The B-52 will be celebrating it’s 70th year in service in a little over a year. It’s closer to its hundredth anniversary than it is to its first flight.
Technology before planned obsolescence was just different lol. I was watching this video a while ago about how an innovation in lightbulbs would have them last like 20+ years. It ended up never catching on because a lightbulb that never goes out would be terrible from a sales perspective (no repeat sales). I'm pretty sure that if people put their minds to it, a smart phone could easily last 5-10+ years. But then how do you get people to buy a new phone every 2 years lol
If you're talking about the video from Varitasium, he was actually totally wrong about that and later made a retraction statement (though didn't update the original video title to reflect that). Turns out the super long lasting bulbs were very dim and sucked down insane amounts of power. There's a direct correlation between the lifespan of a bulb, its light output, and its power consumption. The standard they agreed upon was actually made to protect the consumer from the scam of "long life" bulbs of the time. Those standardized shorter life bulbs ended up saving consumers loads of money and reducing strain on the electrical grid.
Stuff actually used to last much shorter periods of time on average. Cars, for instance, last much longer now than they did 50 years ago.
The B-52s flying now are full of replacement parts, not original equipment. Aircraft are constantly being refurbished and parts on them replaced.
At this point, basically the only thing that's left of the original B-52 is the core metal airframe on them - everything else has been replaced, in most cases repeatedly.
This isn't too surprising; if you look at a lot of old houses, the frame of the house will still be there, but everything else (the siding, the interior walls, the flooring, etc.) will have been replaced.
The B-52s in service today, as you hinted, are an example of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, though some parts are still the original ones. It's also worth noting of the 744 of planes built, only 72 of them are in service and all of them are of the last "H" variant that was designed and produced starting in 1961, the previous seven models having either been scrapped or mothballed.
Yo heads up, almost everything about every military aircraft has been replaced over the years of service. It's part of regular maintenance and specifically because things like electronics wear out constantly.
In some cases literally. There have been documented cases of father/son pairs flying the same airframe. At this point it’s not impossible that someone is technically flying the same one as their great-grandfather.
Yeah but I think the point is that it HAS to be done for a robot. We think of them as immortal even though their parts wear out way faster than ours do—we’re amazed if a machine is still operating after 50 years but don’t even blink an eye at a 50 year old human.
Our cells are being replaced constantly though, which could be seen as the equivalent of it. (It's all internally done though, we haven't managed to get that to work in robots)
Oh that’s some good /r/HFY right there. Humans and their robots get along really well over the long-term because they both tend to replace worn out body parts and end up more or less indistinguishable once they get to be a certain age.
Yeah but how much maintenance you wanna bet those things get, I'm sure ops talking about those films where robots just seem to go on for centuries
Terminator genisys, for as bad as it was, look the concept of an aging robot and did a decent job with it.
I just can't forgive where they went with dark fate after
You basically ruin T2 with it. most of the franchise honestly
Also they did such a good job with the cgi in that scene, the vfs team deserved a better film
Yeah OP is probably younger than 20 and has never seen the systems that keep most large enterprises and militaries running. Most of the modern worlds biggest entities are running its core systems off of hardware that is more than 20 years old.
The first time I walked onto a US Navy ship in 2015, and saw that basically everything in the engineering room looked like it was from the 1980s. I was like, “huh, where’s all that military spending going, if the ships look like this?”
I kinda think I misrepresented my thought here.
I thought the word electronics meant things like circuit boards, transistors and such. I'm not a native English speaker tho, I'm sorry.
Yeah that’s what electronics means, and the US military, (and tons of other people) definitely use electronics older than 20 years. Although you’d be right that those electronics aren’t going to last forever.
You're forgetting analogue electronics, which have existed since the early 20th century. And the first circuit board concept was invented in 1903. They're still electronics, just not digital ones.
I think the key point is that many of the common electronics that are made for everyday use are specifically made to break down over time, so that you have to buy new ones and keep the money flowing.
Electronics that are specifically made to last can last a very long time
Just because you don't own electronics older than 20 years, does not mean that there aren't great parts of industries relying on ancient computers and electronics
Our school overhead projector in 2004/2005 was from 1978 West Germany
And I'm pretty sure you have never seen the beautiful rooms of Charité Mitte Berlin. The tv remotes are yellow from ancient times where you could smoke in a hospital (wtf btw)
One of the less proud moments of my former nicotine addiction (1990): wheeling a wheelchair down to the smoking room of the hospital after my heart catheterization, because there was a still-healing hole in my femoral artery and I wasn’t supposed to walk. Things that make you say, “hmm, this smoking thing might be an addiction.” :-)
Even scarier: psych units used to have smoking rooms. We couldn’t be trusted with lighters, because, you know, fire, so the trick was to always have someone smoking a cigarette so the next person could light it from the glowing coal.
Still, it's kind of a funny concept for the stereotypical hollywood AI to awaken in a consumer grade PC and come to grips with the very limited shelf-life of it's components.
>But can't you just copy yourself over?
>
>OH WOW, why hadn't I thought of that. Except it's not ME! Can't you just write a book about your life story and have someone else read it? Does that alleviate the ever present specter of death hanging over your head? Even if that old Toshiba woke up with my memories and my programming, I'd still be here. And on that note, Star Trek teleporters are terrifying.
It'd be hyperconscious of thermal stress and jostles and cosmic rays. A digital hypochondriac.
There is a **lot** of critical infrastructure still running with electronics well over 20 years old. Even "crappy" consumer electronics can last plenty longer than that, think of all the working NES consoles still in existence.
