-8000g Graphing Calculator circa 1986

[Proudrooster]

My trusty Casio fx-8000g programmable graphing calculator from 1986 is still going strong. I used it for highschool, then I abused it in college as I worked my way through through Calc, Physics, and Comp Sci classes. I even taught it to graph using polar coordinates.

It's been dropped, kicked, squished, frozen, lost, loaned, and dented but it just keeps on going. I just feed it a new set of CR2032 batteries every 5 years and it's happy.

Computers?

[xihr]

Uh, maybe computers? Not even the most visionary science fiction authors pictured how powerful, cheap, and available computing would become.

QWERTY keyboard

[zenst]

Given that it was designed to be the least effecient form of input given the arrangement (believe any random layout is likely to be at least 10% more effecient) you have to wonder at people with the latest and greatest techology at there fingertips calling people lydites when they use a QWERTY keyboard :)

Re:QWERTY keyboard

[Government Drone]

Designed to be the least efficient arrangement? Only if you're typing with 1 hand. The most common characters were scattered to different parts of the keyboard so that mechanical type carriages wouldn't get jammed, thus allowing typists to speed up. Another complaint, that the left hand is unduly favored, isn't quite so either, when you realize that the right hand is more likely to be free to hit the space bar or the old-style carriage return?again, speeding up the typing process for touch typists.

Granted, since we're no longer using mechanical typewriters, the reason for QWERTY isn't as compelling, but it was far better than anything else when it was devised, which made it the standard (at least in English-speaking countries) to this day.

Re:Casio Scientific Calculator (and disks)

[Jeff Archambeault]

I still use my Casio fx-991N on a regular basis. I believe it will last forever.

As for diskettes, I remember the first box of 5.25" floppies I got were made by a company called "EMS" Elephant Memory Systems. Too bad I don't have any to test. Their motto was "Never Forgets", had a neat "Elephant" logo, and humorous "Do Not..." icons on the back of the sleeve. Anyone got any working ones?

Tempo, Casio, a freezer, fatherhood

[Roadkills-R-Us]

Our 1988 Ford Tempo (4-banger) with almost 240,000 miles on it. Our mechanic is in awe that it runs. It needs a few things - new shocks, a paint job, and door weather seals, but it runs, and doesn't burn all that much oil. Absolutely amazing.

[In contrast to the Tempo, I expected our 1995 Windstar to last for a decade, at least. In about 6 years and 160,000 miles, it was parked with its second blown headgasket and 4th transmission failure (the first 1 and 3 were covered by Ford, the last 1 and 1 were not).]

I have a Casio scientific calculator at home (can't recall the model) I bought in 1976 or 1977, still going strong. Two AAs last forever in it, too. The battery cover is held on by a hair tie, and about every 10th time someone drops it I have to retension the battery springs. Otherwise, works like new, and the case is even OK despite tons of abuse.

My parents bought a chest freezer in the early 60s under the Rich Plan (commit to buy X amount of beef every so often, get the freezer cheap). They gave it to us years ago, and it's still chugging away in our garage. Needs new door seals, but it's a top loader, so ice buildup is tolerable.

Fatherhood - I didn't know if I could hack it. After raising two of our own (an 18 y/o off at college and a 16 y/o in high school) I recently took on two more teenage girls, age 17 and 15, who needed a dad. Will it ever stop? I used to be excited about having the kids gone, now I wonder how I would survive...

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[scott1853]

Too few registers
Registers have special purposes, and are not generic enough

Psssst, you're support to provide your own variables ;)

.DATA
SomeWord dw 0
.CODE

B-52

[Anonymous Coward]

The B-52 Stratofortress. Designed in the 40's, built in '52, could still be in service in the 2050's (over 100 years).

Re:B-52

[BoneFlower]

True. On that subject, the CH-46. Most of them are 30+ years old, they aren't built anymore, anywhere, and they still do the job. The youngest of them are older than almost all of the pilots.

Goddamnit, the Marine Corps needs the Osprey. Those 46's are old, and need replacement... I hope it doesn't get canceled.

The Internal Combustion Engine

[Gnissem]

100 years later it still remains the engine of choice for personal transportation...we can argue about whether it should survive but so far all attempts to come up with anything else have failed.

I agree...

[SuperKendall]

I've had a Palm V for years, that I carry in my pocket every day. I am amazed that even now I feel little compulsion to replace it with anything - it works great and does what I need.

Re:I agree...

[edgecrusher]

Indeed. My Palm Vx is still going strong after many years of faithful service. Sometimes I ponder upgrading to a newer model, but those Ti's with the hidden keyboard just look plain irritating to me.

Wang OIS/WP

[Anonymous Coward]

I can still type letters on my 1980 Wang OIS computer. And my 1982 Buick is still going strong, Diesel engine and all.

Nuclear Bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you say BOOMSTICK?

Even sadder

[GCP]

"Technology isn't supposed to change. It's supposed to *optimize.*"

Yes, it's supposed to. Like the federal tax code. The good ideas replace bad ideas, better ideas replace good ideas, the best ideas emerge and merge into a consistent, elegant, powerful whole.

Yeah, right.

I think most of what I see can be explained better by inertia than optimization. Those who eventually optimized *themselves* to the old system, don't want it changed in any major way. Extended maybe, with chunks of new worked into the old matrix, bound together with lots of spaghetti for handling exceptions and workarounds and compromises....

If this really is "optimal", I guess that's even sadder.

I'm pretty sure it's not, but the people best equipped to create the new are also those with the greatest personal investment in the old, and that's a recipe for inertia.

Re:Even sadder

[kfg]

Dear Sir/Madam,

If you go back and read my post again you might be surprised to find out I agree with you entirely and that I never said that Unix was optimal ( and that I never said that a steering wheel was the optimal way to direct a car either).

In fact, you'll find I explictly stated that its very orginators had improved it (in their opinion) multiple generations of development ago and implied that Unix had only been optimized to the point where it *sufficed* for the typical user of *Unix.*

Please bear in mind that the *topic* under discussion wasn't whether Unix was optimal, clearly it is not, but whether it had *exceeded expectaions*, which it clearly has, and my argument was directed at *that* premise.

As for your last sentence one of the reasons I like and use Linux, as opposed to even some other Unix variant, is that it allows *me* to provide myself with optimizations of the system, irrespective of others opinions or investments.

While this does not drive the optimization of systems *in general* it certainly drives the optimiztion of Unix like systems.

Also, I would advise not falling into the trap of confusing the *shell* with the system. Even under propriatary Unices the shell is ridiculously easy to dick around with to one's heart's content, even for programing novices with only a copy of C for Dummies and Running (Blank) at their disposal.

If, for some reason, you prefer the syntax of DOS to Unix, Unix allows you to use the DOS syntax quite easily. "External" commands, being individual files rather than bundled up in a single metafile, are easily added or modified by the user.

This is one of the reasons for Unix exceeding expectations. It gives power to the individual user/administrator, conversely taking it away from outside vested interests. Some people like this, in fact some people like this so much that "intertia" will keep them from moving to "better" systems (Like BeOS) that remove this capability from them.

And it's the *shell* that people actually interact with, not the system.

KFG

the Winchester mechanism (hard drive)

[mkldev]

This year is the 30th anniversary of what we now think of as hard drives, i.e. a sealed box containing the heads and platters, as opposed to separate removable platter stacks.

While many people have said for years that the Winchester drive design would run out of steam "any year now", it has continued to achieve greater and greater areal density with reasonable reliability and steadily decreasing price.

Electronic Music Gear

[Trolling4Dollars]

My Ensoniq Mirage DSK8 digital sampler. I got it in 1985 and still use it as my main controller keyboard today. Pretty cool system built around a Motorola 6805 CPU. While it doesn't quite have the specs of my modern gear, it's got its charm. I can still coax some mean sounds out of it too. Plus the digitally controlled analog filters in it rock. I made mods on it to pass other signals through the filter network.

I have an FX-502p

[mangu]

Bought it in 1981. And, what's more (*much* more), it's still in its second set of batteries. Amazing low power consumption.

Electric Guitar

[Anonymous Coward]

First it changed music, then it changed the world! And to think it was created so that guitar players could be heard over their brass and percussion counterparts. Who's the loudest guy in the band NOW!? hehe

The internet

[stephanruby]

The internet exceeded all my expectations.

Mir

[Charles Dodgeson]

How quickly everyone has forgotten Mir.

