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Vintage electromechanical stopwatch used in radio/television etc. Its speed was controlled by a mains frequency so it corresponded to the tape recorders speeds that were controlled in the same way. (Note that in times when our power system was connected to the Soviet one, the frequency used to differ up to 0.5 Hz from 50 Hz, usually down.) Made in Czechoslovakia (1960s?). Fully functional.

Vintage digital stopwatch from GDR (East-Germany), 1980s. Fully functional.

Old boxy Genius mouse, probably from early 1990s? Functional (original 15pin COM was re-soldered to 9pin RS232), but hard to find drivers for anything newer than Windows 95/98.

Network adapter from Novell 1990. It's really huge - including all the electronic components.

Mercury thermometers have always been my interest (unfortunately not manufactured anymore). Both of them are probably from 1980s. I also used to have a really old one, with a wooden dual Celsius/Reamur scale.
Note that mercury has got its melting point at -38.83 deg. C so the scale below that point is completely useless.

Cool stuff! I especially like that digital stopwatch. Over here a company called Harper Time & Electronics made a few digital stopwatches in the 1970s, called Accusplit. Some models had LED displays, while other particularly large models had Panaplex displays and used four C batteries. I'd like to find one someday.

Regarding the mouse, serial mice should be supported through at least Windows XP, I thought?

Thanks.

@Regarding the mouse, serial mice should be supported through at least Windows XP, I thought?
Yeah, but the driver architecture in NT-based Windows (that's W2000 and above) is different to that in W95/98 and nobody bothered to write a new driver for a mouse like this. In fact, it's much easier to make it work in Linux though the resolution of this mouse is simply funny (not for a serious work).

You don't need a specific driver for that mouse for it to work. The generic serial mouse driver built into Windows will work just fine. Just plug the mouse in, turn the computer on, and Windows will automatically install it and begin using it, just like a PS/2 or USB mouse. Unless Genius mice don't use the standard serial mouse protocol?

I just did some reading, and even Windows 8 still supports serial mice.

There were actually (at least) two protocols for the serial mice (one "Microsoft" for 2 button, second for 3-button). They were completely different (mainly the data content and even with the number of bytes transferred), but it was rather common for the W95/98 era mouse drivers to automatically detect the connected type.
I don't think these drivers were removed from the Windows.
But the problem may be with the serial ports: I'm not sure they could run on a VCP (over an USB,...), as that would require to load the driver for the USB/serial converter IC first. And I'm not sure whether the OS design count with such long "chain" (Mouse -> USB/Serial converter -> USB -> Converter chip driver -> VCP -> Mouse driver -> Win GUI), if it just does not look for the mouse on the 0x278 and 0x3F8 COM2 and COM1 adresses and thats it...

Here is my vintage EPSON Photo PC 600 digital camera from 1997 and a lighting-related picture it just made.
Also a DPREVIEW review about this camera.

It was my first digital camera and I've got lots of images taken by it. Downloading pictures to a computer was a real PITA as it has just an RS 232 (COM) connection. It took literally hours to download a 16 MB (sic!) card onto a computer and the connection was usually lost several times. This problem was solved when I got a compact flash card reader.
Displaying pictures in the view mode is also painfully slow - each recorded shot paints down on a display for tens of seconds.

The images taken (in the best quality *** mode) could be compared to today's cheaper phones but they're completely different as the edges have no interpolation - it's a true "staircase". There's no upscaling algorithm that would yield decent results on these images.

However, Sony Mavica was even more interesting camera as it recorded images onto a 3.5" floppy disk.

I have a vintage oscilloscope from the 50s. Unfortunately, cheap Chinese tubes arced and shorted the transformer out.  :roll:

I have a vintage oscilloscope from the 50s. Unfortunately, cheap Chinese tubes arced and shorted the transformer out.  :roll:

But normally that should lead just to blown out fuse and nothing else, so new tubes with new fuses and it should work again (well, after the necessary adjustments)...

I'm into other vintage items as well: radios, etc.  I like those mercury thermometers though!

I have a neat old turntable from the 70s possibly I bought for a buck at a charity sale. It came with two Elvis 8 tracks too!

I'm always hoping to find a vintage analog tuner/amplifier at a thrift store or yardsale.

I also have my 60s ITT and ken rad mercs, from eBay.

I also have a 1970s GE flip-number clock-radio, albeit in storage.