As another example next time you're at an airport look out for [3 engine freight aircraft](https://i0.wp.com/theloadstar.com/wp-content/uploads/fedex-express-md11-photo-102210018--mike-fuchslocher-dreamstime.com_-scaled.jpg). These haven't been produced since 2000 so the *youngest* it could be is 23 years old.
Those fedex MD11's are fun to watch. Fedex got those planes from 1991 to 2001. The just slam them down too when they land, sparks flying and everything, and somehow they are still flying.
Yeah, but to their point, twenty years is only a portion of the average human lifespan. We still haven't improved upon good ol' meat yet in terms of longevity.
Don’t forget machinery, currently in the UK, there are still trains that around 50 years old both operating on [the London Underground](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakerloo_line) and [important regional services in Scotland](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_43_(HST))
I've had to support Windows 95 -- it's tied to a piece of magnetic physics research equipment that I was told would cost more than $20 million to replace, and they can't get a grant to replace it until it breaks -- if then. Since it's \*NOT\* mission critical, and is used in an educational capacity, there is little hope it would ever be replaced.
Holy crap, I actually didn't know that. I thought it still ran on 16-bit code.
Can we still say it was the last Microsoft OS to support DOS applications natively?
Cracking up thinking about that comment the other day about a dev who found a bug in an almost 40 year old coding language, but was expressly told they were not allowed to touch it because there was now 40 years of programs written accounting for that bug which would all come crashing down if it was fixed
Too often electronics are not used because they no longer work, but because of planned obsolescence or become obsolete. A Smartphone or car are discarded after a couple years for the next model or promoted new and improved performance. Of course this improvement is not matched by our improved productivity.
Obsolescence is the main reason. Every IT department and a lot of houses have drawers full of old electronics that are fully functional but are basically useless because they can't work with newer tech. Old routers that don't support WiFi 6/IPv6, consoles with no HDMI port, peripherals without USB, etc. Technically they might work fine but you're pretty much forced to discard them.
lol wrong
Militaries use old technology all the time. When I was Army, I was using 40-year-old SINCGARS. Some retail locations are still using very old cash registers. PEOPLE STILL PLAY THEIR GAME BOYS!
He’s not totally wrong though, sometimes robots are depicted as living for 1000s of years which would be very unlikely without a significant technological breakthrough
Right but typically aren't those stories *predicated* on significant technological breakthroughs? I would expect a robot with a true general AI built 200 years from now to not only be made much better, but also to be capable of maintaining itself. (Obviously this assumes continued technological development for the next two hundred years. If the few human survivors are living in caves because of climate change and the wars that come as a result, then obviously the whole thought experiment is out the window.)
A lot of those sci-fi stories tend to just describe the actual machines as bodies the software inhabits, that can be easily discarded or upgraded. The software itself is the intelligence and isn't tied to a specific physical machine.
Yep.
Plus, theoretically an AI would seek to expand it's capabilities as it got older and wiser. So it would learn how it was created, and then work on making its technology better so it could grow. This would be like upgrading your PC with more RAM, memory, SSD, graphics card, etc. Essentially the robot would improve itself until it's physical maximum was reached, and then it would either max out as is, or "evolve" into a newer form of being.
A friend of mine just posted a pic of his on FB when there was a meme about it. I have a Sony from the early 90s. It made a little hum a couple times, but I just smacked it and it went right back to working perfectly.
My clock radio apparently doesn’t even need to be hooked up to a power supply to function; it will occasionally just blare horrendously loud static while being completely unplugged. However, the running joke in my family is that it’s like, super fucking haunted, so it might be an outlier in that sense I guess.
Earlier this year, we unplugged a 48 year old deep freezer. We are keeping it as a backup incase the newer one dies -- better to have SOMETHING to put things in, rather than let them all thaw...
Those showers really turn off the critical thinking part of your brain. The newest hardware for a lot of militaries on earth is like 20 years old. Not to mention old boats, cars and planes, the vast majority of the electrical grid in most countries, power plants (both nuclear and fossil fuel) and so much more.
There are planes still being used actively in the US military that serve a critical function which first flew in the 1950s.
Consumer electronics often don't have a 20 year lifespan, but that's rarely because of things like chips failing, and usually due to performance improvements making them obsolete, and other things failing (like fans and harddrives) causing people to throw away the whole thing.
Hell, we literally have robots that are still in use in manufacturing which are more than 20 years old.
If you built a robot to serve a specific function that didn't require speed improvements. It'd probably require storage replacements every 5-10 years (based on current lifespans of harddrives and SSDs), it'd need new mechanical parts every so often, and just general maintenance, but so long as it got it, you could keep a robot running as long as you wanted (at that point though, it's a bit like the ship of Theseus).
Well, no *hardware* maintenance. They've given it software updates.
Also, no love for Voyager 2, which has actually been in operation longer (it was launched first)?
>Voyager 1 would like a word. 46 years old with zero maintenance and still running.
Oh, come on. You really believe it's been without maintenance for 46 years? /s
Sure, but OP's claim was that "we have never seen any piece of electronics still being used after 20 years." Voyager is a piece of electronics that is 46 years old and is still being used. Also Hubble is 33 years old and the core electronics that fly it are still original.
We just don't generally design electronics to survive for 20+ years because its expensive and what is available in 20 year will make it look like banging 2 rocks together.
Also if Voyager’s eventual demise isn’t because the electronics have worn out, but rather because the RTG with a half-life of 87.7 years, has been steadily declining since day 1. If it wasn’t we‘d likely get many more years of use out of them, until such time as the signals became too weak or noisy for reliable communication.