Re:Mir

[Anonymous Coward]

That pesky "not invented here" syndrome, I guess.

Hammond Organ Tone generator

[uncleduck]

I own 3 Hammond Organs, and nothing digital sounds as good. The latest Roland vk-7 organs come close, but no cigar. The combination of electromechanical tone generation and tube amplification is unbeatble. Unfortunately they weigh a few hundred pounds each. I just played on an organ dated from 1947, and it was the warmest sounding instrument I have ever touched. Sweet.

Here Are a Few

[Lucas Membrane]

Elevators -- Work just like Otis built them.

NTSC TV -- Our color system dates from 1941.

Superheterodyne Circuits -- Circa 1920.

NYC Water System -- An old marvel.

Jet Airplanes -- State of the art for 60 years now.

Magnetic Recording -- About 80 years old.

Aspirin -- About 100 years old.

The Pyramids -- In 4200 years, no one has come up with a better way to sharpen razor blades.

And the champion -->>>>>> TCP/IP.

Durability over time....

[johny_qst]

Try fire! And for a specific implementation of fire.... my zippo that works like a charm even after many many beatings :)

Ballpoint Pencil

[N8F8]

Papermate now sells a ballpoint pencil. The price is a little steep but it really is a wonderful invention. I'm left handed and because of the way I push an ordinary or mechanical pencil I end up with a lot of graphite on my hand and I break a lot of lead. Not so with this new ballpoint pencil. The only drawback is the sucky eraser it comes with. I suggest replacing it with better ones.

Casio alarm clock

[SpinyNorman]

Yep - Casio stuff seems to live forever!

I'm still using the same Casio LCD alarm clock I bought back in college in 1979. Still going strong despite me whaling on the huge OFF button every morning.

The Great Wall of China

[fname]

I think we have to remember that "technology" is not really synonymous with electronics/ computers. And the original example was more of an item than a class of technologies.

So with that in mind, I nominate the Great Wall of China, still standing after all these years. I think it qualifies whereas things like the Pyramids don't, in that they never served any real function. I bet the wall would still work pretty well today, if there was a war. Not perfect, but good.

If the goal was to pick classes of technologies, I think most of the responses here are exceptionally shortsighted. I think sail technology, the steam engine and the wheel had a lot more staying power, and who knew?

I think there are some good specific examples. Any real old bridges out there? Panama Canal is great, 'course it was designed to last a long time. I bet there are some irrigation ditches somewhere that were dug thousands of years ago, and still work. Stepped hillsides fall into that category, too. Most people who built them probably paid no heed to them lasting longer.

Pioneer is unique, because there was really no way to maintain it, and it was a 1 (or 2) shot deal. Those HP calcs are fine, but have more than 10% lasted this long? I'd love t hear about some scarecrow that's been scaring away crows for 200 years without a person laying his hands on it. What's the longest any manufactured item has lasted (and remained useful) for without human intervention? Kudos to the winner.

Re:The Great Wall of China

[OtisSnerd]

The Romans had technology that was lost for more than a thousand years, concrete. They built buildings that were capable of surviving earthquakes. See http://filebox.vt.edu/users/calmond/concrete.htm for example. A goodly number of their structures still stand today, more than 2000 years later.

Re:The Great Wall of China

[Gulthek]

Sorry, but the Great Wall never really served any real function either. In fact the pyramids had more of a function than it did. The Wall was pretty much an effective way for various Chinese dynasties (Ming in particular) to make it seem like it was doing something and to employ a significant portion of the population.

No invading force ever had much trouble with the Great Wall.

Re:The Great Wall of China

[ubrayj02]

This is just nit-picking, but the Egyptian pyramids did have a function(s). It is of course hard to know exactly, but there are a lot of really good educated guesses.

One that comes to mind, is that of a market-place - in front of pyramids, business took place.

Also, the pyramids were built by a permanent and a seasonal labor force from all around the region. Using communal labor, they literally served as a means of defining the Egyptian state. The hierarchy, labor, and sharing of resources involved in construction gave what could have been (and sometimes were) warring factions a larger political shape.

I think I agree with your idea, in that one cannot, say, thresh wheat faster with a pyramid. So in a strictly engineering sense, you are right. But the word "function" is a loaded term when it comes to describing the history and works of humankind (just read some "Functionalist" anthropology/sociology papers - the same term means a dozen different things). Just my 0.02.

Re:The Great Wall of China

[nathanm]

So with that in mind, I nominate the Great Wall of China, still standing after all these years. I think it qualifies whereas things like the Pyramids don't, in that they never served any real function. I bet the wall would still work pretty well today, if there was a war. Not perfect, but good.

But there isn't a single Great Wall of China. It's really a series of several walls, built over the course of 12 centuries, in various states of disrepair. In some places, it's been maintained, mostly as a tourist attraction, but many of the walls don't look like the pictures in most books. Some of the walls are crumbling beyond repair, and the earliest walls still existing are merely piles of dirt.

National Geographic had a great article about this in the Jan 2003 issue. Part of it's online in their archives.

The Brannock Device....

[Taboo]

75 years of foot-measuring-market domination. And talk about indestructible!

Deep Space 1 Ion Engine

[wjsteele]

Since we're on that Space Craft note, how about that little "Ion Engine That Could" that powered the Deep Space 1 craft. That engine still holds the longest sustained thrust of any engine in history.

Bill

Son of a Gun Hairdryer

[Radojevic]

I bought a Son of a Gun Hairdryer 24 years ago. It's still running strong. The best $10 I ever spent. Now if I could get my LCD screen to last more than 1 day beyond its warranty period, I'll be happy! ;-) g

Time and distance filters

[A nonymous Coward]

The principle applies to everything. A friend used to complain that the only good movies were foreign movies. I bet people feel the same everywhere. It's because natives see (at least, hear of) all their country's movies, crap and good, and most are crap. Only the good ones are exported, so foreigners think all foreign movies are good, or at least that there is a higher proportion of good movies.

Same for time. Others have said this, the crap doesn't last, so you only see the good, and think they had a much better track record xx years ago.

Look at oldies radio stations (if there are any left). Listen to an oldies station and it amazes you how many hits they had back then and how little crap. That's because they have 20 years of hits to choose from, they can leave out the crap, while the top 40 stations have to choose from stuff selling at that instant, even a few months is too old.

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Well footnotes in the sense that they [6502, z80] have no presence in todays computing

Except for the thousands of embedded z80 applications still being manufactured, of course.

Buy a C= 64 at eBay

[eyefish]

The best to place to find a C=64, Amiga, Apple, or Atari computer nowdays is at ebay. Do a search and you'll find some amazing deals.

too true

[Anonymous Coward]

This is definitely true of computer parts, too. You didn't use to see "exploding" motherboards and hard disk drives that self-destructed a year after you bought them. If it weren't for the fact that they are useless, we would all still be able to run 486's, because they were built like tanks. Not much room for manufacturers to make a profit anymore, I guess.

Re:too true

[TheKey]

It has more to do with components being smaller and hotter than anything else.

your friend...

[mbmclaur]

silicon

And me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never own a 'sell' phone

Re:And me

[Subnirvana337]

Well, i meant a general everyone....naturally the whole planet doesn't have one, but theres a lot more people than there used to be..

And coming in at number 1....

[dragontooth]

The wheel. Been moving things around since forever.

The Internet

[adenied]

I think the scope, size, and impact on the world of the Internet as it is today is far greater than anyone at ARPA imagined back in the late 1960s.

Re:Old stuff, durability, costs, & the space p

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to take all the credit for finding the links in the parent post. If it weren't for me, that post would be speculation and hearsay at best. Now it's informative, and it's all my doing.

The lightBulb

[visionsofmcskill]

I can't think of any invention to have lived so long without some huge revision.... back in the 50's the light-bulb manufacturers invented a method that would allow them to work indefinitly..... and the blue-prints were consequently disposed of immediatly.

--enter the sig--

The story of the wheel

[osjedi]

The wheel and fire have to be the technologies that have most exceeded original expectation.

I'm sure that the wheel was invented by some guy who's father thought he as a loser for making useless wheels when he should have been out with the other men chasing wild goats with a sharp stick.

Smith & Wesson Revolvers

[Detritus]

The design of the basic Smith & Wesson revolver hasn't changed much in the last 100+ years. They may not be "cool" but they work when needed.

