As far back as I can remember...which would be around 2 years old.  I used to love to peep inside Mother's Maytag and she'd stick a clothes pin half into the switch so I could watch.  She told me not to put my hands in while it was running and I didn't.  I barely remember my grandmother having an old white GE filterflo with the water flume at 12 o'clock position.  Mother says that was Grandmother's first automatic washer.  Then in '74 she replaced it with an avocado FF that she was still using in 2007 when she had her stroke and moved in with my parents.  Most of my neighbors had Maytag machines.  One though had a Whirlpool and I thought it was so neat to see it drain without spinning.