Technically all of my PCs are hobbyist PCs. Maybe with the exception of my HP T610 thin client I'm mainly using for running PiHole.

I have one custom built NAS to store my hobbyist data.
A HP T520 thin client set up as a media player with LibrELEC to watch my movies.
My daily driver desktop and notebook to play games and research my hobby.

3 other notebooks plus 1 that is complete and functional, but disassembled.
A HP T630 thin client running Windows 7.
About 16 or 17 dektop PCs.
Spare parts for about half a dozen more.

To me, this is too many. I don't need more than the T630, 2 notebooks and maybe 4 PCs with a some spare parts out of the retro hobbyist stuff. And I'm already generous with myself with this many. 50% of these would already just collect dust until I find myself longing for a very specific experience.

Recently I almost completely stopped getting new stuff, aside of some freebies and PCMCIA/Express cards. I just have to find the drive to downsize. It's so hard to convince myself to sell off rare stuff I've spent a lot of time looking to get on a fair price.

25

My 18x "hobbyist" PCs:

- 8 IBM machines complete
- 4 Dutch machines complete
- 12 No known name projects (2 will come for sale)
- 7 Tulip/Compudata machines before 1983 that are almost sold.

27 in total - 9 that are almost gone.

Ok - We won't even talk about "Daves Old Computers"

But for purely PC's - since I'm retired now, I guess we can call them
all "hobby" - I've really been trying to cut down, (have let probably
more than 10 go in the last year) and have arrived a such a small number.
- it's really hard to get anything needing "computing" accompished 😀

4 I7 desktops
2 I5 deskstops
2 Pentium(mumble) SFF desktops
1 core-2-quad desktop
1 Pentium3 desktop
1 Pentium4 desktop(ish) mounted on a wooden "breadboard"
1 PentiumMMX desktop also "" "" ""
1 ViaC7 desktop (was a phone system - but is a PC inside)
3 I7 laptops
2 I5 laptops
1 I3 laptop
1 Pentium(mumble) laptop
1 Pentium(mumple dual-core) netbook
3 Atom netbooks
3 Windows tablets

(and likely a few more I can't think of)

Few more (right here in the room I've been accessing Vogons from):
1 Dell SFF desktop (new enough that it has BIOS Win10 license)
1 Lenovo ThinkCenter M600 (very small desktop)
1 Z-BOX BI320 (also very small desktop)

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

Let me see.

IBM PC 5150
IBM PC/AT 5170
Custom built 286/12
Custom built 386DX/33
Custom built 486DX2/66 VLB
Custom built PMMX/233
Dell XPS R450 PIII/800

Plus a few non-operational machines and innumerable laptops, mostly Thinkpads, the product of my ill-fated "perfect retro laptop" project. I'm always meaning to get rid of all but a few of them and never getting around to it.

I don't use all of these at once. Usually one or two of them are in active setups at any one time, depending on what I'm up to. The rest go into storage.

I would say more than 50

kixs wrote on 2025-02-28, 05:54:

Since I'm a hoarder I don't know the exact number...

I'd guess around 50 complete (from 286 to Core2Duo/Phenom) and parts for at least another 50... but probably more 🤣 I will need to cut it down and stop hoarding eventually, maybe 😉

Not counting laptops and pre-PC era.

I lied. Just counted more then 80 computers in a small room. So more realistically there should be at least around 150. And parts for at least 100 more... 😐

Almost all of my machines are hobbyist boxes to some extent.

Vintage machines totals 7....

Three desktops (CN486, Compaq DeskPro 386 "Blue Lightning", and Tandy 1000).

Four laptops (NEC Versa M/75CP and NEC Versa P/75HC, BSi/NanTan Fma3500C, NanTan FMAK9200D)

Out of the lot I'm using CN486, NanTan FMAK9200D, and the Compaq the most...so i.might let some go in the future.

Those NECs aged BADLY. The chassis on those is held together more by baking soda, superglue, and packing tape than actual plastic, but surprisingly both still work happily.

These days I have things so well dialed in I hardly have anything to write about anymore, 🤣. I've spent more time using my vintage pcs than tweaking on them for the past year or two.