Alarm Clock

[Patrick13]

I bought an alarm clock when I was in fourth grade that takes 2 AA batteries, for about $10. It has worked great for the past 25 years, and has travelled with me from Saudi Arabia to Massachussetts, to Florida to Texas and now in Mexico. I can't tell you how many times that it has fallen, but it keeps on ticking.

Re:Alarm Clock

[The Mainframe]

Oh, yeah. Vinyl. VHS. Both still going strong. No idea why.

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[Total_Wimp]

"Depends on what you mean by good. If you mean the Darwinian sense, then yes, it's phenomenally successful"

I don't know of any other sense you should be using. The great thing about Darwinian success it that it needs no one to pronounce it successful. It is successful by definition.

TW

Re: Mod parent up!

[Eric Lai]

Regardless of its accuracy, I was entertained! Thanks, Anonymous Coward, you're the greatest!

TRS-80 Pocket Computer 1

[bscott]

In my closet is a TRS-80 PC1 - probably the first palmtop, purchased circa 1982 for ~$170. It had a bit over 1k of RAM, ran BASIC, included a full alphanumeric keyboard, and a 1-line text display. I also got the "cradle" which had a cash-register-like printer and a cassette interface. It's been in the closet for over 15 years at this point.

Apart from some leakage around the LCD, it's fully operational - I haven't even changed the batts since 1986 (!), but I can go check it every few months and it still fires up. But then, so does my old Kaypro IV (dual 5.25" drives!)... oh, and I got a VCR from 1985 that still runs fine.

Meanwhile, I bought a digital camera last fall that worked for a whole week.

The R7 (soyuz) booster

[A non-mouse Cow Herd]

http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/r7.htm The same basic design that launched the first ICBM, first satellite and first human into space is still launching humans, cargo and satellites. It will almost certainly serve well past it's 50th anniversary. Korolev would be shocked and a bit dissapointed, I imagine.

Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

My windows 98 hasn't crashed all day... that certainly exceeds expectations!

(OK, it's a cheap shot, but not entirely undeserved!)

Re:Windows?

[TheShadow]

Dude... seriously. Upgrade to Windows 2000 Professional... you'll be much happier.

Computers, phones, and my truck

[Anonymous Coward]

Moore's Law aside, I have computers in the house that are quite dependable. I have upgraded the MB and HD, but the floppy drive, keyboard, case, poser, supply, and such have ben with me for 14 years now.

My mother is another who holds on to the old telephone. She has had the same rotary phone since 1960. Still works,

I finally decided to sell my last truck when it hit 13 years and 290,000 miles. The only repair I ever had to do to it was replace a water pump. That, along with routine maintenance. I got rid of it 'cause a door hinge rusted out; it would have cost more than the truck was worth to replace and paint it.

Not many things these days

[consoneo]

My truck has surpassed my expectations... it's a month old and still running!

GPL'd Mac Emulator: Basilisk II

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

Here's a GPL'd one that that seems to work pretty well for those old games: Basilisk II

You'll need an OS, but Apple is giving one away for free use (apparantly): OS 7.5.3

So far, AFAIK, this is all legal (or at least uncontested). The tricky part is finding a ROM that works. The only way to get one is to rip it from your own mac - included is software to do that, though. You might be able to find one on the net if you look hard enough, though. (it won't be legal)

And then, of course, you need to find software for it if you don't already have some.

Another tricky thing is dealing with mac programs you download on the net. The mac filesystem has a concept that FAT/NTFS doesn't really have, which is each file has potentially two parts - resource and binary or something like that. I don't really understand it. But if you download an executable directly, then you probably will only get one part and it won't work, so you need to get them in BINHEX'd (HQX) mode, and then use something like HFVExplorer (Win32) to decode it properly when you copy it into your Mac disk image. It took me a while to figure out that HFVExplorer would do this for me, as I had a binhex'd version of Stuffit Expander, and I had no idea how to decode it once it was on the mac disk image, so I could decode other programs.

Good luck!

-If

Refrigeration

[evil_roy]

The household refrigerator hasn't really been improved from the initial invention.

Some others:

Fax machines - so reliable you have to look for an excuse to replace them. The excuse has usually been space saving and getting rid of thermal paper. But the underlying technology has hardly varied.

The coat hanger

The humble power point/poweroutlet & connectors/cables

The ironing board

The hills hoist ( aussie clothes line)

The boeing 747

The internal combustion engine

Lawn mowers

Garden implements - shovels, picks, rakes - designs unchanged beyond our memories

The house brick

PVC pipes

Paper

Silicon gel

Playing cards

Coins

Books

Towels

Stairs

Disruptive technologies

[lowlands]

While Linux may be obvious there are several other like P2P, Distro's with Gnome 2.2. and KDE 3.1, OpenOffice.org, Apache, PHP, XML, Abiword, Gnumeric, Evolution and even a proprietary one: Samsung Contact. Kudos to the zone of the rising sun for not accepting to be bullied by 'profits over your dead body' type of companies to stop (successfully) selling a great Groupware solution to the top 1000 Companies in the world (show some spine next time HP).

Several products/solutions have been created over the past few years that, in spite of the overall market sentiment, have succeeded in starting the dethroning of the incumbents in the OS and business productivity market. It's been an amazing ride so far. Remember the good ol' days of the 0.99 kernels, Slackware challenges and cheers when you found out how to make xfishtank compile again. Compare that to the latest beta of Red Hat, Mandrake's 9-RC2, Suse's latest release and countless others also providing their take on true innovation. That's true innovation in its finest form and shape.

Much productive water under the bridge, lots to be proud of and thankfull for also. Especially of the the fact that everything the community has contributed to the World will accelerate the migration to a new creative, intellectual, social and business environment that redefines the concept of social and business ethics, monetary foundation and business interaction frameworks.

It's the spirit of this community that has truely withstood the test of time, the media and dominating market forces by sheer determination. It has shown great resilience against amazing abuse (need I say cancer, anti-American and threat to intellectual property) and other FUD attacks.

Thank you all and keep the faith!

Best regards,
Patrick

emulatorz rule!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I feel like playng a game I launch up winuae, mame or ccs64.

Bruce Lee, monty on the run, pirates, bubblebobble, paperboy....best games ever written.

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[GlassHeart]

I don't know of any other sense [other than Darwinian] you should be using.

Many of our greatest artists lived and died without money, fame, or sometimes even children. In just about every Darwinian sense, they are failures. The extent to which they enriched our collective cultural heritage did little for them.

Similarly, I don't automatically consider people who make more money or have more children than I do as better people.

Re:Washer and Dryer ???

[Anonymous Coward]

My parents are well over 30 years old, and somehow they still work fine!

x86 beats RISC

[Anonymous Coward]

As it turns out, the x86 is in many ways a better architecture than RISC. Why? The whole point of RISC was to simplify the instruction set (and the instructions) to reduce the number of gates needed to implement them, which in theory could allow them to be clocked faster.

Part of that reduction was to add lots of GP registers and make the instructions all really simple and of uniform length. All those GP registers end up slowing down context switches (SPARC and maybe other architectures cache the contexts, but once you fill it up, switching gets really slow). And all those huge instructions means larger I-caches, more fetch bandwidth, and (possibly worst of all) more page faults!

You see, the x86 instruction set is really just a compression scheme which allows you to make lots of arbitrary RISC (P4, K7) or VLIW (Crusoe) cores with hardware (P4, K7) or firmware (Crusoe) x86-to-native decode logic. When the 3GHz P4 was released, it was clocked at least twice as fast as anything else on the market (with AMD not far behind).

Of course, x86 didn't succeed solely on the merits of its instruction set. I think the 68k architecture would be amenable to similar success due to its 2-byte instructions, many addressing modes, 16 GP registers -- if it had enough engineers working on it.

I think that many RISC ideas are only good for a certain range of MHz where memory is fast-enough and transistors are expensive-enough.

Re:x86 beats RISC

[GlassHeart]

the x86 is in many ways a better architecture than RISC. [...]

Your arguments might have been convincing if you hadn't defeated it yourself in the end:

I think the 68k architecture would be amenable to similar success

Exactly. In fact, that chip would still be more pleasant to program than the x86, because of its orthogonality.

Your real conclusion is that a hybrid, where CISCy instruction sets are used to save memory and bus bandwidth, and a RISCy core actually executes mini-instructions, achieves the best performance today. That's not a matter of discussion or dispute, but hindsight.

