I want one. Is the water reservoir to the left? Also, to be fair, coffee makers are so simple that if one ever fails, we need to burn the manufacturer to the ground.

Yup, the reservoir is to the left and holds about 10 cups

My mom used the same Bunn coffee maker for 30 years. I bought one when I got my first job and it failed in 6 months.

That belongs in an 80s movie spaceship.

That’s crazy. Here’s a great video that gave me the urge to comment that they shouldn’t fail.

How did it fail? Did the heat element stop, or was it a leak?

I had a Mr Coffee coffee maker and another separately expresso maker that both broke at nearly the same time after about six years.

Has it ever been… descaled?

Wowww, brings back memories.
I forgot my Mom used to have one of these things and I always loved to fill the water as a kid because that reservoir was so cool to load and unload.

More like Spacetaker.. pretty cool though!

Read my mind

I knew what it was gonna be before I clicked it. Love his videos

It looks like it’s mounted under the cabinet so it’s taking space that would otherwise be empty…pic makes it difficult to see

This thing is a vibe.

Yup, it was a whole "space maker" series of different appliances that all mounted on the wall underneath a cabinet. Really cool stuff.

It was a leak.

Oh wow.

I forgot about those.

I remember when they first came out. I thought they looked SO futuristic

Yup, plenty of times, she’s good about keeping it clean. My cousin owns a coffee shop and has tried to replace it countless times and she refuses

The #1 reason coffee makers used to fail was user negligence.

Now, it's planned obsolescence.

My grandparents had one. The steam produced when brewing destroyed the wooden cabinet it was mounted to.

I miss ours. It only recently died, when the bottom rusted out because of a slow leak. Now, getting one of these vintage coffeemakers off eBay costs like US$100, the last time I checked.

Omg I have that in my rv. It makes fine coffee !!!

You answered my question! Never seen a coffeemaker that doesn’t emit steam. It’s not possible at those temps, especially with rapid heating. Collecting steam under a cabinet in a tight space seems like terrible design.

I love how years back designers were experimenting with amazing contraptions like this. Now they all look the same.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

oh that's an awesome piece of the 80s right there. I love it.

i bought a newer mr. coffee and all of the sudden something inside gave way and let all the water out of the reservoir. I figured it was a crack. So these assholes used a special headed screw so you can't get it off without whatever proprietary piece of crap they have. I broke the damn thing open Only to find the god damn hose came un clipped and fell off. I put the hose back on, tightened the clamp a little and it's been fine ever since.

I almost bought another one. Not that day you greedy coffee making bastards, not that day!

Unfortunately all makers now produce stuff that is low end and carries the companies name and reputation (even when it shouldn’t lol).

There is much blame to go around. Companies for being so cheap and consumers who give business to cheap Chinese brands thus forcing reputable brands to compete with them.

Planned obsolescence isn't a thing.

They aren't built as well because consumers want a $20 coffeemaker and that cost reduction has to come from somewhere.

This coffeemaker was $55 in 1985. That is $150 in today's money.

Spend $150 on a good quality drip coffeemaker and you should have one that lasts as long.

I’m on the fence about planned obsolescence after working as an engineer. I know believe it’s just companies being cheap mother fuckers and cost cutting wherever they can get away with it.

This coffee maker is like 1/3 the size of the one in my apartment complex and probably makes much better coffee.

>Planned obsolescence isn't a thing

Narrator: It is.

Planned obsolescence is indeed a thing.

I don't drink coffee but paid around $150 for one of those K-cup coffee makers for my brother just a few years ago.

Several months ago, the topic came up, and I asked how his coffee maker was doing, and he said that he is now on his now on his 3rd one, and that they simply stop heating coffee after a couple of years use.

The same is true for cell phones, televisions, and just about everything we purchase these days.

They are all built in a manner that their parts break down under normal use.

My 1980s GE clock radio and Spacemaker electric can opener are still going strong. The clock radio has no sign of wear or failure to the LCD numerals.

They don't make 'em like they used to. Probably because GE's small appliances were not made overseas then.

"In a period running approximately from the 1920s to the 1980s, GE small appliances were manufactured in Bridgeport, according to company officials. In 2016, Haier acquired GE Appliances for $5.4 billion from GE." Sep 27, 2021

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/business/article/GE-Appliances-returns-to-CT-plans-to-open-16491416.php

It isn't. I'm an engineer that works on consumer electronics. I'm frequently in meetings that decide the cost of these things.

