I'm involved with several preservation organisations and frequently take a big spanner (or other heavy implement) to some ancient piece of kit to keep it going (surprisingly easily: you'd think the original designers must have known people would need to maintain the things! ?). Latest piece of kit on the bench was a GWR signal machine from pre-1948 (using a manual from 1928!) in constant use with minimal maintenance for the past 30 years. Strip down, clean up, paint, back together and good for another 30 years!


Roger Bryant, regarding the tape machine I am currently converting a load of cassettes to MP3 using a couple of Radio Shack tape decks from 1983, still going strong, and the Sony hifi system I got back in 1978 sounds as good today as it did then, just need to sort out the crackle on the volume pots.

I'm involved with several preservation organisations and frequently take a big spanner (or other heavy implement) to some ancient piece of kit to keep it going (surprisingly easily: you'd think the original designers must have known people would need to maintain the things! ?). Latest piece of kit on the bench was a GWR signal machine from pre-1948 (using a manual from 1928!) in constant use with minimal maintenance for the past 30 years. Strip down, clean up, paint, back together and good for another 30 years!


Roger Bryant, regarding the tape machine I am currently converting a load of cassettes to MP3 using a couple of Radio Shack tape decks from 1983, still going strong, and the Sony hifi system I got back in 1978 sounds as good today as it did then, just need to sort out the crackle on the volume pots.