Unfortunately, it also doesn't excuse Intel's initial architectural choices.

You see, the x86 instruction set is really just a compression scheme [...]

You don't seriously think that Intel had much of an idea how they were going to implement the P6 when they were designing the 8086, do you? What you describe is an afterthought. Whether or not x86 instructions had that effect, Intel was stuck with it because of Microsoft operating systems and existing x86 applications.

More importantly, the triumph of the x86 does not reflect the triumph of CISC as a philosophy. In fact, implementing frequently used instructions in silicon, and uncommon ones in microcode is a step towards RISC (the next step is removing them altogether). Going to a RISC core is another. Basically, if the CISC philosophy was extended to its logical conclusion, today we'd probably have a single instruction to encode a song into MP3 format. Yet, the last major revision to the instruction set is probably the MMX (around 1997), and before that the 80386 (around 1985).

No, the triumph of the x86 reflects the flexibility of Intel engineers. Although their chip represented many of what was wrong with CISC, they borrowed ideas where they could, and invented where they could not borrow. They weren't tied down by which ideas were RISCy and which were CISCy, and the market rewarded them handsomely.

None of these, however, support your thesis that the x86 is a "better" architecture, as the word is commonly used by students of computer architecture.

Dick Clark

[jakedata]

That guy is amazing!

I hope NASA can duplicate the molecular structure of his hair to protect the next generation space shuttle during re-entry.

old monitors

[AndyChrist]

Like those old Magnavox RGB monitors people used with C-64s and shit. Still to be found in thrift stores, the only better display you'll find for your video games (without getting into expensive or exotic displays) is that Samsung gaming TV of several years back.

HP Calculators...

[Anonymous Coward]

HP 67 - 1976
HP 16C - 1982
HP41CX - 1983

Possibly HP45 (1973) with new battery pack.

My Washing Machine

[RedWolves2]

I inherited my current washing machine from grandparents after they had passed. It was built in 1965. It is a Sears Kenmore. I just can't believe that something like that has lasted 40 years.

Re: going on 20...

[jo_ham]

My parents' washing machine was one of the first front loaders - it's still washing 23 years later.

Their Ferguson VHS deck is still working 20 years on too.

Their Windows based PC broke after a year.

20-year microwave

[Anonymous Coward]

I just recently retired my 20-year-old Panasonic microwave (door switch stopped closing, preventing the the timer from starting); my refrigerator is about to turn 30, and its lights only recently burned out.

TCP/IP, DNS

[slagdogg]

Two fundamental technologies that have held up remarkably well despite the incredible growth of the Internet. Ah, the joy of standards.

For 3 generations

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, they haven't even been manufactured in around 40 years! Heck, there are guys flying them whose father and grandfather flew B-52s! And they'll probably still be flying decades from now.

Re:For 3 generations

[Tablizer]

Hell, they haven't even been manufactured in around 40 years! Heck, there are guys flying them whose father and grandfather flew B-52s! And they'll probably still be flying decades from now.

The COBOL of planes? (Or is that too much of a compliment to give to COBOL?)

Perhaps I've missed it, but: MS DOS

[doom]

I see some folks pointing at the 8086 architecture but no one has mentioned the MS DOS software as being something which has "exceeded expectations".

Certainly it's exceeded the expectations of the guy who wrote it and sold it to Gates for ten grand.

My 386

[bluGill]

I'm still using a 386-25 that my parents bought in 1991. Still boots (when the power company decides it needs to reboot) off a 80MB harddrive (that is megabytes, not gigabytes) Today it runs Slackware 3.0, with a lot of changes and upgrades that I have since forgotten about. Most software wasn't even upgraded for y2k, and that was the last time I touched it, except for when I moved a couple years back. (and when rc5-64 was solved, I stoped the client then)

It has been on my list of things to retire for 4 years now, but it keeps working so I don't bother. Most functions have moved off it though, I used to regularly see loads of 8 or more. Now it sit there idle except when fetchmail wakes up.

The U.S. Constitution

[31 Flavas]

The U.S. Constitution is probably the grand daddy of all things listed here. As far as I remember from my U.S. History and U.S. Government high school classes the constitution was really only intended to be used as a temporary government, to be replaced by a perminant one later. But, I doubt, though, that the founding fathers expected the constitution to last for 200+ years.

Re:The U.S. Constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Lasted much longer than anyone expected, and it still is a heck of a lot better than what you guys are using these days.

Apple //e - Swashbuckler and Castle Wolfenstein

[poopie]

Aztec was cool - I always liked kicking around the piles looking for anything but snakes...

but let's be honest....

Swashbuckler - now there was a game! I can kill any spider with my mighty sword, and I can shuffle forward and poke my enemies with a quick jab that makes them disappear! Heh.

and Castle Wolfenstein: 9 keys for movement and 9 keys for shooting! Those darn SS...

Re:Apple //e - Swashbuckler and Castle Wolfenstein

[pyrrho]

oh yes, swashbuckler! and the original Worlfenstein.

You have mentioned two of the true classics... and thanks... I had forgotten swachbuckler [/me tries to find MAME ROM in the denuded MAME underground, /me tries to pay for ROM]

SMTP Protocol

[Anonymous Coward]

..and I wish it would die already.

U-2 (the airplane, not the band)

[Anonymous Coward]

This thing has been around for over 40 years, and has outlasted its "replacement", the SR-71 and spy satellites. Of course, satellites are still around, but none has been in use for 40 years.

the original/early IBM pc architecture, rs232....

[Anonymous Coward]

The PC speaker, PS/2, AT keyboards, ISA buses, VGA, IDE and 3.5" floppies. All invented in the late 70s or early/mid 80s and most (well maybe not the ISA bus) still present in today's pc's.

And going back even further RS232, ASCII, VT terminals. I still use ancient VT220's at work to act as serial console on top of the range servers.

VMS, I think Digital first released it back in the 70s and Compaq/HP still supports and modifies it. There are plenty of good old VMS mainframes out there hidden behind the scenes e.g. SMS service centres.

I'm sure the same applies to a lot of IBM (among others) mainframes.

Levi's 501 Jeans

[Anonymous Coward]

...have lasted me for a damn load of years!!! I've the same pair for 10 years and they only look better and better. No stupid calculator can beat something designed in the 1860's!!!

compuserve and AOL

[Anonymous Coward]

AOL has been around since something like 1985 and compuserve (do they still exist???) since the late 70s.

Re:compuserve and AOL

[Anonymous Coward]

To say that AOL has outlived its usefulness is to imply that it was useful at one time. For what? Its only purpose is to allow inarticulate morons to access the internet, completely ignorant about net etiquette and with no desire to learn to behave properly. The September of 1993 is marking its 10th anniversary this year.

Still using it

[kcb93x]

I'm running a trial right now of VMware Workstation, and I've installed DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 under XP. Now, I CAN run all those old games and programs!

what the hell?

[Trepidity]

Sure, C's syntax and semantics are elegant compared to, say, FORTRAN77, but come on. It's quite possibly one of the messiest languages out there.

Myself.

[Anonymous Coward]

After all the years of Guinness, Cap'n, coffee, lack of sleep, surviving on microwavable food and Ramen, typing, and smoking..

I'm still alive and I don't have CTS/RSI.

Now that's amazing.

AK47 - kalashnikov

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions made - more than any other rifle,
reliable... and to think Kalashnikov the
designer get no royalties ..
(Is this sort of an "Open Source" rifle
then? With anyone able to make them w/o
paying royalties?)

http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/models/ka50.html

http://ak-47.net/

http://www.sovietarmy.com/small_arms/ak-47.html

Re:AK47 - kalashnikov

[Anonymous Coward]

I have attended a public lecture by Mikhail Kalashnikov on patents. Man, he would put RMS at shame! That guy (Kalash, that is) deserves to be called an Open Source pioneer.

The Oxberry animation camera

[May Kasahara]

My boyfriend and I are constantly going at each over on which is better: analog or digital. The Oxberry camera is one of the reasons I like analog.

It's an animation camera and stand that has been in use for many years by animators. The Oxberries I've worked with weigh a couple of tons each, and the taller one is between nine and eleven feet high. They had digital counters, mechanical/electronic shutter releases, and completely mechanical registration controls. It is, without a doubt, the coolest machine I've ever used.