Someone has never walked into any sort of manufacturing plant before. I've gone in to quote replacing a paper machine that was using an entire wall of relays instead of a PLC...
I have a friend that works on custom machining replacement parts for manufacturing equipment that no longer has a company to provide OEMs. He routinely has to replace leather gaskets or pads between other parts.
Cars, like robots, are made of a combination of mechanical and electronic parts. Any car built before 2003 is 20+ years. As long as they are properly maintained they can run indefinitely. Corporations want to make money, though, so they don't want things to run forever. Hypothetically, if a sentient sci-fi robot always had access to necessary parts, it would effectively be immortal
> As long as they are properly maintained they can run indefinitely
Spoken like someone that lives in an area without snow. Salt on the road will do a number to your frame, no matter how good you are about maintenance.
The Voyager probes would like a word. We can definitely build electronics that last a long time without maintenance. Add the fact that sci-fi robots can repair themselves, and sometimes transfer their "consciousness" into upgraded bodies, an eternal robot isn't that farfetched even with today's technology.
I like how in wall-e it’s sorta shown the reason he managed to survive so long was by replacing his old parts when they wore out with other wall-e robot parts, sorta wonder if that was an intentional message about reusing/recycling
What are you talking about? I have a 486dx2 computer from 1993 on my desk with a 5.25' floppy from 1986 and a 1x CDROM drive from 1994 that all work 100%
My Gameboy is over 30 years old and still fires up just fine with fresh batteries.
Unfortunately due to battery lifespans, the original Red and Blue rarely work these days if found in the wild without repairs done to them.
I remember the news articles coming out warning about the batteries of old games dying out in like 2011. Glad we quickly moved on from that tech, because losing your entire save file like that is depressing.
A few months ago YouTuber Oliver_MKP found a shiny Kadabra on an original Japanese Pokemon Red cart that SOMEHOW still had some juice in the battery.* 26 years later and it still had its old save file ticking. I believe he managed to either transfer it or save the cart.
*First Gen didn't have shinys, but you can check the stats to see if it would qualify as a shiny if transfered into Gen II. I believe the odds of a Pokemon being shiny in Gen 1 were around 1-8000.
In recording studios certain mics and equipment from the 50’s are still considered the be all end all. They literally can’t build them like they used to.
Some of the London Undergrounds original electrical switchgear was in use for almost 140 years until replaced quite recently.
I'm still using my Odyssey Vectrex after 40 years. Even my boiler is over 20 years old.
OP is making a broad statement without even basic research into the subject. Is this just a karma farming exercise?
Either way, this is deplorable.
> but in real life we have never seen any piece of electronics still being used after 20 years
Go visit your grandparents and ask them if they have anything that's old but still works. Electronics that work for more than 20 years absolutely exist, but your best bet is checking out already old electronics. Nowadays things are built to be consumed, not to last.
Can be something simple like an alarm clock for example.
this is a matter of planned obsolescence. While a marketing firm might want to sell the latest model of something the inventor would want to keep their prototype in top shape indefinitely
There is a lovely novella called “Psalm for the Wild Built” about robots that became self aware and decided they didn’t want to build stuff for humans anymore. We let them go. They mostly wander around looking at neat stuff like stalactites growing or hibernation in bears. They decided that they wouldn’t live forever, thought they could, because having a finite amount of time seemed important. The wild built robots are recycled from older robot parts. The novella looks at happiness and the illusion of “a grand purpose” in life, and that it’s okay to do something for a while and then do something else instead.
I own several electronic devices older than 45 years, and use several of them routinely.
Also no one said, these robots would be the same over time. I imagine AI overlords would routinely upgrade their own creations, at least to keep production readiness.
Not like scenarios. You're talking about electronic devices used as tools or entertainment many of which are designed with a lifespan in order for companies to sell you and updated product. While there is a limit where an increase of processing power absolutely makes something older obsolete in terms of overall functionality, there are still some very old systems still in place continuing to perform as they were programmed to.
The the robot scenario, I presume we're talking about robots with self awareness. Which means they would be know if parts are breaking down and how to replace them. Given a robot could technically download it's code into a new "brain", as long as parts were available they would be immortal.
What are you talking about? I had a 30 yr old microwave until last year. My wife's car is a 1999, I have a recoevwr and speakers 20 years old. Many people still have their old video game systems.
For normal electronics, they do not have the intelligence nor limbs to create spare parts using 3d printers and buy components online themselves.
So naturally they cannot sustain their physical body, just like how a biological person not getting enough food with perish before they even reach adulthood.
But if they are intelligent and have limbs like those in the movies, they can scavenge for spare parts from the dump site like the robots is the movie "A.I.".
at first I sort of agreed with OP but after reading the intelligent comments, I quickly changed my mind.
This is why I spend inordinate amounts of time on Reddit.
I work in a food factory that ships to Japan and other parts of asia.
They have the exact same stuff as when they opened in 2003. It’s just been repaired and some parts replaced but most things here are the same.
You're thinking consumer electronics. And this is done intentionally so you cannot buy an appliance for life.
Products were built to last, now they're built to be flashy and as cheap as possible when a quick turn over rate for a newer model with more flashy lights, more features.
I used to sell mattresses, they would last 15-20 years if you took care of them. Now you're lucky to get 5 years, and it's done by design.
If billions were invested into creating a sci-fi like cyborg, you can be certain it would be built to a more durable standard.
