How do you setup and have room for all your Classic Computers?

[ngtwolf]

This is my setup. Mind you, like everyone else here, i also have stuff stored elsewhere (in my case the garage).. that stuff is either accessories i'll never use and don't care to 'display' (plotter/cassette/modem for Atari 800, for instance... oh, and an Atari 2600.. haha) or it's some accessories (like CRT monitors which are nice to have but kind of a pain to deal with) or spare parts/donor equipment. Much of the important accessories like power supplies, joysticks, and floppies are in the various forms of storage on and to the side of the display. I still have space here, and i'm still going through deciding what to put out and what to keep boxed (or sell). While it's usable where it's at, it isn't really.. I plan to set up a small computer desk in the nearby office where i can use these as needed. If I could come up with some way to have a 'keyboard tray' shelf on here, it would be more usable.. not really a keyboard tray though, but a 'shelf' that would sit on top and pull out. Anyway, work in progress...

The Atari ST, Atari 800 and the aforementioned 2600 are all originals from my childhood. The Amiga belonged to my dad (yeah, Amiga and Atari ST house at one point.. lots of conflict there... Hah!) which he pawned off on me after I told him he should open it up and fix the battery and he decided it was easier just to give everything to me instead. Everything else are recent acquisitions (while I did have an Apple Clone (ace 1000) and C64 growing up, those were lost/sold/who knows since then, along with other PC's we owned... Vic-20, C128, Dragon 32, Sinclair 1000, and obviously PC clones).

 

[billdeg]

NGTWolf makes the point that there is a difference between storage and display. There is an additional space - the workshop part, the place to open a machine to make repairs, space for the tools, spools or wire, cables, etc.

We here in the midAtlantic US have to contend with the large seasonal temperature and humidity variations too. One of the factors that I consider whether something stays or goes is the availability of climate-controlled space. If I get a donation offer for something that has been stored in an attic for 25 years, even if it "worked when put into storage", I would not count on it being ok today. Simply-put one cannot store anything long term without temperature control. For this reason I envy people in desert conditions like southern CAL or Arizona because they don't need dehumidifiers running during the summer months..

 

[VERAULT]

I bought a house, thats how I made room. 4 bedroom house which means one whole room with closets and crawlspaces is my office. (it might be a hair larger than our master bedroom... priorities and all) I need to clean up some of the projects on my work benches but ill take a couple panoramic shots.
I dont have ANY of my machines setup for display, too many. IF I want to use them I take them off the shelf and set them up. I have my primary computer I am using now and two work benches for repair mostly. But that is where I connect the machines I want to play with as well.

I mean even when I was younger I had at least a rooms worth of parts and boards.. Alot of them had to go being as I was a "Renter" at the time. ITs a hobby, its a compulsion. Try and keep it as neat and organized as possible and noone will slap the moniker of "hoarder" on you. Being that there isnt much in my area my wife said yesterday I should goto town hall and startup a club or meeting for this type of thing. Maybe people from neighboring areas would find it.

I have another question, do your significant others or kids give a crap about your hobby.. I can tell you... Nah, not so much.

 

[cwathen]

I have the spare bedroom dedicated to my retro collection (my modern desktop machine is in the living room). There is a 2 metre long workspace on which I fit 3 machines, also a couple of smaller tables where I can setup a couple more (see below). The rest of it is stored in racking and boxes, and some of it is shut away in cupboards.

The room has it's own network switch to connect PC's together. The old EEE PC 701 you can see on the desk (almost a vintage computer itself now) is being used as a bridge to connect the room to the rest of my home network in order to provide internet access and file sharing should that be necessary.

Typically I have 3 machines out at once, which can vary depending on what takes my fancy at the time. And if I'm working on a machine (for there are a number of non-runners in my collection) I will have to sacrifice a set up machine to create space to work. At present it's all PC's that are on display, I've got my IBM 5150, Amstrad 1512, Compaq Prolinea 466 and Pentium 166 clone set up.