Most consumers want cheap junk more than they want durability.

I've never been in any meeting where anyone was told to make things fail faster in some misguided attempt to sell more. We are given a cost target because we know many units will sell at each price cutoff and the overwhelming scale is at the lower end.

I also know dozens of engineers across multiple market segments. None has ever been told to make things fail faster.

The whole idea of planned obsolescence doesn't even make sense: when I buy something that breaks immediately or is shoddily made, I don't go out and buy the same thing again.

The whole idea only works if you have a monopoly on the market and literally can't buy anything else. But obviously that's not true since you can find quality versions of whatever you want. It just costs more. Most consumers don't want to spend more. They want to spend less.

You can literally have the long lasting version right next to cheap junk and even tell them that the longer lasting one will last decades, and consumers will still buy the junk one. I know because I've literally done this at the store. Still haven't had a single person I've talked to go for the long lasting one.

>Planned obsolescence is indeed a thing. > >I don't drink coffee but paid around $150 for one of those K-cup coffee makers for my brother just a few years ago.

This coffeemaker isn't a k-cup, so the $150 isn't comparable there.

Here's a drip coffeemaker that's about $150 that should last decades.

>Several months ago, the topic came up, and I asked how his coffee maker was doing, and he said that he is now on his now on his 3rd one, and that they simply stop heating coffee after a couple of years use.

Again, not quite comparable.

Also I said you have to buy a quality maker. There is also overpriced junk out there. Spending more on something doesn't necessarily mean you will always get the best thing, but spending less will always mean you aren't getting quality.

>The same is true for cell phones, televisions, and just about everything we purchase these days.

Consumers don't want durable versions of these. The models that are built to last 5-10 years aren't even in the top 10 selling phones. I doubt they are even in the top 50.

>They are all built in a manner that their parts break down under normal use.

They are built to be cheap. That involves cutting costs. Cutting costs necessarily means quality and durability suffer.

It is impossible to drastically reduce costs and end up with the same durability.

That's part of planned obsolescence. Use substandard materials now, save money in the short term AND make more money in return purchases down the line.

I recently ordered some small marker lights for a friend's boat. The lights are led with the wiring coming out of a sealed plastic threaded post in the center.

The wiring is SO small and brittle that if it survives the installation process, it will definitely break down under regular electrical load, not to mention exposure to the elements.

"We call it Mr. Coffee"

Hey! I have one of those!! Yours is fancier than mine though, mine isn't digital

Love the font!

Just to defend the idea that it is a real thing, it has been a tactic used purposefully by cartels. Now, do most companies do this to this day? Maybe not. I think you are not wrong. But I do think that Apple soldering the ram memory in their computers so that you are unable to upgrade it and extend the life of your MacBook is planned obsolescence. Also, companies that restrict your ability to repair a product is planned obsolescence. So, it is a thing and is alive. It just may not always be the reason that a product is made cheaper or for some reason fails sooner than you’d like.

Rick Deckard makes his coffee with one of these.

Now that’s just inexcusable. The CPVC plumbing in my 30 year old home is so brittle that I can almost break it by hand, but it doesn’t leak everywhere as long as I don’t go touching it. Even cheap-ass plumbing in a coffee maker should just hold. You’re probably not moving the coffee maker all that much.

My mom had a spacemaker coffee maker similar to this one, circa 1995, plus a spacemaker can opener and a spacemaker tape player/radio, which was then replaced by a spacemaker radio/CD/aux in player.

Obsessed.

This is really cool

Cheaper to solder them in, also helps with thinness. Buy a Framework laptop, possibly. But people that buy Mac seem to want brand cachet mostly. Longevity is just one product factor, and it's pretty low on many people's checklists, and they won't pay for it on purpose.

Cheaper than pushing it in?

I bet my dad still has his. He bought it at Service Merchandise. Loved that place.

Cheaper than soldering in SO-DIMM or whatever slots and placing the memory in, and designing the board to take the stress of pushing it in. Soldering them in is easier to automate, I'd think, just slap slap slap slap slap plop.

Word. Or in someone's apartment back home. Like when we see Ripley's stuff, everything all plastic and neutral.

A few things:

• The "lightbulb" cartel was to ensure uniformity over consumer bulbs. 1000 hours was chosen as the best compromise between lifetime and brightness. There were still 10k bulbs made and sold by members of the "cartel". You could still buy long-lasting stuff. Also and as an aside, it's always funny to me that the only proof anyone can offer of planned obsolescence is an industry cartel that hasn't existed since before WW2. Literally nothing else.

