Data retention - lifetime prediction of modern calculators

[Thomas Okken]

I think the last time I got rid of a piece of electronics because it was starting to fail was in 1984, when I gave away my 1969 Blaupunkt color TV.

Oh, wait, and CD players. My first CD player was a Philips CD-100, which lasted 13 years before it started to go flaky and I gave it away to a Philips fan. None of the CD players I've owned since them have lasted anywhere near as long, except for the ones in my cars. Fortunately the issue is moot nowadays because I don't play CDs any more; after buying them, I rip them, and then listen to them on my phone...

When it comes to calculators and computers, I haven't had anything break on me except three Commodore 64s. (Love the 64, but the hardware was fragile and could be killed really easily by static discharge, and living in a house with wall-to-wall carpeting and central heating, static buildup is a fact of life.) Everything else lasted until I replaced it with something nicer, I think the record is shared by a PC (DIY model) and two laptops (Fujitsu and Lenovo), each of which I used for over a decade until deciding I needed something faster.