 

[VERAULT]

cwathen, what is that a laserjet 5? Thats not vintage! Fire that puppy and put it to use, thats a good printer.

 

[cwathen]

cwathen, what is that a laserjet 5? Thats not vintage! Fire that puppy and put it to use, thats a good printer.

HAHA! It is a Laserjet 5M (has a built in network interface which makes it quite useful for an old printer). At 22 years old and pre-dating USB I think we can call it vintage now!

It is still a really good printer but since my personal printing usually only amounts to a few things per year I don't have the need to have a permanently setup high volume laser printer, a newer HP inkjet printer/scanner is what I usually use.

It does get put through it's paces once in a while though (usually when I'm testing software updates for our work EPOS system and need an 'office printer' - less hassle than dragging one of our newer lasers from work home with me).

Have I been forgiven for having an LCD monitor on my P166 in the first picture then lol? The only other decent CRT I've got at present is a 19 incher which is fabulous but won't fit on that little table.

The AST mousemat I've had from new, came with my Advantage 7301 in 1997.

 

[VERAULT]

call me old fashioned but I prefer a paper book to an e-book or article online. And when it comes to notes, recipes, directions, I print them all. we have 3 laser printers on the network at home. I recycle, my kids recycle, I dont feel bad about printing. Its a stupid idea "go-green" do you know how much junk mail I get a day? Thats wasting paper, every bank wanting to send an emailed statement over mailed! is NOT doing it to save the trees, they are saving on postage...

Print away people. its why printers were made

 

[ngtwolf]

I dont have ANY of my machines setup for display, too many. IF I want to use them I take them off the shelf and set them up. I have my primary computer I am using now and two work benches for repair mostly. But that is where I connect the machines I want to play with as well.

The only downside to that approach is that I had my old computers in storage for 20 years (where i lived, not some far away storage) because i didn't have much space where i lived at the time.. I would have liked to play with them, but because they were stored, it never was worth the effort to take them out of storage. At least on display and set up in such a way where i can set them up in a few minutes, they actually get used. Although, i do wish more of my computers were like the TRS-80 Model 4.. no setup required, everything is built into it.

I mean even when I was younger I had at least a rooms worth of parts and boards.. Alot of them had to go being as I was a "Renter" at the time. ITs a hobby, its a compulsion. Try and keep it as neat and organized as possible and noone will slap the moniker of "hoarder" on you. Being that there isnt much in my area my wife said yesterday I should goto town hall and startup a club or meeting for this type of thing. Maybe people from neighboring areas would find it.

I think the VCF podcast did make the point that your a collector and not a hoarder if 1) you Display your stuff and it's not just in storage or 2) You have a place for all your stuff where it's not impacting your daily living. The club would be interesting, but I guess it depends where you live. If it's a small town, there aren't enough people and if it's a big city, there might just not be people interested in it. Living in Los Angeles, I can tell you that oddly there are both rarely any retro computers for sale.. i'm not sure where they're getting dumped (maybe the goodwill limbo, which doesn't actually wind up at goodwill) and there are not really any retro groups. I saw a meetup group for Commodore that was '30 strong', that looked like they had one meetup in their life and was pretty much dead. It's mostly about the maker spaces these days.

I have another question, do your significant others or kids give a crap about your hobby.. I can tell you... Nah, not so much.

No spouse, but my son does roll his eyes when I bring something new into the house.. It's almost to the point where I have to sneak it in.. Hahaha.. The most important thing I tell him is that when I die, that this stuff is worth money so don't just dump it.

-Brian

 

[ngtwolf]

The room has it's own network switch to connect PC's together. The old EEE PC 701 you can see on the desk (almost a vintage computer itself now) is being used as a bridge to connect the room to the rest of my home network in order to provide internet access and file sharing should that be necessary.

