After selling five over the last month or so, I'm down to seven. If you count CP/M-80 machines, that would be twelve. I probably still have to thin out a couple more from them. That will be a difficult decision...

24+ ?

I lost count after the walls in my storage basement turned into a beige "blob" 8 feet high and 20 feet long.

I'm curious, do you guys do something with your retro machines at least from time to time? Or are you just collecting them for the sake of it?

I've got my first a month ago, and now the third is in shipping. This is escalating quickly!

VioletGiraffe wrote:

I'm curious, do you guys do something with your retro machines at least from time to time?

That is the criteria I'm (at least trying to) apply to my thinning out. Sentimental motivations can't dominate very many of the decisions, otherwise the process would get nowhere.

I don't collect just anything and everything. I usually collect what is nostalgic to me that I owned or used back in the day, I collect slightly more rare components, and highest-end components of a generation/socket. I've passed on a lot of cheap/free stuff just because it was common or mediocre. Also, I do make it a point to maintain them and use each several times per year. Most of the time I'll have one or two setup at a time in the computer room.

VioletGiraffe wrote:

I'm curious, do you guys do something with your retro machines at least from time to time? Or are you just collecting them for the sake of it?

Yes and no. I only ever use a few specific machines. I keep a lot of others around for parts donors and future projects, though.

Some machines are rare and are / could be worth money sometime. Four boxed Commodore 64s with 1541 diskette drives and 1702 monitors. I can assure you those will go up in value. I've got one machine I play around with and the rest are in storage. Same for my TI-99/4A. I've got one machine that's not in as nice of condition and one that's in the box with the cables and manuals.

Some machines aren't worth the metal they're made of - Early 2000s Dell notebooks I keep around as loaner computers when someone needs to borrow something. I keep a bunch of those for parts.

Lastly, some things are getting incredibly hard to find. It will only become more difficult to find parts for Taiwanese turbo XT clones. I've got a nice stack of replacement parts in the attic back at my parents' house (I'm in the middle of a move).

Rather than wait around for it to break and pay extreme premiums on eBay and other sites, I'll buy them while they're $40 shipped and store them until I need them.

Oh yeah, and sometimes things come up and I have to put my projects away for a while. Poor Socket 370 and 478 builds sitting on my bench, waiting for parts.

VioletGiraffe wrote:

I'm curious, do you guys do something with your retro machines at least from time to time? Or are you just collecting them for the sake of it?

It's been about six years since I last posted in this thread. In that time, my collection has expanded, changed, and morphed. The computers I listed in my collection back in 2013 have all changed or been rebuilt in one way or another. Two of them are now kept in other locations, just in case I should suffer a fire/flood/tornado/disaster at my house. I've also managed to acquire several more systems. Almost all of them sit unused and collect dust. I have only two or three set up and ready to be used at any given time. I'm reluctant to get rid of anything because all of this stuff is already quite old and I'll eventually need spare parts. When that day comes, I'll start either using my other systems or cannibalizing parts from them.

My old Pentium computer is the one that has changed the least, although I did upgrade the CPU to 233 MMX. Phil's guide makes this a very versatile machine, and one that I will never part with.

(I just noticed that PhotoBucket is holding my Pentium photos hostage. I'll move the photos and update that post when I get a chance.)

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

Does the screensaver not work in 98SE? I would think it would be compatible between 9x. I've got 9x screensavers that still work in Windows 10.

i think it specifically stated that the OS version was wrong, and i believe it was the installer. maybe i can lift the .scr files from the directory if they arent packed.

New addition, Toshiba Satellite Pro 410CDT, will be arriving soon.

just one but it is waiting for a motherboard

I have... hmm. I have enough parts to build quite a few. One day they'll all be built! But right now I have three "complete" systems. One is without a case, and is assembled in a wooden cubby on my other desk. It's Glenden Wood, I have hopes to eventually get it into an Evercase ECE4252 as I have personal memories associated with said case but don't want to pay the international shipping for one.

FAMICOMASTER wrote:

"Informate desktop Business Computer" turbo AT clone, using the Informtech "286/Supra model C" board here: https://th99.infania.net/m/I-L/31260.htm
It's had some trouble, but it's mostly fine now. It's going into an actual AT case when I get the chance to get it out of storage, along with the other DTK board. The Informate case is dusty, cracked, and yellow. And the front panel wiring is messed up and unlabeled.
It's got 1MB onboard (only sees 512K unfortunately), an AST Advantage 128 maxed with 1.5MB, a 20MHz 286, a 12MHz 287 on the way, a Trident TVGA8900C with 1MB vRAM, a DTC7287 RLL controller attached to an IBM type 0665-53 hard disk, and two floppy drives. One 1.2MB and one 1.44MB.

I recently picked up a bunch of old floppy disks and there was the utility disk for the 286 Supra and also a few copies of the TVGA9000i which I think is the cost reduced version of the 8900 you've got. Let me know if you'd like images of them.

Two, if this one also counts as a PC.

1 x 286
2 x 486 (dx-33 and dx2-80)
1 x 5x86-133
1 x Pentium-166
1 x Pentium3-933
2 x Thinkpad Laptop
2 x Packard Bell Laptop
1 x Near stock Amiga500 Revision5.
1 x Heavy modified Amiga500 Revision 8a.1 (My 500-Turbo edition)
1 x Slightly modified Amiga600.
1 x Amiga500 in PC case (work in progress)
1 x Commodore64 Breadbin.
1 x Commodore64 Model-C.

I've got one that I use weekly if not daily (Tualatin 1.4S, 512MB, Geforce 2 Ultra/Voodoo 2 SLI, Win98SE), and a dozen or two kicking around the house.

I need to built a Tualatin 1.4S build since I have the CPU now or find a Socket 370 adapter that'll work in my current Socket 370 build since the board has a Celeron 1.4 Tualatin installed.

The only one I have around these days is my upgraded Amiga 500, everything else is currently in storage and I am selling off a couple OEM PCs to reduce redundancy and save space..

1 - 8088
2 - 286-12
3 - 386SX-25
4 - IBM PS/1 (386SX-25)
5 - HP Vectra 486/33VL (486DX-33)
6 - IBM PS/Value (486DX-33)
7 - 486DX4 - 100
8 - am5x86 - 133
9 - Compaq Deskpro 590XL (Pentium 90)
10 - Pentium MMX - 233
11 - Dual Pentium Pro 1MB - 200
12 - Pentium 2 - 300
13 - Pentium 2 - 350
14 - Pentium 2 - 450
15 - Dual Pentium 2
16 - Pentium 3 - 1000

That's all. However I have WAY more parts. I can easily build 5 more and each can be from any generation.

One (it's in my signature). It can speed-simulate older PC's like 286, 386, 486, P1, and P2 by skipping the CPU cycles, underclocking the FSB and disabling the caches, and I can always overclock it to 1066 Mhz and insert a GeForce GT610 PCI for shader-gated games (Serious Sam 2, The Chronicles of Riddick, Portal, etc), so I don't really need any other retro build in my house. And I use it all the time 😀 The i7-2600S/GTX-1050Ti PC next to it rarely gets any love past using it to watch YouTube or occasionally playing modern multiplayer games with 1 or 2 friends that are into them.

I have 1/2 of a retro PC and a lot of parts. I been working on downsizing and will be sticking with one top end retro PC. As much as Id like to have a 2 or 3 I just need to get rid of stuff.