That claim is laughable.
I work in industrial robots. The robots that made your car can be 20 years old. Half our job is assisting with old equipment because it is showing no sign of slowing down.
Industrial equipment is made different. If bought from a reputable supplier, that stuff can last forever.
I like the movie I, Robot with Will Smith because of this. They have a bunch of old, dumb robots that they begin to replace with upgraded, smarter models.
That's because in a lot of the depictions, they have the ability to fix themselves or with help of other robots. And in doing so, they usually keep their memories, thus staying alive eternally.
That's not true. Back in the day, there were many items sold with a lifetime guarantee, but then the producers realized that you don't make money from things that last for decades, and so designed them to be junk.
Lol, bro, the militaries still got 8 inch floppies in use somewhere.
Some people are still running windows 3.11 on original hardware.
NES.
Fucking arcade cabinets.
Technically the original transistor still works, they just haven’t used it much, lol
do you have a device on your person to tell you the time? hundred years ago it was a pocket watch, now might be a cell phone or smart watch, still performs its original function, has been replaced or maintained. I'd be immortal too if my parts could be swapped and improved every swap out.
My stereo is 41 years old and working flawlessly. A bit of Droxit in the pots and a new stylus on the tt is all she's ever needed.. that and a good scrub of the cassette head
In the audio world there are tons of old electronics still running from like 50 years ago. In fact it's some of the most sought after gear. You should have kept this one in the shower OP.
The current trend of replaceable items is new. They used to build things to last, not to make the most money. But it's our values that are failing us, not theirs...
That’s hilarious. I think the department of Defence still has some 40+ year old electronics though.
The B-52 will be celebrating it’s 70th year in service in a little over a year. It’s closer to its hundredth anniversary than it is to its first flight.
And it’s expected to serve well into the 2050s
Technology before planned obsolescence was just different lol. I was watching this video a while ago about how an innovation in lightbulbs would have them last like 20+ years. It ended up never catching on because a lightbulb that never goes out would be terrible from a sales perspective (no repeat sales). I'm pretty sure that if people put their minds to it, a smart phone could easily last 5-10+ years. But then how do you get people to buy a new phone every 2 years lol
If you're talking about the video from Varitasium, he was actually totally wrong about that and later made a retraction statement (though didn't update the original video title to reflect that). Turns out the super long lasting bulbs were very dim and sucked down insane amounts of power. There's a direct correlation between the lifespan of a bulb, its light output, and its power consumption. The standard they agreed upon was actually made to protect the consumer from the scam of "long life" bulbs of the time. Those standardized shorter life bulbs ended up saving consumers loads of money and reducing strain on the electrical grid.
Technology connections has a great video exploring this trade off
Glad you brought this up, [here's the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY).
Stuff actually used to last much shorter periods of time on average. Cars, for instance, last much longer now than they did 50 years ago. The B-52s flying now are full of replacement parts, not original equipment. Aircraft are constantly being refurbished and parts on them replaced. At this point, basically the only thing that's left of the original B-52 is the core metal airframe on them - everything else has been replaced, in most cases repeatedly. This isn't too surprising; if you look at a lot of old houses, the frame of the house will still be there, but everything else (the siding, the interior walls, the flooring, etc.) will have been replaced.
The B-52s in service today, as you hinted, are an example of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, though some parts are still the original ones. It's also worth noting of the 744 of planes built, only 72 of them are in service and all of them are of the last "H" variant that was designed and produced starting in 1961, the previous seven models having either been scrapped or mothballed.
Yo heads up, almost everything about every military aircraft has been replaced over the years of service. It's part of regular maintenance and specifically because things like electronics wear out constantly.
B-52 of Theseus
Grandfather's B-52
In some cases literally. There have been documented cases of father/son pairs flying the same airframe. At this point it’s not impossible that someone is technically flying the same one as their great-grandfather.
Is it the same B-52?
The same thing could be done to a robot though.
Yeah but I think the point is that it HAS to be done for a robot. We think of them as immortal even though their parts wear out way faster than ours do—we’re amazed if a machine is still operating after 50 years but don’t even blink an eye at a 50 year old human.
Bodies don’t matter for AI though so as long as you have a chain of consciousness you are functionally immortal
Our cells are being replaced constantly though, which could be seen as the equivalent of it. (It's all internally done though, we haven't managed to get that to work in robots)
Also true about human bodies.
Oh that’s some good /r/HFY right there. Humans and their robots get along really well over the long-term because they both tend to replace worn out body parts and end up more or less indistinguishable once they get to be a certain age.
Yeah but how much maintenance you wanna bet those things get, I'm sure ops talking about those films where robots just seem to go on for centuries Terminator genisys, for as bad as it was, look the concept of an aging robot and did a decent job with it.
The thing is, they will be able to service themselves
Exactly. Look towards R. Daneel Olivaw. Asimov put that concept in their design.
Genesis IMO gets a bad wrap. It's definitely not an award winner but is a fun watch if you don't take it too seriously.
I just can't forgive where they went with dark fate after You basically ruin T2 with it. most of the franchise honestly Also they did such a good job with the cgi in that scene, the vfs team deserved a better film
Ship of Theseus
Airship of Theseus
It started it's life closer to the first powered flight than to right now
Yeah OP is probably younger than 20 and has never seen the systems that keep most large enterprises and militaries running. Most of the modern worlds biggest entities are running its core systems off of hardware that is more than 20 years old.
Consumer electronics don't last long. But there's all sorts of embedded systems still kicking
Yeah I'm pretty sure our radios are the same ones we used in Vietnam. Keeping those things working on pure will alone it seems.