AFAIK, the Oxberry company is out of business, and the only production facilites in the US which still use this beast are schools and independant studios (like Bill Plympton's). Digital coloring for traditional animation is quickly becoming the standard in TV work, and has already replaced cels in feature films. Like many of my classmates at the time, I too could've used a computer to color my thesis film, but I went with the Oxberry.

Wanna know why? Oxberries don't crash! They don't corrupt your files, they don't freeze up on you, and (in most cases) shooting a cel on film is a LOT faster than scanning a drawing into a computer. While a few of my friends had huge scares over corrupt hard drives and Jaz disks, I just sweated over a mechanical camera, blared The Crystal Method (no headphones necessary-- since I wasn't in a computer lab!), and shot my film. Then I sent it off to the lab while my friends' renders were crashing.

I now do my work almost entirely on computers. How times have changed. Still, I'll always value my experiences with the Oxberry... it is as real and as hands-on a shooting process as you could get. I'd love to have one just to mess around with, but they're quite scarce, not to mention the fact that I don't have 15-foot ceilings ;)

Re:SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://hackingthemainframe.com
http://stroker.dhs .org

OWNZ J00!

the ctrl-alt-del combination

[Anonymous Coward]

I rest my case.

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have a copy of RM COBOL (I think it's COBOL 74') It still run my old assigmnments on my old machine, and fit in 1 floppy.

(If my memory serves, MS COBOL was distributed in 6 floppies, and you need at least 2 for Compliation)

Sliced Bread...

[DrRobert]

It is still the stand by which all new technologies are measured.

1970s Stereo Equipment

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the solid state stereo technology in the '70s was pretty darn good. I still use a Sansui amp from 1972 and it sounds darn good. Sure, it has a little hiss that is noticeable at low volumes, but still sounds just as good or better than most amps you'd find at your local Best Buy. And don't forget the old Dual turntables!

a few..

[ptorrone]

i like my next slab (still running). the ipaq i first bought a couple years ago is still updated with the new builds of the os. the segway ht, although only 90 days old-- has been amazing. granted, these are all recent but they all exceeded by expectations.

cheers,
pt

Just from my own personal experiences...

[lbonser]

I had a 1988 Ford Festiva that ran just fine for over 12 years. I replaced batteries, tires, etc., but otherwise it was still purring along just fine when I sold it. Given that it was a cheapo econo-box, I never expected it to last three years. I have a 20-year old credit card sized Casio calculator that works just fine. Other things that I still marvel at: The B-52, U-2, and SR-71. I seriously doubt that the F-22 or the JSF will still be flying 40+ years from now. Plain old paper seems to never die. As do black and white photographs. Paper's been around for THOUSANDS of years, and archelogists can still read what was written those milliena ago! Black and white photographs, properly developed and stored, will last several hundred years. Those digital pictures from your hot new digi-cam wouldn't be around in even 5 or 10 without constant maintenance... Hoover Dam just keeps getting stronger and stronger... part of the magic of concrete. With all the bio-tech and new pharmaeticals, it's amazing that the 100-year+ old ASPIRIN still has new uses. I've still got some stainless steel pots that look brand new even after 25 years.... I could keep thinking of stuff, but many are already mentioned here.

QEdit

[Anonymous Coward]

DOS version. I'm still using it as a utility today, under 2000Pro Commmand Prompt.

Which version of MS Word or Note/WordPad support text column block (without defining a table)?

Galaga/Pacman

[zoid.com]

Need I say more. These have been re-released as a new game and they are doing great in the bars. Time to re-release Marble Madness.

Zoid

1.44 MB floppy drives.

[walterbyrd]

I think they may be coming to an end of life cycle. But, the way things change with PC, 15 years isn't too shabby.

BSD

[axxackall]

BSD is already dead, but it's still around.

COCO2 With Floppy Drive

[Anonymous Coward]

TRS/80 Color Computer II
Yes, somebody is still using it.

Re:Internet - Thanks Al.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad that Al Gore took time out of his day to Invent the Internet!!!

The wheel ...

[chris_sawtell]

... was invented about 5500 years ago, and is still going strong, especially in sets of five.

Zippers

[mev]

Invented more than 100 years ago and still going strong.

No - You Mean the U2, right?

[Hideyoshi]

The SR-71 was in many ways an impractical, expensive and unweildy aircraft. The U2, on the other hand, the very same aircraft in which Gary Powers was shot down in while flying over the Soviet Union in 1960, continues to gather invaluable intelligence to this day - intelligence not even satellites can gather - in such dangerous places as Iraq and North Korea.

In the field of military aviation, I have to say that, apart from the B52 and the A-10, no aircraft has continued to play its role so well long after it was meant to have been retired.

I would much rather probe 7 of 9

[Anonymous Coward]

Need I say more?

My Ford 9n tractor

[Anonymous Coward]

Built in the 1940's, it sits around most of the year collecting dust&rust, when I need it, I put gas in it and charge the battery, starts right up! I mow my fields with it.

Parts for it are incredibly cheap and simple to repair yourself, like $5 for an exhaust system (pipe + muffler).

I always think about replacing it, but a new tractor with similar capabilities is $10-20k and is far more expensive to service.

An old TV

[Clomer]

My parents own an old, nearly 30 year-old color TV that was made by a now defunct company, and it still works fine. I've had every Nintendo system from the original NES to the GameCube hooked up to that thing, in fact right before coming online I was playing Metroid Prime on it. It stinks only having one speaker for games like that, but the picture is remarkably good. Better than some new TV's if you ask me.

Drifting O.T. here, but oh well.

[DoraLives]

With a little bit of patience, you let the people you support do their own thinking and you let them make their own mistakes, and then eventually they'll learn

Amen brother!

Always draw it out of them. NEVER beat it in to them.

Voice tone is EVERYTHING.

If they still can't do it when you're done, then it's YOUR fault. You're a LOUSY teacher. Go find something else to do.

1ESS (1AESS, 4ESS, etc...)

[printdevil]

There are still a few 1AESS-es out there, about 30 odd years later. Still switching old-style phone calls. Lucent still makes parts for them (or at least did a few years ago, but wasn't really happy about it.)

Alarm Clock

[The Mainframe]

I've got this little Casio alarm clock... I inherited it from my grandmother, who bought it some ungodly number of years ago. I believe it went around the world with her. Anyway, it looks cheap, so I kept on expecting it to break, but it hasn't. Somehow, it just keeps on going. Not only that but:
A) It's had the same 3 AA batteries in it for longer than I can remember
B) It play's Mozart's 14th to wake me up every morning. Which is unfortunate, because now I hate Mozart's 14th.

Real Old Bridges ...

[Lucas Membrane]

During construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in the 1880's, it was discovered that the contractor for the cables was cheating and supplying crappy cables. There had been way too many cables already wound for it to be anything but a disaster to try to start over. It was decided that the design contained enough redundancy to stand despite the problem, and it's still in service with the defective cables today.

Not today's devices...

[Anonymous Coward]

Today things are made to be thrown away after 6 months- even if it's a calculator or a car (a device that doesn't really go stale so quickly). America- home of the ever growing trash heap.

Heh... my HVAC system

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a Carrier system, a little over 30 years old. The heat still works great, but for the last two summers I've had to jury-rig the AC unit internally so it never wants to shut off, and power it on and off at the breaker box (i.e. it gets turned on in the morning when I go to work and runs nonstop ALL DAY, barely keeping the house comfortable). Parts are no longer available for it, and the guys from the AC contractor who've tried to fix it in years past are younger than the unit itself.

It is very soon to be replaced by a nice, small, efficient system with an X10 controllable thermostat for which I'll be crafting a nice web interface.

Minolta SRT101 Camera I purchased in 1966

[jgmcbride]

Purchase this camera in 1966 in Singapore while on R&R from Vietnam. Still have the first picture I took with it (the guy who sold me the camera). I don't use it very much now though but it is still working. Also have a Arrow T25 Stapler from 1968 that I still use for stapling wires. It is still in perfect condition.

Re:Minolta SRT101 Camera I purchased in 1966

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll second this. Cameras like the Minolta SRTs, the Nikon Fs and the Olympus OMs are built like tanks and are still serving their owners well after 30+ years. I own a Minolta X-9 (a later model, but itself 20 years old) and a couple of lenses that are far superior to anything I could own new. My grandfather owns a Nikon F2 and an F3, and if he relents and isn't buried with them, I expect they will serve their later owners for decades to come. Truly well-built and ergonomically sound machines.

