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Sunday, September 27, 2026Est. 2026. Most of what's in here is older.

Don't fix it if it ain't broke

Still Running / Electronics

No. 0111Electronics

c. 1986

HP-41CX calculator

Hewlett-Packard

Running about 40 years

Bought for engineering school, mostly adds these days

An HP-41CX calculator made in 1986. Not the one in the story. — An HP-41CX calculator made in 1986. Not the one in the story. Photo: Seth Morabito from Santa Clara, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. The real one is in the original post.

An engineer bought this HP-41CX at the start of engineering school, and 35 years later it gets used every day. Mostly for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. For about 30 years it wore a custom keyboard overlay. Then the battery died and the user key assignments went with it. Most of those functions weren't needed anymore, so the overlay came off instead of being reprogrammed.

Its owner once saw a 41 in brain surgery, running a custom program that turned MRI coordinates into settings for a surgical tool.

Retold from a post on r/BuyItForLife. Read the original

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Saved up for the digital one. Dust stays on. A General Electric 7-4550 AM/FM clock radio in a woodgrain case, an older GE model with a dial tuner. Not the 4870, and not the one in the story.

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No. 0080Electronics

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No. 0110Electronics

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An HP-12C financial calculator made in 1988. Not the one in the story.

Running 38 years

No. 0022Electronics

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A Roomba Discovery back on its charging dock, photographed in 2006. Not the one in the story.

Running 20 years