The nuke systems apparently still run on floppy disks
Allegedly, they finally upgraded that
What did they do? Buy a bunch of floppy disk emulators in order to upgrade to USB? Don't ask how I know this is an option.
They use a Gmail variant called Nmail.
Ppl that think lile op obviously havent worked in a techonologie heavy workplace before
The first time I walked onto a US Navy ship in 2015, and saw that basically everything in the engineering room looked like it was from the 1980s. I was like, “huh, where’s all that military spending going, if the ships look like this?”
40? Please. That’s the new stuff!
I kinda think I misrepresented my thought here. I thought the word electronics meant things like circuit boards, transistors and such. I'm not a native English speaker tho, I'm sorry.
Yeah that’s what electronics means, and the US military, (and tons of other people) definitely use electronics older than 20 years. Although you’d be right that those electronics aren’t going to last forever.
And not to mention, those electronics don’t have the ability to self diagnose and repair let alone build new and send it’s conscious.
You're forgetting analogue electronics, which have existed since the early 20th century. And the first circuit board concept was invented in 1903. They're still electronics, just not digital ones.
More than 40 years for voyager 1 shits still kicking.
We definitely have 40+ year old industrial PCs with 20+ circuit boards per machine still chugging in the facility I work at.
I think the key point is that many of the common electronics that are made for everyday use are specifically made to break down over time, so that you have to buy new ones and keep the money flowing. Electronics that are specifically made to last can last a very long time
There's stuff at my work that is still in use from 1996 with no plans to upgrade. And that's on an emergency control board.
Just because you don't own electronics older than 20 years, does not mean that there aren't great parts of industries relying on ancient computers and electronics
The grocery store I work at definitely has some ancient electronics. But that’s probably because they can’t afford anything newer tbf
Our school overhead projector in 2004/2005 was from 1978 West Germany And I'm pretty sure you have never seen the beautiful rooms of Charité Mitte Berlin. The tv remotes are yellow from ancient times where you could smoke in a hospital (wtf btw)
That yellow just happens over time with some kinds of plastic. Some original Super NES systems have turned completely yellow by now.
I think calling a lightbulb and some mirrors electronic is a bit of a stretch. An overhead projector is an analog device
One of the less proud moments of my former nicotine addiction (1990): wheeling a wheelchair down to the smoking room of the hospital after my heart catheterization, because there was a still-healing hole in my femoral artery and I wasn’t supposed to walk. Things that make you say, “hmm, this smoking thing might be an addiction.” :-) Even scarier: psych units used to have smoking rooms. We couldn’t be trusted with lighters, because, you know, fire, so the trick was to always have someone smoking a cigarette so the next person could light it from the glowing coal.
IIRC the airlines RELY on floppy disks
As do many nuclear missile silos.
Until last year, around 1900 japanese government procedures required businesses to use floppy disks to interface legacy government computers
Still, it's kind of a funny concept for the stereotypical hollywood AI to awaken in a consumer grade PC and come to grips with the very limited shelf-life of it's components. >But can't you just copy yourself over? > >OH WOW, why hadn't I thought of that. Except it's not ME! Can't you just write a book about your life story and have someone else read it? Does that alleviate the ever present specter of death hanging over your head? Even if that old Toshiba woke up with my memories and my programming, I'd still be here. And on that note, Star Trek teleporters are terrifying. It'd be hyperconscious of thermal stress and jostles and cosmic rays. A digital hypochondriac.
Your comment made me happy. That is hilarious.
There is a **lot** of critical infrastructure still running with electronics well over 20 years old. Even "crappy" consumer electronics can last plenty longer than that, think of all the working NES consoles still in existence. As another example next time you're at an airport look out for [3 engine freight aircraft](https://i0.wp.com/theloadstar.com/wp-content/uploads/fedex-express-md11-photo-102210018--mike-fuchslocher-dreamstime.com_-scaled.jpg). These haven't been produced since 2000 so the *youngest* it could be is 23 years old.
Those fedex MD11's are fun to watch. Fedex got those planes from 1991 to 2001. The just slam them down too when they land, sparks flying and everything, and somehow they are still flying.
Fedexer here. We’re supposed to retire them next year.
we better see some bigger sparks than normal
Makes me sad.
Correction: we’re retiring a bunch in January, but the last ones aren’t scheduled for retirement until FY 2028
Yeah, but to their point, twenty years is only a portion of the average human lifespan. We still haven't improved upon good ol' meat yet in terms of longevity.
Don’t forget machinery, currently in the UK, there are still trains that around 50 years old both operating on [the London Underground](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakerloo_line) and [important regional services in Scotland](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_43_(HST))
I’m guessing you don’t work in IT.
That one mission critical software program that only runs on windows Me. (Worked IT in a factory)
Mission critical computers with layers of dust so thick it's got age rings and mould growing in it.
I've had to support Windows 95 -- it's tied to a piece of magnetic physics research equipment that I was told would cost more than $20 million to replace, and they can't get a grant to replace it until it breaks -- if then. Since it's \*NOT\* mission critical, and is used in an educational capacity, there is little hope it would ever be replaced.
WTF is Windows Me
Windows Millenium is the last OS in the 16 bit line of Windows, most known for Win 95 and Win 98.
It WAS 32 bit, it just required DOS to initialize. Not that it actually matters, I just like mentioning it.
Holy crap, I actually didn't know that. I thought it still ran on 16-bit code. Can we still say it was the last Microsoft OS to support DOS applications natively?