Rob

XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would have thought xbox would have lasted this long?

I'd have to say Vinyl Albums

[QuietKarma]

I was originally going to say CD Roms, where else do you have a standard being used that 20 years old with all the refinements in sound technology we've had [never mind the tricks the NSA have hidden up thier non-existent sleeves for evesdropping]... but I digress ... more than 95% of the DJ's out there still love their vinyl, simply because it works and is so easy to work with. Wow, a technology that's both accessible and user friendly [no TM here hehe] lasting awhile, maybe someone should inform M$ =)

General Electric handheld mixer, ca. 1950s

[Moses Lawn]

My mom still has, and uses regularly, the GE mixer we got when my dad worked as an intern at GE in 1957 or 1958. It's older than me and it works perfectly (better than me). The only maintainance it's needed has been replacement of the cord, 20 years ago. Compare this to the two or three I've bought recently and had die, one of them the first time I used it.

Of a similar vintage is the Waring blender (3 speeds - off, low and high) that I now have. Works great if you don't mind the wonderful smell of ozone.

I think it's interesting that a large number of the posts here are talking about consumer items (telephones, washing machines, Hitachi Magic Wands) as opposed to high-tech electronics or more general tech. I guess I'm not the only one that grumps about how "they don't make *** like they used to."

Gravity!

[LPetrazickis]

I can't believe the dang thing still works. Nature sure knew what it was doing back then.:)

electric pencil sharpeners

[badfish2]

Never cease to amaze me. And at $30-195 in the office catalog, neither does their price.

B-52's Longevity

[UnixRevolution]

Not only is it still in use, it's slated to stay in service for another 50 years or so. now THAT's a good design. some of these things will be 100 years old when they finally get mothballed.

Re:B-52's Longevity

[nothingtodo]

Actually, we use the B-52G. The ones built in the 1960s for the SAC are not in service because of their age and total airframe time.

Even More Amazing

[LPetrazickis]

My 1 GHz processor does 86 400 000 000 000 operations in a day.:)

My HP LaserJet 4 Plus

[Motie]

Manufactured in... well, I don't want to move it to check, but I think it was March of 1994. And I just picked it up a few months ago for 40 bucks. It's a workhorse eight years after manufacture.

I immediately threw a network card and 48MB of extra RAM in it so it competes with EXPENSIVE contemporary printers. And I'm only into it for ~ $110, with network card and way too much memory.

The LaserJet 4 (not Plus) at my company--the main printer--has been there longer than I have--and I started in 1992.

Like I probed your Mom?

[Anonymous Coward]

That bitch was deep.

The best purchase I ever made

[ccmay]

For me, the one single purchase that exceeded all my expectations was a pair of Sorel Caribou cold-weather boots.

I bought them my first year in college about twenty years ago when I was doing a lot of skiing. I replaced the wool liners about five years ago.

They have remained perfectly waterproof, and my feet have never, not once, ever been cold while wearing them.

Not very high tech but worthy of mention in this thread.

-ccm

Biotech, too?

[TitaniumFox]

I would think that DNA polymerase is one bit of machinery that has outlasted just about everything.

OT: your sig?

[Anonymous Coward]

War takes lives, peace takes brains

So war makes you dead, and peace makes you stupid? Damn, tough choice.

IBM Mainframe

[TarPitt]

I'd vote for the IBM mainframe. First released in oh about 1964. Declared dead many times (first the DEC VAX, then PC LANs, then UNIX, ...). Still around doing what they were always best at - high volume transaction processing. Possibly given a new life by the need for stable reliable systems to host Web-based electronic commerce. An assembly language program written in 1965 will still compile and execute properly.

Re:IBM Mainframe

[Anonymous Coward]

the IBM AS400

but paperclips will never get respect now

[CausticPuppy]

....thanks to Clippy.

The B-53 (Re: U2)

[Cletus the yokel]

Preliminary spec: 1945
First flight: 1952
Entered service: 1955
Last produced: 1962 (B-52-H)
End of Service Date: 2030

Not bad for an aircraft thought obsolete in 1961! Billions spent on finding a replacement: the B-58, the B-70 , the B-1B, the B-2. But nothing gets the job done like a BUFF.

Deathstar still up and running!

[Anonymous Coward]

My IBM Deathstar 120GXP is still operating. No hint yet of impending doom...

Re: going on 20...

[Telecommando]

Only 23 years? It's not even close to one of the first. I helped a friend go through her mother's estate this summer. In the basement was a 1934 front loader, still in working condition and still hooked up. Her mother had gotten too frail to go downstairs about 20 years ago and had a second machine installed on the main floor. The manual was still in a manilla envelope in the rafters above it. It said it was suitable for either AC or DC operation on voltages from 80 to 200 volts. Took 4 of us to hoist the heavy $#&#% upstairs for the auction.

Oldest and toughest piece of tech I personally own is my Texas Instruments SR-10 calculator; $250 when I bought it new in `73 or `74. It's been dropped out of my backpack at high speed on my bicycle, fell off the top of my car and has been knocked off many a desk. It has a few case dents (mostly corners), a few scuffs and once I had to glue the red display bezel back in place. Still works like new.

Sure.

[Inoshiro]

Because it was illegal to not use a Western Electric 500 bought from MaBell.

Tick tick

[Orac]

My pacemaker has worked far longer than I expec

The GameBoy

[philring83]

I'd have to say that the original GameBoy lasted far longer than was probably originally intended. The system was released in 1989 (!) and didn't get any major technology upgrades (aside from a color screen, and even that wasn't until the very late 90's) until maybe two years ago, with the release of the GameBoy Advance. And yet, somehow, Nintendo owns 95+ (maybe even 99+) percent of the handheld market. Interesting, no?

Re:As a tech support person...Trashy OS.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Mac has it's own peculiarities. That drag to the trash-can to unmount bit.

The C-130

[SerebReal]

This is an aircraft that is nearly 50 years old, but is still one of the most reliable and useful in the free world's arsenal.

It is designed to be able to complete a mission with only one of it's 4 turboprop engines functioning.

This massive craft can refuel other planes, carry huge loads, overwhelm the enemy with incredible firepower, or serve a variety of other tactical requirements. Airborne hospital, electronic warfare, humanitarian relief, etc.

It can carry up to 21 tons of material, and has a range of up to 10k km, and a fuel capacity of up to 10,000 gallons.

http://www.theaviationzone.com/factsheets/c130.a sp

A family member once served as a flight engineer on one of the deadly Gunship models:
"The eight remaining AC-130H "Spectre" gunships are still flying with the 16th Special Operations Squadron (SOS), part of the 16th Special Operations Wing (SOW), at Hurlburt Field, Florida."

http://www.theaviationzone.com/factsheets/ac130. as p

Re:Colt M1911 - user interface problem

[Animats]

The M1911 was a good gun when you wanted to shoot somebody. But most of the people in the military who carried one never used it. It was carried as a self-protection weapon by officers, tankers, artillery, and support people. Up at the sharp end, grunts use rifles.

So safety was more of a problem than lethiality. An Army study disclosed that the M1911 had, over the years, caused more casualties among American soldiers than to the enemy. It has user interface problems - you can't set the safety to "on" until the weapon is cocked, and the unloading procedure can leave a round in the chamber even with the magazine removed. A U.S. Navy manual reads:

• This single action ("Cocked and Locked") design requires the user to be very familiar and well-trained to allow carrying the pistol in the "ready-to-fire" mode. Consequently, M1911A1s are often prescribed to be carried without a round in the chamber. Even with this restriction on the user, unintentional discharges occasionally occur.

Gun nuts will insist this isn't a problem. But they're into guns. In the military, the people who wear pistols mostly just lug them around while doing their real jobs, and they're not focused on the gun. Thus the need for something that doesn't require so much thinking about whether the thing is loaded/unloaded, cocked/uncocked, locked/unlocked, magazine in/out. More modern automatics have fewer state combinations. In newer designs, when no magazine is in the weapon, it cannot fire. You can set the safety to "on" and leave it there while loading and unloading. This reduces the chance of accidents.

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's break this out into two different areas-

Your 'artist' may have created great works, and they are still revered as some of the best. Therefore, the work was a Darwinian success.

Money and fame would be bestowed upon the person. The artist themselves may have been complete failures- but their work, was a success.

