feipoa wrote:

If in an instant you could regain all the money you've spent on your retro gear since you started this hobby and forgo all the gear, would you?

Most likely yes if I knew the full sum 🤣

never!
I like my stuffz.

Only if I wanted to start over doing something entirely different... which will probably be never. :B

I've got most of my stuff for a lesser price so probably not... if anything I would sell it. But that will probably never happen, I'm a hoarder. 🤣

Sure. For me finding stuff is more fun than holding on to it.

I would use my magic powers to rewrite the thread subject line first. 😜

As I no longer have time to devote to this hobby, I'd probably let it all go, but only if it all could go at once for the original price paid. Free the mind, fill the pockets, save space.

Prices are only going up so I don't think I would do it.

I got a nice little collection that will keep me busy for a very long time. I think I would regret selling it even for a few thousand dollars. What would I do with the money?

I do know lots of people that got burried and gave up their hobby 😒

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I do know lots of people that got burried and gave up their hobby 😒

Buried? Married? Burritoed? 😕

Yes I meant buried = married 😊

Ah... Never been both ... Not planning for either! 😈

To stay on topic though... No, I won't let it go. Not that I have a large collection yet, but I'd rather build a private museum than convert 'em all back into money.

I find that having stacks of items on shelves does not really mean anything to me. I like playing the games and having the MIDI / Sound Blasters to go with that. And I am attached to the Philips I finally found (childhood PC). Otherwise I am not really a collector or builder. I do get really excited when I find rare Roland cards / modules though. 🤣

With a house, 2 cars, 2 sons in one of the most expensive places to live in the USA I also find it very hard to have too much $ tied up in the hobby to be honest.

Yeah probably, I have a bunch of crap I don't need and that blasted PCjr is like a boat anchor. It just sits in storage since I don't have room to keep it set up all the time. 🤣

With the exception of one or two things, yes if I could get back the money I've
spent over the last 25 years on PC junk I would. I'm sure that it's way more
than I want to think about, and if I had invested it properly (say by dropping it all on
Apple stock in 1997) I probably wouldn't have any money worries.
While we are wishing for things that aren't going to happen, can I also
hook up with Cameron Diaz and Jessica Alba?

Nice 486 posts btw snorg, funny coincidence for this forum. 😜

Nope. My passion is more important than money. Not to mention the sentimental value of it all.

I did some back of the napkin math one day to estimate what I've spent since 1989.
It's pretty bad. I don't want to think what that money would have bought if I had put it in a money market account or a Vanguard index fund and let it sit until now. At the time it didn't seem like much, but it all adds up.

So on the one hand, I would have had no experience at all to PCs if I had waited until college to buy my first one, although I'm sure at some point I'd have tripped over someone else's cast-off PC by now.

So while I don't regret all of it, I definitely wish I had been more sensible about my spending.

Surprisingly I've bought everything I own PC wise second hand. So I like to think all things being relative I haven't spent that much.
Still it probably at least adds up to around a thousand.

I learned the art of dumpster diving, curb finds and haggeling from a young age. 😜

I won't give up my stuff so easily unless it's broken, burned or destroyed beyond repair (who wants to keep a Voodoo 1 broken to pieces and missing most of its components, or an Abit KT7A board that has black burn marks around the CPU socket, VRM and AGP slot 😦 ?). As far as how much money I've spent or could get back, that's irrelevant for me as well - I'm single and in this hobby for personal reasons, not financial ones 😀