• Apple solders the ram directly to the board because it's cheaper. Connectors are expensive. We do the same at my company. It probably saves several dollars per connector. And well, Apple customers just don't enough about it to buy something else that's upgradeable. I know that's not the satisfying answer but that's certainly it: consumers don't care enough to buy upgradeable models from elsewhere.

• As also mentioned elsewhere, I doubt they can get the same thinness with the RAM slots put in. Thinness seems to be what their consumers want, so they are naturally going to focus on that.

>Also, companies that restrict your ability to repair a product is planned obsolescence.

The idea behind that isn't to make it fail faster or sell more. The purpose behind it is because counterfeiting is a huge problem, especially for Apple. There's literally an entire shadow industry that buys broken iphones, puts generic parts in them to make them work again, then resell them, and then when those break because they aren't repaired properly, the people who bought them take them to Apple for repair, which costs them money.

This isn't just for computers: tractors, industrial equipment, aircraft parts, etc are very easy to forge and have some factory somewhere in China make a substandard version for it for less than half the cost. Fake aircraft parts were implicated in some plane crashes in the 90s until regulators clamped down on it.

I'm sure there's a revenue component to the service subscription aspect as well, but again, people aren't willing to buy other stuff over it, so clearly it's not important enough to buyers to go elsewhere.

Again, not a satisfying answer, but that's a large component of it.

This happens a lot with previously respected brands. By making high-quality products for a long time, they acquire a reputation for durability. Then the founder retires or sells the brand, and it's taken over by wolves. They start making things that look the same but use much lower-quality (read: cost) components. They make a lot of money off of people's habits, as the people who were loyal to the brand tend to take a long time to change their views and buying habits.

Does it also make julienne fries and come with the famous dead sea tupperware?

I would say so, yes. I mean I hate MacBooks personally and the way they no longer support most pc standards, but I have no problems coming up with justifications for their choices beyond ”planned obsolence”.

For instance if the memory is all soldered on there is a lot less to test for, i.e. the device only has a small set of memory sizes and maintaining quality and consistency with those is easier. You also no longer have to provide support for your customers shoving shoddy memory into the device and contacting support when it doesn’t work properly.

Listen to this person, because this is exactly right.

Consumers *say* they want long-lasting and durable, but as soon as it's time to open their wallet, they want more features/gimmicks for the price or better aesthetics, or lower price, etc.

There's decades of sales/marketing data that shows this.

This is all consumer-driven. There are high quality versions of everything, and they are consistently low sales, because that market is only like 1% of the population.

OMG!! I grew up with this coffee maker. It was still going strong when I sold my Mom’s house in 2005!

[deleted]

What is that?

Well now I want one!

You run vinegar through it, keeps the mineral buildup from your water from becoming a problem in the coffeemaker

I always have coffee when I watch radar, you know that!

My dad had one of these in the very first house I lived in as a child, but since it was attached we didn't take it with us when we moved. A couple of years later I was at a vacation rental that had one and I was was delighted.

Ah. I see.

Analog clock space saver gang assemble!💪

I think I had one like that

Sure. And every decision is made with multiple factors for and against it. Just having one reason to do something doesn’t mean that another reason couldn’t still be seen as a positive by a company. Again, there is hard proof that it’s been done before, and I don’t think that companies focus on this as a business strategy. But, I think it does exist.

Seriously, people see anything engineered to meet a price point and complain about planned obsolescence. This is just basic cost engineering. People aren't willing to pay for bulletproof.

They are awesome.

It's a side effect of using hard water, so if you live in an area that has soft water it's never something you probably had to deal with.

Hard water means that you have a lot of calcium and magnesium dissolved in the water. Boiling water leads to evaporation which leads to these minerals being deposited and forming a scale that impedes water flow and can cause damage to heal.

Really not a difficult problem to deal with as long as you remember to keep up with it, you can pretty easily clean it with white vinegar because that redissolves the calcium and magnesium scale.

Any water, really. If it's not distilled.

I boil all my water first then only use the captured steam after it's condensed back down in my coffee. Imagine using tap water

I can feel his anguish, but I can also resonate with your Aunt's sense of nostalgia and "If it ain't broke don't fix it!" attitude

And I thought my pour-over method was high maintenance…

A flight attendant told me the other day that one of the most frequent reasons the maintenance guys come inside the plane in between flights is to fix the coffee machine because it's so common for them to break.