The creator does not need to be tied to the creation, they can exist, and succeed or fail independently.

computers..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't one of the IBM bosses that said somewhere in the 50's that the world wouldn't need more than 5 computers?

Dang I even have 8 of those buggers here in a family of 4.

So term paper mills DO work....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is entirely possible. Computer Science programs in general seem to focus heavily on the software side of things and often leave the hardware end "... as an exercise for the student." While I've learned a great deal about hardware and Linux, it was rather more out of necessity than having it taught in a course. If he relied on a friend for his tech support rather than dealing with it himself, and his thesis was theoretical, he might not know anything about modern hardware.

Re:So term paper mills DO work....

[Orthanc_duo]

While computer science focuses on the software you esentialy have to use a computer (otherwise your PHD is in maths of some desctiption). I find it hard to believe anyone who has used a CD-rom drive before cannot distinguish between a CD and a 5.25 floppy. if only from the fact that you would have to force a CD into a 5.25" drive.

Re:So term paper mills DO work....

[jomiller]

I have to run with you on this one, but really when was the last time you saw a CD-ROM and a 5.25 in the same machine, can't say that I ever have.

Re:So term paper mills DO work....

[Orthanc_duo]

I have but as I put them in myself I don't think it really counts. :)

THE MIR

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the MIR space station was great (MIR=PEACE).
The only thing bad about the MIR was that they drop it to the ocean, I thought that it was possible to drop it to outer space and try to recover it after some centuries.

My laptop

[SubliminalLove]

I'm a youngin at 20, and I'll be damned if I wasn't blown away when my Inspiron 8200 was the nicest laptop on the market for three whole months. That definately exceeded my expectations, I think my dual-proc AthlonMP 1500+ with the G-Force2 was a killer box until like the next Tuesday. ~Benjamin

Vinyl players

[rasjani]

And Technics SL-1200mk2's to be exact. They have been in production and sale allmost 30 years now pretty much without drastic modifications.

The Thermos!

[jVirus]

Still keeping hot things hot and cold things cold. ... and how'd i know?

man clock?

[Colven]

That's a great idea... I hope that some day in the near future, I walk into a supermarket and hear "MAN CART"... Or maybe I'll be that proud father who raises my children on Linux (I'm sure I will), and when they're old enough maybe I'll be that proud father who hears my kids say "MAN BICYCLE"... later on maybe "MAN GIRLFRIEND".

Re:Toaster

[(mandos)]

I have a toaster from that era too. It was a wedding gift to my grandparents. I still use it several times a week, with no complaints at all. However, when it DOES finally die, I'm going to send a stern letter off to the makers of it. It's a Toastmaster made by McGraw Electric Co. Sadly there is no date on it. It makes use of patent 1,923,590 and others though. On top of it's age and reliablitly, it happens to be one of those nicely curved chrome ones that look really cool. :)

Michael

mod parent up.. way to funny nt

[Anonymous Coward]

asdf

Casio F-5 watch

[XNormal]

I have a Casio F-5 watch that is nearly 20 years old. It's one of the earliest LCD watches ever produced and does nothing but show the time. The amazing thing is that it's still running - with the same battery!

The band has rotted long ago and it's just sitting in my drawer, ticking away. It's even quite accurate. It had a y2k bug - it thought it was not a leap yer.

Re:Casio F-5 watch

[digigasm]

Your LCD watch ticks?

Hardware Longevity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still amazed at how long my webserver has lasted. It's a 16MHz 486SX. The hardware has been running without failure for years.

I can't even think of the last time I saw it at its colocation facility. I wish newer hardware lasted so long.

Concorde, Harrier Jump Jet, Land-Rover

[alanw]

Concorde - 1969 - currrent: (although it seems to be on its last legs (wings?))

Harrier Jump Jet - 1965 - current

Land Rover - 1948 - current: I/II/IIa/III/Defender - basically the same design since 1948

My old Commodore Amiga ...

[Lello Minsk]

the only game i play for over 15 years ( i dont play a lot ) is still SpeedBall II in my old Commmodore Amiga . Still works like a motherf****r .

Re: going on 20...

[sql*kitten]

Their Windows based PC broke after a year.

If the PC broke, it would have broken with any OS

My 1988 Volkswagen Polo

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been all over Europe with it, sometimes clocking 1000km in a day (that would be 1Mm, wouldn't it?). Now it's getting a brand new engine and a general overhaul to last another 200 Mm) ;-) Moritz.

Re:My 1988 Volkswagen Polo

[Anonymous Coward]

heh...

I have been all over the US with my '88 VW Jetta....

still going strong.... (only had to replace the Clutch, but that was due to ...um... driver um... error)

Beyond Expectation

[kogs]

The London Transport Routemaster bus. Still in service after 49 years.

I still have my grandfathers axe

[Anonymous Coward]

My father replaced the blade, and i replaced the handle, but my grandfathers axe still works fine 8o)

my crack pipe

[Anonymous Coward]

arglll.. fuck you bitch.. i fuck you.. nah.. i said fuck YOU!

The B-52

[Brown Line]

The SR-71 certainly is a design that's stood the test of time. But it's a relative newcomer compared with the granddaddy of all combat aircraft, the B-52. It first flew in the 1950s, and is still going strong.

Re:The B-52

[Anonymous Coward]

That is partly because strategic arms treaties forbid the introduction of new heavy strategic bombers or production of existing designs. The DoD thinks they can keep them in the air till 2040 or so. That means some will be almost 90 years old!

Faber Castell and Commodore

[Hidden_Soul]

I regularly use my Faber Castell Dramstadt slide rule (67/54R)with Mechanical additator on the back and a Commodore Minuteman Calculator purchased in 1971. I picked both up at a garage sale for AU$2

Light Bulb outlasts manufacturer

[hugesmile]

I saw a news story about a light bulb that must have outlasted its manufacturer! How can you make a bulb that lasts 100 years and make any money?

Re:Light Bulb outlasts manufacturer

[Anonymous Coward]

What about slashdot itself? The first time I saw slashdot, I laughed that it would either be a passing fad or collapse from its success (i.e. become slashdotted)

It's lasted well beyond my expectations. It flawlessly accepts comments and quick wit from around the world without skipping a beat. It neveÿfÿÿfÌ ÿf(TM)ÿffÿf3ÿf ÝçîOEÜ©ë÷Ä_ÆóL -fê...0ìJv -fê...0ìJv <EOF>

Re: Technology that has exceeded expectations

[AliasMoze]

Eyeglasses. The modern set of glasses is the same basic model that's been around of centuries. One of the first prosthetics, eyeglasses actually correct one's inherent malfunctioning eyeballs. Now that's useful! So when someone brings up how bizarre the idea of implants is, throw eyeglasses at them. Not only are we borg, but we've been borg for a while.

The bicycle. Not only are bikes fun, but they perform their function remarkably well, transfering energy into velocity way better than our legs can. I am always amazed at how well the bicycle works. The modern bike's design is basically the same as...heck, I don't know, but wasn't Butch Cassidy riding around on one in the movie?

Digital photography. I've always had an interest in photography, starting with my first SLR when I was around ten. When I first heard of digital still cameras, the technology struck me as ideal. I remember arguing with purists who postulated that digital would never replace film, and slowly professionals started adopting higher end digital SLRs, eeking their way into magazines, the purists none the wiser. Today, digital photography is easy, cheap, immediate, and more controllable than traditional photography could ever be. Everybody's shooting, and soon the quality of digital images will far exceed that of film.

Audio CD

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, it's a pretty old technology.
it's cheap, working fine and popular.

Clock

[willib]

My parents have an electric clock on their kitchen wall that has been running for almost 45 years.

Ah...reminds me of the days...

[Gudlyf]

...when I'd download these games from some of my favorite BBS's, using a 300-1200 baud modem, then just copy them to those 5 1/2" floppies. Taking a hole puncher to the other side of the floppy to use side two...ah, the memories. I must've had thousands of games back then, even the ones I'd never play.

The Eiffel Tower

[aduchate]

Built for the International Exhibition of 1889, it was supposed to be destroyed in 1909. I am pretty sure Mr. Eiffel would never have hoped it would last more than a century.

It is a very good example of steel architceture (Art ?) which boosted the architecture creativity in the 19th century.

Re: going on 20...

[jo_ham]

True, true.

The PC is fine, now it's running FreeBSD working as my ftp server.