Oh that's a tough one.

I have my Ivy-Bridge Titan X SLI-build, that is both my Windows XP machine and my Windows 10 daily driver and I have a P3 Compaq Deskpro EP with Voodoo2 SLI.

I also have my "lab computer", an X99 system that used to be my moms. Which I have pulled all storage drives on and fitted it with an 5.25" HDD & SSD dock so I can freely play around with different system disks and storage drives. 😀

And I have my old Asus G75VW laptop, which I'm dual-booting Windows XP and Windows 7 on.

Some of you have a legitimate problem. We could start and fund a museum with 20% of the stuff you have.

I could start a museum, at least a parts exhibition, but fund? No way.

I have a few socket 4 and one socket 3 system.

Wow. I'll try to list:

No name vanilla PC/XT
IBM 5170 PC/AT
TI Pro (8088)
TI Portable Pro (8088)
Compaq Plus?
Tektronix TC-2001? IIRC, a rather lovely luggable with some sort of protocol analyzer built in.
Northstar Dimension
NEC APC-III, PC-9801 for gringos
Zenith Z-100 low profile
Tandy 1000
Tandy 2000 x2
Tandy 3000 HD (w/o the HD)
Tandy 4000, rough
Canon AS-100 x2
NCR PC6, mostly parts
NCR PC4, again
Commodore 128, 64 x4, Plus 4, 64c x2
Atari 1040st
Atari 520stfm
Canon VP-3000 (tattered remains)
Xerox Pentium sumtin sumtin
Home built Intel dual PIII Xeon thingamajig
Mindset x2.5
Dell dual socket 604 monstrosity
Zenith Minisport x2
IBM PCRadio
AT & T 6300
Franklin Ace 1200

That puts me near 40 methinks. There's got to be more. Can't think of any others at this present time.

Honorable mentions:

Vesta Technologies OEM-188, a single board 80188 based robot brain.
IBM Professional Graphics Controller.
Vermont Microsystems clone of above.
Number9 Computer Revolution, the most useless piece of schnitzel from the 80s. A "high end" GPU for which you had to write your own drivers

Brawndo wrote on 2025-02-28, 04:26:

I've gone back and forth on whether I want to slim down my collection of older PCs or just hang on to them all. I go through phases of thinking I don't really need them all, but I sure have a hard time thinking about letting any of them go. I like them too much! I honestly couldn't give you an exact number, but I probably have about 12-15 complete PCs from the 486 era through windows 7, which does not include my current modern desktop. Not to mention the piles of spare components I have laying around. I'm just curious about how many the average hobbyist has laying around.

Greetings,I came into a phase,I do not know the exact number,something between 20 to 50 in various phases of restoring(most I save in a terrible state,put in line & it waits for being restored,when time & parts will go together), but if I also will count theoretical computers,which can be build from the current supplies of spare parts,I am constantly aggregating,that would be between 50 & 100 PCs & I plan to build as much Legacy PCs,as many MoBos,cases & PSUs I have,other parts I have even more.
With 12 to 15 PCs I would never think about slimming down the collection,I just started to think about it now,for about last year,but not slimming @ all,but rather optimizing,which ofccourse involves slimming in a way,I wish to exchange some,of which I have too much,for some,I very miss,mostly older,more rare,so the exchange cannot be 1:1,& when I stuffed last huge pile of P4+ MoBos,I already thought,I wish to exchange some of them for something older,for example I have only 3 P3 machines & tens of P4s & newer,which I would gladly exchange with some1 for P3s.I also miss completely 186/188s in my collection & I only have 1 XT machine & all my 286s r 16MHz,so I would wish some slower & some faster 286 too,but these r unrealistic exchange proposals,because a 286 has higher value than all my 20 to 30 surplus P4+ HW,not even speaking about 086/186,so in this case I could get just a discount for my surplus HW & also as for me 1st to go r MoBos without IDE/FDC/both,I guess,nobody will be interested,even all r Legacy...But if yes,I am prepared for exchange rates like 10 pcs of P4+ HW for 1pc of an adequate P3 HW,or so...
So do U have some particular machine in 2PCs?
Or do U have too much of some generation?
U may rather think about exchanging those,U have too much for those missing or being too few in Your collection & another question is,do U have all Your favorite OSs?
If U will have too few PCs,U will have problems,if U wish to have also an OS collection.Of course,U can have 4 of some OSs on each HDD,U can have HDD racks,but HDDs tend to overheat in them & for some it is more comfortable to have several PCs for a viable collection of all Your favorite OSs.
Think 84 times,be4 U give away a ThinkPad T42...
Think several times in deep be4 giving away/selling any machine,if it will not be missing in any aspect...
Have a nice day & beautiful 16bit dreams in 640x480x16.