Right? They invented Britas and ZeroWaters for a reason ... plus the cold water has more oxygen in it for better taste.

That’s badass.

Omg. I had this exact same model growing up

Holy shit I haven't seen that coffee maker in ages!

Lol I guess I stand corrected.

We had one for years during my childhood. It did the same thing to the cabinet door right above it.

Great song

It’s the minerals in mineral water

Oooo memory unlocked! My parents had one

Yummy micro plastics!!

I love these under the cabinet designs. They have a real, cramped quarters cyberpunk kinda feel to them and this model has a bit of a retro futurism vibe to do. It'd be right at home in Korben Dallas' apartment.

For just a moment I entertained the idea that you actually did this.

Preferably citric acid. It descales much better than vinegar, and you don’t have to worry about any lingering vinegar smell.

My parents had this, we used it up until recently when the glass carafe broke (cracked). Lasted 30+ years, was not an everyday use thing as my parents were not big coffee drinkers, but anytime there was company over, it was used.

People do actually do this but it's a lot more complicated because you don't need just distilled water, you then have to add the right minerals back in.

I’ve had the same mr coffee since 2008 and it was old then. Works great. Meanwhile the keurig at work isn’t working well and already got replaced after a few years.

So what's a good example of companies not doing so, say for laptops.

8 cups wouldn’t cut it in my house. Every time we see a 14 cup we grab it because they’re rare.

https://www.netbooknews.com/reviews/best-upgradeable-laptop/ may be accurate. At least some ThinkPads are upgradadable, unsure if all.

Swedish egg coffee and get rid of all the fancy machines.

Well, all it really took was replacing internal metal components with cheap plastic or rubber ones that get destroyed by heat after a time. Not so much planned obsolescence as “it’s cheaper now, we don’t care.”

We had one of these growing up. It took a shit in the early 90s.

My grandparents had one on their boat that they lived aboard. Plus, my grandpa retired from G.E. in the 90s. I love seeing this stuff.

I love this so much! I want one very badly haha

Those only let the water sit til chlorine evaporates

Right next to Mr. Radar.

Coolest looking coffee machine I've ever seen

The tan, beige and green screen future we were promised.

"YES! I always have coffee when I watch radar, you know that!"

What's the matter with this thing? What's with all that churning and bubbling? You call that a Radar Screen?

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r/retrofuturism

Lactic acid works too.

Boss has some for larger Keurieg units when we have to clean them. Safer and not as strong as what we use in shop when we rebuild anything.

And distilled can eat away at the internals too, instead of leaving buildups. Water naturally want some minerals, and distilled has very low or none

>You can literally have the long lasting version right next to cheap junk and even tell them that the longer lasting one will last decades, and consumers will still buy the junk one.

People don't really trust corporations. I sure don't. Even though I get it from an engineering perspective. Yet I'm still dubious when I see a $150 version of a product sitting next to a $35 one. Instinct tells me the more expensive one is a cash grab - because that's what companies do today. They pad their margins.

I have no trust that the more expensive one will really last a decade. And it it doesn't how do I know that I won't be put into phone menu hell when I try to exercise my warranty? "HUMAN!" "HUMAN!".

It's been made easier to throw stuff away, IMO.

Multipass

I dunno. Made me instantly think of The Fifth Element.

We had one of these. Made the worst coffee. Didn't matter what we did, more coffee, less coffee, fresh tap water, water that sat in an open jug on the counter overnight...

My folks got one just like that for their wedding in 1983. They're not coffee drinkers, but still have it when they have guests who are. Still works just fine.

You call that a radar screen?!

OF COURSE WE DO, SIR!

And this is how people get the attitude of "it's all the same so I'll spend the bare minimum to replace it" and then are never able to escape the garbage cycle and then insist that there is no other way.

Simplicity in design and function. Companies eventually learned that using the correct components soldered perfectly, meant people didn’t need to buy more of what they sold….and so, here we are

No sir, we call it Mr. Coffee. Care for some?

My aunt and uncle had one of these! Just across from the wall phone in the kitchen that you weren't allowed to answer during dinner.

14 cup? What?

Yes. If you ever see one, buy it immediately.

A 14 cup coffee maker, I presume.

Mine too.

My family had one too and this photo made me so happy. And I can feel the buttons!