It was getting too crash prone with windows on it, but it seems to be fine now.

Solar powered Casio games

[Gudlyf]

Speaking of that solar powered calculator, I have a couple of tiny solar-powered casio games that I got, I dunno, 20 years ago...? I believe one was called "Mummy's Maze"; they folded like a woman's compact and were very small. Probably the last time I played them was 18 years ago. Anyway, I was digging through junk in my folks' basement a couple of weeks ago, and there they were, beaten to hell but totally intact. I put the game up to the light for about 10 seconds, and it came back to life. I was blown away

Scientology

[Anonymous Coward]

The wonderous technology of L. Ron Hubbard to identify, target, and destroy enturbulated clusters of body thetans, has thrived unmodified since its discovery in the mid 1950's.

Using this technology, millions of people have stepped onto the bridge of total spiritual freedom and are clearing vast swathes of this planet of supression from the global psychiatric conspiracy to suppress and enslave mankind.

Linus likes x86

[Jogar the Barbarian]

If you don't believe /., believe Linus. He said x86 isn't so bad, and the problem with ia64 is they "got rid of the best parts!"

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7966

A defense of Unix...

[LinuxParanoid]

I pretty much agree; I've never been too impressed by the chasing-taillights feeling I get with Unixes and the user interface. The commercial Unixes gave up on the desktop around 1993 when NT showed up on the scene, and while there was a resurgence of interest and improvement in the desktop with Linux vendors, there's still a long way to go. I've always been amazed at how simple things (like changing one's screen resolution) end up being hard to figure out how to do until you memorize various pseudo-obscure steps.

Still, I think you are selling short the contribution of UNIX in a couple areas at least: the web and XML.

Unix tools for accessing information have improved dramatically over time culminating in the web. I consider this a major advance, separate from the GUI. While we could argue to what extent it was a Unix vs. NeXT vs. Windows innovation (certainly it has since been coopted by Windows), it was very much a UNIX phenomena when I opened my first web browser Xmosaic back in 1993, and I think Unix deserves some credit for giving birth to it... the development linkages between TCP/IP protocols, the servers and clients on either end, and Unix are deep.

And as for XML, it seems to me to be as Unix-y an approach to the web as possible, taking Unix pipes to their logical extension: taking human readable/editable flat files and passing them between programs to manipulate data in a flexible and powerful way. As a user and a developer, I still don't think the promise of XML has fully been unleashed (it takes a lot more than a little | symbol...), but I do think its buried in there somewhere.

--LP

The Volkswagen Beetle

[jafac]

60 year old technology and it still gets better gas milage than your typical "modern" car.

Originally conceived as a peice of Hitler war propaganda, it became the most widely sold car in the world.

And it was affordably priced, in it's day, and still today.

The flat-4 aircooled engine gave rise to the same engine that today, powers the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle - the Rotax 912.

Sure, the car is basically a peice of crap, it's not comfortable, noisy, and pollutes, and is the object of scorn and derision by drivers of modern cars, but it's still the cheapest ride on the planet, and if all you need is a ride, no frills, it fills that purpose alone better than anything else./

i got it...

[Hubert_Shrump]

The inclined plane, the sphere, and the turnbuckle.

Shoes are nice, too.

Re:How about COBOL? x86?

[GlassHeart]

The creator does not need to be tied to the creation, they can exist, and succeed or fail independently.

That doesn't change the fact that artistic merit alone does not determine its Darwinian success. Invaders have frequently destroyed the artworks of the losing nation, regardless of merit. Many extremely successful works of art receive a disproportionate amount of attention due to other qualities. Today, basically any Picasso painting would be worth a lot, whether or not Picasso himself even liked that work.

So yes, I can in fact discuss the merits of a CPU design independently of its market success.

That damn CapsLock key!

[MacGod]

The venerable old CapsLock key. Still wildly in use on eBay, and message boards everywhere! Hey, why say "Info CD on free iPod info" when you can say "INFO CD ON FREE IPODS!!!!!!!!!"?

Gah.

Re:tech support -my Phd story...

[octalgirl]

Several years back, Win 3.11 days, we had gone around a DoD office and upgraded everyone to get email/Internet access for the first time. Mosaic and Eudora, on 386/486 computers. Put in NIC, installed win for workgroups, etc. This project lead, electrical engineering man calls and says he can't get his email or Internet anymore. So I go into his office and look around. I notice a network card on his book shelf. I check the back of the computer, and sure enough, there is no card. I pick it up and ask 'You took it out?'. And he's like, yeah, it was slowing my computer down, I don't want it in there. Well! You can't get online without it! (Keep in mind he was in his office when I installed it, and I explained everything to him on how to use it!) I tried to optimize his PC as best I could, but he had a big budget, so I encouraged him to buy a new computer for himself, which he did.

Cathode Ray Tubes

[Anonymous Coward]

What are they, 70, 80 years old? Still the most cost effective technology, still the best visual resolution. Yes, it's big and heavy but it gets the job done! Kinda like a Mack Truck.

My Palm Device

[Webmoth]

My Palm device has far exceeded my expectations. It's still going strong and never fails to give me the entertainment I desire. I expect it to give me faithful service until the day I die.

I discovered the usefulness of it, oh twenty years ago or so when I was maybe 10. Intuitive, never had to read the manual.

What? You said Palm OS?

My Apple //gs still works.

[panZ]

Although all I play on it is Karateka (sp?). That damn bird...

That's okay, I only use my //gs to play Wings of Fury. There is just something about that game on that platform that I can't replicate using a modern clunky joystick on an emulator. I still haven't mastered the short landing approach but I'm now the grand master rocket launcher.

My 19.2kbps serial connection

[toygeek]

A few years ago I needed a (then) high speed link between my garage and my home, and ethernet was too expensive, so I put together a 19.2kbps setup that I found in an electronics magazine. I used two old 286's to setup the link, and over the years I've even managed to set it up to be able to surf the internet (using my P3 as a gateway to the DSL) and it hasn't gone offline in 6 years. In fact I'm typing on it righÿf(TM)ÿffÿf3ÿf ÝçîOEÜ©ë÷ÿf(TM)ÿffÿf3ÿf ÝçîOEÜ©ë÷

Re: Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. :-) I owe it mostly to the C= 64 and to my brother that bothered to buy me one, a 1541 (or 154I? The last digit of the label on the case was different from the first one) and the programmer's reference guide if today I can make a decent living as a programmer. The minimum I can do is to praise its memory.

BTW, I believe what I said is pretty accurate, except for the video-cartridge, which probably was this one, but did only 80 columns of monochrome text.

Seiko Watch

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have to nominate my Seiko "Sports 100" digital watch. Bought back in 1986 for $A130 (not sure what that equated to in $US at the time), it was a proto-geek's delight - stopwatch, multiple schedulable alarms, twenty 16-character memory storage spaces and another twenty for messages that would flash when a preset date/time came up, adjustable contrast, choices of 12/24hr and American/British date displays, you name it. About the only thing missing was a light.

Now, seventeen years later, I have travelled around my home country and flown to the other side of the planet. I have survived highschool, tertiary education and ten years in the workforce. And I am still wearing the same watch I bought all those years ago.

I've worn this watch for more than half my life. The last time I took it off was to have a new battery fitted. It's possibly the only thing I have never changed about myself, and I'd be happy to keep wearing it for another decade or longer. If and when it does finally shuffle off its silicon coil, I'll have to think up a fitting eulogy for its many years of faithful service.

Until then, kudos to the design engineers at Seiko who put this baby together. I never thought when I first put it on that I'd still be wearing it well into the twenty-first century. I'd say it's exceeded expections, well and truly.

Re: going on 20...

[ces]

My mom's neighbor has a 1934 GE refrigerator that still works and is still in use. She hasn't had to do anything to it other than replace the door seals every 15 years or so.

Re: Mod parent up!

[Eric Lai]

I was too young I guess--i never got into programming much on the C-64--I was too busy playing games. Alas!

PS (offtopic)

[mink]

I have asked Robert Woodhed about that bit from Wizardry a number of times and he never has told the whole story. Care to share?

What is VIGER

[twert]

VIGER was the bad guy in the first StarTrek movie. The Voyager probe went out of our solar system was found by a society of machines. They then modified the bah-gee-baas out of it and sent it home to find "the maker".

So end-ith the lesson. (Before you ask, Sean Connery in The Untouchables)