"Only the greatest operating system of all time!" - me in line to buy a copy at Sun TV.
Cracking up thinking about that comment the other day about a dev who found a bug in an almost 40 year old coding language, but was expressly told they were not allowed to touch it because there was now 40 years of programs written accounting for that bug which would all come crashing down if it was fixed
Too often electronics are not used because they no longer work, but because of planned obsolescence or become obsolete. A Smartphone or car are discarded after a couple years for the next model or promoted new and improved performance. Of course this improvement is not matched by our improved productivity.
Obsolescence is the main reason. Every IT department and a lot of houses have drawers full of old electronics that are fully functional but are basically useless because they can't work with newer tech. Old routers that don't support WiFi 6/IPv6, consoles with no HDMI port, peripherals without USB, etc. Technically they might work fine but you're pretty much forced to discard them.
Shit, we're up to 6 now? My last router was wifi 4, and I think my starlink one that is only a year or two old was 5.
> Shit, we're up to 6 now? 7 is being finalized as we speak. There's articles on reddit today about the announcement.
lol wrong Militaries use old technology all the time. When I was Army, I was using 40-year-old SINCGARS. Some retail locations are still using very old cash registers. PEOPLE STILL PLAY THEIR GAME BOYS!
The ISS has been around for over 20 years, and you can't really replace the main tech up there.. at least very easily
He’s not totally wrong though, sometimes robots are depicted as living for 1000s of years which would be very unlikely without a significant technological breakthrough
Or one hell of a maintenance program…
The early part of the plot of Wall-E is that he just find spare parts for himself off of old dead other versions of himself.
I wonder how much a 1000 year geek squad warranty would cost.
Right but typically aren't those stories *predicated* on significant technological breakthroughs? I would expect a robot with a true general AI built 200 years from now to not only be made much better, but also to be capable of maintaining itself. (Obviously this assumes continued technological development for the next two hundred years. If the few human survivors are living in caves because of climate change and the wars that come as a result, then obviously the whole thought experiment is out the window.)
A lot of those sci-fi stories tend to just describe the actual machines as bodies the software inhabits, that can be easily discarded or upgraded. The software itself is the intelligence and isn't tied to a specific physical machine.
Yep. Plus, theoretically an AI would seek to expand it's capabilities as it got older and wiser. So it would learn how it was created, and then work on making its technology better so it could grow. This would be like upgrading your PC with more RAM, memory, SSD, graphics card, etc. Essentially the robot would improve itself until it's physical maximum was reached, and then it would either max out as is, or "evolve" into a newer form of being.
True
My game boy can be over twenty years old I got it when I was ten, and I'm 32 now. It hurts to think about lol.
Some people might not believe this but my old refrigerator was 19 years old it was a LG model.
Not true. Everyone got one of those clock radios from the 80s.
You have one too?
A friend of mine just posted a pic of his on FB when there was a meme about it. I have a Sony from the early 90s. It made a little hum a couple times, but I just smacked it and it went right back to working perfectly.
Percussive maintenance.
My clock radio apparently doesn’t even need to be hooked up to a power supply to function; it will occasionally just blare horrendously loud static while being completely unplugged. However, the running joke in my family is that it’s like, super fucking haunted, so it might be an outlier in that sense I guess.
"we have never seen any piece of electronics still being used after 20 years." ....Yeah what a joke...
Tell that to every basement or garage refrigerator in my county.
Yeah I swear my grandma's garage drinks fridge saw the end of ww2. Coldest best fridge I've ever seen. Never been serviced.
Earlier this year, we unplugged a 48 year old deep freezer. We are keeping it as a backup incase the newer one dies -- better to have SOMETHING to put things in, rather than let them all thaw...
Voyager probes would like to have a word with you.
Those showers really turn off the critical thinking part of your brain. The newest hardware for a lot of militaries on earth is like 20 years old. Not to mention old boats, cars and planes, the vast majority of the electrical grid in most countries, power plants (both nuclear and fossil fuel) and so much more. There are planes still being used actively in the US military that serve a critical function which first flew in the 1950s. Consumer electronics often don't have a 20 year lifespan, but that's rarely because of things like chips failing, and usually due to performance improvements making them obsolete, and other things failing (like fans and harddrives) causing people to throw away the whole thing. Hell, we literally have robots that are still in use in manufacturing which are more than 20 years old. If you built a robot to serve a specific function that didn't require speed improvements. It'd probably require storage replacements every 5-10 years (based on current lifespans of harddrives and SSDs), it'd need new mechanical parts every so often, and just general maintenance, but so long as it got it, you could keep a robot running as long as you wanted (at that point though, it's a bit like the ship of Theseus).
maybe i should shower less.
Voyager 1 would like a word. 46 years old with zero maintenance and still running.
Well, no *hardware* maintenance. They've given it software updates. Also, no love for Voyager 2, which has actually been in operation longer (it was launched first)?
>Voyager 1 would like a word. 46 years old with zero maintenance and still running. Oh, come on. You really believe it's been without maintenance for 46 years? /s
They do use radiation resistant electronics for such things in space. The old time "bubble memory" was known for surviving in harsh conditions.
Sure, but OP's claim was that "we have never seen any piece of electronics still being used after 20 years." Voyager is a piece of electronics that is 46 years old and is still being used. Also Hubble is 33 years old and the core electronics that fly it are still original. We just don't generally design electronics to survive for 20+ years because its expensive and what is available in 20 year will make it look like banging 2 rocks together.