"4. IBM PS/1 (current 486 gaming rig)
5. Pentium 75":
I dream obout these & I still miss them...
My friend in Bratislava found a PS/1,but with missing PSU & he was still unable to replace it,I have reserved it,but I do not know,will it be possible to restore it,as it has some atypical PSU...

Practically 10 functional retro PCs that all see at least occasional use although there is quite a lot overlap in someways and I could definitely do just fine with less. Then I have 8- and 16-bit micros, one Sun Ultra and consoles. Can't say what the total vintage system number is, probably around 35-40 systems. PC is by far my most used platform.

Including laptops more than 60 or even 70 machines

only desktops 26

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-02-28, 07:15:

eisapc wrote on 2025-02-28, 07:12:

I stopped counting, but there must be more than 100 complete systems, and the collection is still increasing.

100+ machines? Sounds like a museum! Haha.

Great.
I wish to do a museum,but I am in bad district,bad region,bad country...& no budget for moving to a better 1...

Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-03-01, 16:16:

"4. IBM PS/1 (current 486 gaming rig) 5. Pentium 75": I dream obout these & I still miss them... My friend in Bratislava found […]
Show full quote

"4. IBM PS/1 (current 486 gaming rig)
5. Pentium 75":
I dream obout these & I still miss them...
My friend in Bratislava found a PS/1,but with missing PSU & he was still unable to replace it,I have reserved it,but I do not know,will it be possible to restore it,as it has some atypical PSU...

The PS/1 definitely has some history with me. I bought it from my now brother-in-law when we were in high school, I can't remember what they had upgraded to, think it was a Pentium 150 or something, so I bought the PS/1 as a complete system, think I had to make payments to him, 🤣. Unfortunately, I have no idea what happened to the original monitor, keyboard or mouse. I left the system at my parent's place after uni, and I guess it made some passes through the family before it ended up back to me and those components didn't make the trip.

Of course being a teen in high school, I had limited funds, but that computer was used for EVERYTHING. It would run Rise of the Triad and Wolfenstein no problem, so I would game on it. It was my introduction to Ontrack, because he had fitted a 1.6GB hard drive to it. I installed every OS I could get my hands on on it at some point: FreeBSD, NetBSD, BeOS, Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98 (I was on the beta team), Slackware Linux, Redhat Linux, Gentoo Linux, Windows NT4, Windows NT5 when 2K was in alpha still, hahahah.

It had a Reveal 28.8kbps modem in it, which was pretty good for rural dial-up. Installing FreeBSD from a boot floppy over dial-up took days, so I was always tying up the home phone line 😁

So now I've maxed out the video RAM, upgraded it to a DX4-100 with an ODP and am swapping over to using CF cards so I can shuffle OS's on it. Still waiting on a DIP28 to show up so I can ditch Ontrack and go with XT-IDE. It's so much fun to mess around with it again because now I can do all the stuff I would have loved to have done to it back in the mid to late 90's.

I got 30+ complete, bootable PCs from 486-P4, 10-12 from 775-i7 era (incl. current), and 10+ laptops from pentium to P3. I don't see the kinds of computers I've hoarded anymore, so I hang onto everything.

As soon as you "get rid" of something, you'll find out it suddenly became "rare" and "sought after" and you will wince at the prices being asked to buy another... especially sad if your old unit was mint'n while the "overpriced" one is a sh%*box.

I've heard the best thing to do if you think you have too much, is to just stop buying more. This has not worked for me, but maybe someone? 🤣 🤣