I like the irony of the brand name and the product.

But jokes aside, i like the design.

That needs descaled!

We’re the same age

GE, Mr Coffee, and Proctor Silex had issues with coffeemaker fires back in 1980s. Some were recalled. UL eventually upgraded the coffeemaker standards to require two independent backup thermal protectors (was one). If I owned a 1980 era coffeemaker, I’d toss it and replace it. (I worked in the industry at that time and was involved in these matters)

My in-laws had one of those in the 80s. The steam warped their upper cabinets and then it stopped working. They must have gotten a lemon!

It’s a method people use for cleaning up the minerals that deposit in a coffee maker, but that’s not important right now.

Back when ge didn’t focus on “well, the builders put it in” level garbage.

r/cassettefuturism

I found this post in r/cassettefuturism with the same content as the current post.

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It's not "designed to break," it's "designed to last until the warranty expires."

If you do design something to intentionally break after so many duty cycles, may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits and your arms be too short to scratch.

Meanwhile I've had a ninja for about 2 years and the LCD clock is glitched and you can't even read the time anymore.

What do you do with all the extra space?

Find out how they cost back then and add the inflation. Probably $250 in today's money. Most cheap coffee pots sell for $20-25 nowadays.

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Happened to us as well. I found this cool platform with tiny wheels, you can easily slide the coffee maker out from under the cabinet whole it's brewing, then just nudge it back in.

My parents had this, it's cool.

I got my mom a GE Spacemaker radio/cassette player for the kitchen in the 80s. She used it every day. Best gift I ever got her.

Interesting. I have one. There was a huge selection of them on the various sites I shopped around for it on.

I have a model or two before this with the analog clock. Use it all the time, absolutely love it.

Woot! Amazing

Lol no.

My dad had one until he quit drinking coffee a few years ago.

I grew up with alllll the space maker appliances! So much stuff was hanging from cabinets!

it’s done often

Um…are we cousins?!?

they make 18 cup ones too apparently

Serious 80s cyberpunk vibes

Feels like it'd fit in Alien Isolation

absolutely agree. the name of a company doesn't mean much anymore. i cant help be a little upset wit the original owners who sell the company knowing the next owners will butcher it and mis treat the workers.

You most definitely must have soft water or a water softener. Calcium is the killer for coffee makers. Even if you flush weekly with vinegar.

Looks like it belongs on the Nostromo. Very cool.

Well-built modern coffee makers don't give off that much steam. There's still some where the coffee drips into the carafe. I don't think there's any way to prevent leakage there, but I bet there's a way to funnel the steam so it doesn't get trapped under the cabinet

And what a lot of coffee snobs don't get is that, a lot of people like their specific coffee, even if it is poorly brewed. Nostalgia, comfort, and repeated "exposure" can make even awful drinks taste amazing.

I say this as someone who has spent way too much time and money on coffee. I just have a soft-spot for gas station coffee. I don't mean the stiff sheetz has with tons of options and stored in containers that won't burn it. It's the ones that use like 3 home coffee makers and all of them are solid brown on the bottom from burnt coffee. I'd go for that over my pour over every day of the week.

They're really not that rare, at least in America. Both online and in stores, there are tons of options.

And if you're not sure what kind of water you have, they sell test strips for very little money. You'll end up with way more than you'll ever need, but they actually make good gifts (I'm not kidding)

Yep, whenever I make coffee how mom used to, it ain't good, but it tastes like home. Definitely requires the copious amounts of non-dairy creamer and Sweet & Low we grew up with.

Yes…! I always have coffee when I watch radar. You know that. Everyone knows that!

This looks like it belongs in the Alien spaceship!

Also, this instantly made me remember the under-cabinet radios…I wish they still made mounted stuff…it sure saves counter space if you don’t have a big kitchen

Meanwhile each of our new coffee makers last about 5 months.

Mother of god..

I have this! It's fantastic and makes great coffes. Also so cool looking.

Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to offer an engineer's perspective on this discussion

My dad still uses his spacemaker alarm clock every day

Buy a Technivorm Moccamaster. It is not cheap, but has no electronics, and will last a very long time. And you can buy replacement parts if you need then. If the cost is too high, you can buy a factory refurbished model.

That looks like the coffee maker in the break room of a star destroyer

There are dozens of us! (Maybe. Probably not haha)

Awesome

Wow! Back then we were saying that they don't make 'em like they used to, but the GE Spacemaker is a definite exception!