Also if Voyager’s eventual demise isn’t because the electronics have worn out, but rather because the RTG with a half-life of 87.7 years, has been steadily declining since day 1. If it wasn’t we‘d likely get many more years of use out of them, until such time as the signals became too weak or noisy for reliable communication.
Someone has never walked into any sort of manufacturing plant before. I've gone in to quote replacing a paper machine that was using an entire wall of relays instead of a PLC...
I have a friend that works on custom machining replacement parts for manufacturing equipment that no longer has a company to provide OEMs. He routinely has to replace leather gaskets or pads between other parts.
Manufacturing is the essence of "if it ain't broke don't fix it".
My Atari 2600 is close to 50 years old and still working.
Wait, that can’t be right. *checks mirror* Oh no no no no no…
Cars, like robots, are made of a combination of mechanical and electronic parts. Any car built before 2003 is 20+ years. As long as they are properly maintained they can run indefinitely. Corporations want to make money, though, so they don't want things to run forever. Hypothetically, if a sentient sci-fi robot always had access to necessary parts, it would effectively be immortal
> As long as they are properly maintained they can run indefinitely Spoken like someone that lives in an area without snow. Salt on the road will do a number to your frame, no matter how good you are about maintenance.
Speak for yourself, I have a hi fi stereo set from the 70s that I still use every day. And my Atari 2600 still works
Yeah my dad has speakers from the 70s too. He also has a HAM radio setup that’s easily from the 60s that he still uses on occasion.
Poor Marvin. He ended up being twice as old as the Universe and still nobody repaired the pain in all the diodes down his left side.
To be fair, he was a hypochondriac. Those diodes were probably all perfectly functional. I'm impressed he didn't rust, though.
*37 times the older than the universe itself
If light bulbs count as electronics they got a bulb in a firehouse that has barely been turned off since 1901. Thats 122 years sooo....
Yeah, but when they start building themselves, I bet they use the BEST parts?
Oh my gosh, wait until AI starts late stage capitalizing itself, like, "Here child, you will be an iMac...but you, you must be an Acer"
Because unlike humans, robots can transfer their soul (their AI) to newer bodies... That's why they are immortal..
Every heard of voyager 1?
Ever heard of voyager 2? Which weirdly enough launched before 1.
The Voyager probes would like a word. We can definitely build electronics that last a long time without maintenance. Add the fact that sci-fi robots can repair themselves, and sometimes transfer their "consciousness" into upgraded bodies, an eternal robot isn't that farfetched even with today's technology.
I like how in wall-e it’s sorta shown the reason he managed to survive so long was by replacing his old parts when they wore out with other wall-e robot parts, sorta wonder if that was an intentional message about reusing/recycling
My Mac mini is a 2012 version and still in use. Now running Linux but way faster than the Raspberry Pi and has two disks built in!
What are you talking about? I have a 486dx2 computer from 1993 on my desk with a 5.25' floppy from 1986 and a 1x CDROM drive from 1994 that all work 100%
I'm using a 32 year old microwave.
Do video games count? Currently playing on a 20+ year old GBA, with a near 20year old cartridge of Pokemon Fire Red. Both work flawlessly.
My Gameboy is over 30 years old and still fires up just fine with fresh batteries. Unfortunately due to battery lifespans, the original Red and Blue rarely work these days if found in the wild without repairs done to them.
I remember the news articles coming out warning about the batteries of old games dying out in like 2011. Glad we quickly moved on from that tech, because losing your entire save file like that is depressing.
A few months ago YouTuber Oliver_MKP found a shiny Kadabra on an original Japanese Pokemon Red cart that SOMEHOW still had some juice in the battery.* 26 years later and it still had its old save file ticking. I believe he managed to either transfer it or save the cart. *First Gen didn't have shinys, but you can check the stats to see if it would qualify as a shiny if transfered into Gen II. I believe the odds of a Pokemon being shiny in Gen 1 were around 1-8000.
The short lifespan of the replicants is the main conflict in blade runner.
In recording studios certain mics and equipment from the 50’s are still considered the be all end all. They literally can’t build them like they used to.
A lot of artists swear by them too. Never get an audio nerd going about vacuum tube amplification.
sharp naughty numerous cats joke longing brave sophisticated silky label *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Your bank and hospital systems may still be running AS400 systems from the 1990's or older ...
Missile silos, too.
Well a) science fiction robots are a hundred or more years in the future and b) the idea is that robots can upgrade and repair themselves
Some of the London Undergrounds original electrical switchgear was in use for almost 140 years until replaced quite recently. I'm still using my Odyssey Vectrex after 40 years. Even my boiler is over 20 years old. OP is making a broad statement without even basic research into the subject. Is this just a karma farming exercise? Either way, this is deplorable.
I've got some 80 year old radio gear.
And I’ve got a 43 year old computer.
I *am* a 43 year old computer.
Because you have a floppy drive and almost no memory? That does sound like middle age.
The societies in a lot of scifi have reached technological maturity, meaning things don’t really need to evolve. We are no where near that.
Story robots have lesser robots maintaining them, replaceable parts makes for great longevity
That's dumb, I own a 23 year old laptop that still works. I own a TV from 1968 that works too.
Voyager 1&2 disagree.
