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I still have functional cassette and 8-track recorder/player devices. 4 track "quad" 8 track players. My sister discarded the reel to reel decks before I could retrieve them...and my father's entire music collection on the reel to reel.

I do have VHS players around and a collection of movies. Most of those old movies have replacements on DVD today, so there has been no urgent need to hookup the VHS decks.

Some of the oldest technology that remained in my dad's equipment was a 1950s Fisher FM tuner. Mono only, but it had a discriminator output. My dad purchased an FM stereo decoder (all tubes in 1961) to decode the new FM stereo broadcasts. He purchased a Sherwood audio amp (all tubes) to drive the stereo speakers. Pretty fancy for 1961. The FM radio tuner/stereo decoder fits on a 2" x 2" PC board today.

When I was 5 and my dad was deployed on a ship, we would receive a little 3 inch reel to reel tape that dad created on the ship. I would thread it into the reel to reel deck and we would listen to dad's latest message. 1961 tech. It served us well through the years of extended ship deployments.