That network idea is nice.. unfortunately none of mine are PC's (well, i guess they're all PC's, but not "PCs" or.. IBM Compatibles) so I wouldn't even know how to network any of them except I guess the ST and Amiga.

I did notice your setup has a similar problem that mine has, no leg space.. Do you use your stuff for long term, or does it move to a more comfortable spot, or are you just used to it the way it is?

 

[ngtwolf]

Have I been forgiven for having an LCD monitor on my P166 in the first picture then lol? The only other decent CRT I've got at present is a 19 incher which is fabulous but won't fit on that little table.

I think most of us are in that situation except the Retro religious folks.. A 4:3 LCD (especially if it has EVERY connection, like mine does) is just so easy and manageable that it's hard to convince oneself to deal with the CRT's. I have a really small 14" CRT but it's only composite, so it's not as usfeful and the 15" I have that does have all the connections is so big (talk about Bezel!) that it might as well be a 19".. The only computer I have that needs it's own monitor is the ST, but luckily the model I have can be hooked up with composite with a special cable that I've now broken down and ordered so I don't have to deal with it's monitor.

 

[VERAULT]

Well my stuff isnt in storage, its just on very large Shelved in my office, Have my atari rack, commodore rack, luggable rack, kaypro rack, etc. I can get them setup on my bench in a couple minutes its easy enough. That is if I dont have a project sprawled out on it. working on repairing two compact macs at the moment.

as far as LA not having vintage computers, I found the NASHVILLE TN area completely devoid of vintage computers as well. I assume they toss them all and there is no market there.

 

[ngtwolf]

call me old fashioned but I prefer a paper book to an e-book or article online.

Old Fashioned. Nah, so I don't print very much, but there is definitely a case for printing. It really depends, for me, if I'm going to need whatever it is at a specific location. So while I have technical documents, I prefer them all digitized and then I toss them... it allows me to access them anywhere and i only need to keep one small laptop with me to have access to everything i would need (specifically for work needs). On the reverse though, if I need a technical spec or even simple things like movie tickets or coupons, I will definitely print that (and then toss or recycle) since it's more portable with a 'larger display' and I don't have to hope that my phone or whatever works (or slows me or the line down). In the grand scheme though, I don't like physical books/media/etc because, while convenient, its just clutter and affects my OCD... Plus it's space that can be used for more real equipment.

On a related topic, do you folks keep/display your physical software as well? Personally i'd rather just keep it all on SD and depending on how you feel about old software, either selling or storing the originals. I have some displayed right now but that's just because I had space and it's super inconvenient to sell (for the minuscule profits).

 

[ngtwolf]

Well my stuff isnt in storage, its just on very large Shelved in my office, Have my atari rack, commodore rack, luggable rack, kaypro rack, etc. I can get them setup on my bench in a couple minutes its easy enough. That is if I dont have a project sprawled out on it. working on repairing two compact macs at the moment.

Oh, trust me, I know the feeling. I had two Atari ST's sprawled out on the office floor for over a month in the middle of diagnostics and repairs because I had so many projects i was in the middle of (and parts from china on the way) that there was no other space left..

as far as LA not having vintage computers, I found the NASHVILLE TN area completely devoid of vintage computers as well. I assume they toss them all and there is no market there.

Maybe a large city thing. My friend in Portland (while big, not as big - or maybe its just the type of people living there) seems to run across stuff all the time and loves to send me all the links to super cheap stuff that isn't worth the 20 minute drive... I do see the same few things posted on repeat.. like there is this one guy trying to sell a C64, untested and covered in dirt, for $200.. I think one of two things happens.. Either the people think it's old and junk, so they toss or donate it somewhere. Or.. they look it up on ebay and think they can get those prices locally.. or they don't even do that and just think because they've never seen it before (in their 20's) and read about that one Apple 1 computer, think it's some super rare thing. Ya know, like $200 for a Vic-20. Hah!

 

[Trixter]

On a related topic, do you folks keep/display your physical software as well?