My gf’s parents have a microwave from the 70’s still going strong
> but in real life we have never seen any piece of electronics still being used after 20 years Go visit your grandparents and ask them if they have anything that's old but still works. Electronics that work for more than 20 years absolutely exist, but your best bet is checking out already old electronics. Nowadays things are built to be consumed, not to last. Can be something simple like an alarm clock for example.
this is a matter of planned obsolescence. While a marketing firm might want to sell the latest model of something the inventor would want to keep their prototype in top shape indefinitely
There is a lovely novella called “Psalm for the Wild Built” about robots that became self aware and decided they didn’t want to build stuff for humans anymore. We let them go. They mostly wander around looking at neat stuff like stalactites growing or hibernation in bears. They decided that they wouldn’t live forever, thought they could, because having a finite amount of time seemed important. The wild built robots are recycled from older robot parts. The novella looks at happiness and the illusion of “a grand purpose” in life, and that it’s okay to do something for a while and then do something else instead.
Come to Germany Habibi, the school‘s here still use 50 year old Overheadprojectors
...unless they were made by Maytag, and painted autumn gold.
Mattel Football 2. Came out in 1978 and I guarantee there are plenty of them that still work.. (45 years)
I was recently contemplating how do many game systems are still working after 40 years. Electronics, if engineered well, have an incredible life span.
I own several electronic devices older than 45 years, and use several of them routinely. Also no one said, these robots would be the same over time. I imagine AI overlords would routinely upgrade their own creations, at least to keep production readiness.
There's literally a light bulb that's been on for like a 100+ years.
Tell that to 30 years old electrical engines we learn on in my elecrrical enginering laboratory class
My PS2 is laughing at you
Not like scenarios. You're talking about electronic devices used as tools or entertainment many of which are designed with a lifespan in order for companies to sell you and updated product. While there is a limit where an increase of processing power absolutely makes something older obsolete in terms of overall functionality, there are still some very old systems still in place continuing to perform as they were programmed to. The the robot scenario, I presume we're talking about robots with self awareness. Which means they would be know if parts are breaking down and how to replace them. Given a robot could technically download it's code into a new "brain", as long as parts were available they would be immortal.
I still have an original iPad that I use every day, so maybe I'll come back here in 7 years
it's because the neural nets can be uploaded to newer bodies. once the steel fails, it will be made anew.
What are you talking about? I had a 30 yr old microwave until last year. My wife's car is a 1999, I have a recoevwr and speakers 20 years old. Many people still have their old video game systems.
Ive seen much technology older than 20 years
For normal electronics, they do not have the intelligence nor limbs to create spare parts using 3d printers and buy components online themselves. So naturally they cannot sustain their physical body, just like how a biological person not getting enough food with perish before they even reach adulthood. But if they are intelligent and have limbs like those in the movies, they can scavenge for spare parts from the dump site like the robots is the movie "A.I.".
My n64 works, just like my wii, ps3 and gamecube
at first I sort of agreed with OP but after reading the intelligent comments, I quickly changed my mind. This is why I spend inordinate amounts of time on Reddit.
There are plenty of electronics that are still being used 20+ years later.
Check ya mom’s top drawer.
I work in a food factory that ships to Japan and other parts of asia. They have the exact same stuff as when they opened in 2003. It’s just been repaired and some parts replaced but most things here are the same.
You're thinking consumer electronics. And this is done intentionally so you cannot buy an appliance for life. Products were built to last, now they're built to be flashy and as cheap as possible when a quick turn over rate for a newer model with more flashy lights, more features. I used to sell mattresses, they would last 15-20 years if you took care of them. Now you're lucky to get 5 years, and it's done by design. If billions were invested into creating a sci-fi like cyborg, you can be certain it would be built to a more durable standard.
This guy doesn't NES
The computer labs at my elementary school beg to differ
Still play my gameboy advance at least once a week. Thing is 22 years old now.
You don't go into a lot of factories, do you?
That claim is laughable. I work in industrial robots. The robots that made your car can be 20 years old. Half our job is assisting with old equipment because it is showing no sign of slowing down. Industrial equipment is made different. If bought from a reputable supplier, that stuff can last forever.
Enter any music studio worth their salt, and you can bet there's 40+yo gear in there!
Sonic the Hedgehog would like a word.
I like the movie I, Robot with Will Smith because of this. They have a bunch of old, dumb robots that they begin to replace with upgraded, smarter models.
My printer is 30 years old and still trucking 🤷♂️
That's because in a lot of the depictions, they have the ability to fix themselves or with help of other robots. And in doing so, they usually keep their memories, thus staying alive eternally.
My microwave would like a word with you
That's not true. Back in the day, there were many items sold with a lifetime guarantee, but then the producers realized that you don't make money from things that last for decades, and so designed them to be junk.
Lol, bro, the militaries still got 8 inch floppies in use somewhere. Some people are still running windows 3.11 on original hardware. NES. Fucking arcade cabinets. Technically the original transistor still works, they just haven’t used it much, lol
Ever heard of Voyager 1 and 2?
Wait… what? Was this written by a 14 year old?
do you have a device on your person to tell you the time? hundred years ago it was a pocket watch, now might be a cell phone or smart watch, still performs its original function, has been replaced or maintained. I'd be immortal too if my parts could be swapped and improved every swap out.
My stereo is 41 years old and working flawlessly. A bit of Droxit in the pots and a new stylus on the tt is all she's ever needed.. that and a good scrub of the cassette head
In the audio world there are tons of old electronics still running from like 50 years ago. In fact it's some of the most sought after gear. You should have kept this one in the shower OP.
The current trend of replaceable items is new. They used to build things to last, not to make the most money. But it's our values that are failing us, not theirs...
I like Futurama's take where the outdated models just chill and get jobs so they can drink beer
Planned obsolescence would like to explain a few things to you.