Yes, very much so. I am just as much a software collector as I am a hardware collector. I try to set up period-correct displays at exhibitions; here's an example: https://flic.kr/p/giYSiV

 

[Rick Ethridge]

I have congestive heart disease and wear a pacemaker. (my own personal computer?) I have most of my machines installed in the "dungeon" as well arranged as I can. Four machines hooked into two KVM's with others on their own stand areas. With more junque removed, there'll be more room for more.

 

[VERAULT]

I Have two shelves for old computer books and software. Loaded with C64 box games, infocom text games, IBM binder releases from the PC days/ PC games. I have a Big box full of unsorted atari magazines from 1984 to 1987 I dunno a couple hundred magazines. I should categorize and sell them to a huge atari fan who will appreciate them more than boxing them.

 

[ngtwolf]

Yes, very much so. I am just as much a software collector as I am a hardware collector. I try to set up period-correct displays at exhibitions; here's an example: https://flic.kr/p/giYSiV

Cool, nice display. Those pictures gave me something to do while sitting on a rather boring conference call. My 'collecting' is mostly to use, and i find that most of the software for the 80's system no longer works, or barely works so i'm trying to wean myself off of it. Of course, the bad part about wanting to actually use the computers is that it requires making sure all the pc's turn on and test fully as well as procuring newer solutions that allow the older systems to interface with the modern world. I've actually stopped buying any more floppy drives, cassette players, etc and now just buy the main systems and parts for those systems since it's just a matter of time before the old media will stop working and with no access to new media, those accessories will just be space fillers. As mentioned earlier, i have some accessories like cassette players and modems in storage boxes because there is no longer really a way to use them.

Maybe we need a kickstarter for new 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppies. Stretch goal for 8"?

 

[ngtwolf]

I Have two shelves for old computer books and software. Loaded with C64 box games, infocom text games, IBM binder releases from the PC days/ PC games. I have a Big box full of unsorted atari magazines from 1984 to 1987 I dunno a couple hundred magazines. I should categorize and sell them to a huge atari fan who will appreciate them more than boxing them.

Funny, in that picture i posted earlier, I also have a bunch of Atari Magazines from about 85 to 92 (800 through ST). I did place them up for display, but I actually was a bit concerned in doing so because of the weight. I've had them boxed forever but felt like they should come out for the display. That said, they were placed in a slightly inaccessible shelf because they're not really usable, so i'm not sure how much better they are 'on display' then in a box.

 

[cwathen]

I did notice your setup has a similar problem that mine has, no leg space.. Do you use your stuff for long term, or does it move to a more comfortable spot, or are you just used to it the way it is?

I certainly would have everything set up on it's own desk in comfortable surroundings if I had the space. Although what I have now is a big upgrade from where I used to live where I only really had space to setup one machine at a time. But since my old machines are rarely used for particularly long periods of time the lack of comfort isn't too much of a problem.

Much as I love my hobby I don't see me using an old computer as a daily driver - pouring over huge spreadsheets using Excel 4 on an old 386 with a 640x480 screen and constantly seeing 'recalculating cells...' is something I spent a lot of time doing in the mid-90s and I can't honestly say I miss that compared to the modern experience of doing the same.

If for whatever reason I need to use a vintage machine for long periods of time I can make more comfortable arrangements.

That said, I am planning on getting a Windows 98 machine set up on a proper desk with proper space. When it comes to retro gaming it is getting harder and harder to coax Windows 9x era games (and some applications software too for that matter) to run on modern hardware and being that by that time games had become a lot more immersive with playing sessions getting longer I would like somewhere more comfortable to play these.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Living in Los Angeles, I can tell you that oddly there are both rarely any retro computers for sale.. i'm not sure where they're getting dumped (maybe the goodwill limbo, which doesn't actually wind up at goodwill) and there are not really any retro groups.

I hear that, but it wasn't always that way. My PCjr and a couple other systems were local pickups (the PCjr came from Long Beach, for example).