[Irinikus]

In this life, I plan on experiencing and learning as much as I possibly can, before my time here is up.

I don't just like machines, I love them!

So my aim, as far as retrocomputing is concerned, is to dabble in as many different types of systems as I possibly can, and learn as much as I can along the way.

I therefore don't plan to focus on any particular type of system for an extended period of time, and will migrate from one type of system to the next, as time goes on.

With that being said, I do plan on keeping everything that I collect, for the rest of my life, as reference material. (One of my life's philosophies, is to never sell anything ever, as much as I can help it.)

For now, I'm collecting consoles.

The interesting thing here, is that I never really intended to get into console collecting, as I've always regarded them as being inferior to Gaming Rigs, offering a somewhat compromised gaming experience.

The thing that got me interested in console collecting, was the "From Space to Your Face" Onyx demo, which zooms in, all the way from space, to an N64 sitting on a stoney outcrop in the Swiss Alps, showing the console's association with Silicon Graphics as the demo ends, by displaying the MIPS chip within the console.

For now, I'm fully hooked on console collecting and still have to collect the following machines:

Silver PS3 FAT
SEGA Master System
Nintendo NES
Nintendo Super NES
NeoGeo
Apple Pippin
Atari Jaguar

I am not at all interested in Xbox at this point, as I was extremely disappointed with the build quality of the 360! (A complete compromise!)

The Nintendo GameCube and the Wii also don't really interest me!

Once I've acquired these systems, I'm going to start searching for a complete NEXT Cube system, and from there I will start with micro computers, starting with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, as I had one of these systems as a kid.

From there, lets see! I wouldn't mind a Cray CX1

[jwcotejr]

In terms of Silicon Graphics hardware, an O2 & an Octane are the two primary machines that I am looking to acquire. I'll probably end up settling on those two unless I come across a deal for some other Silicon Graphics machine that I simply cannot pass up.

Aside from Silicon Graphics, I'm going to start looking into some Sun Microsystems hardware sometime in the near future; still have quite a bit of research to do on that, though.

I don't do much video game collecting anymore, and in fact I downsized my video game collection not that long ago to focus on computers, but I still collect for primarily Nintendo 64 & Nintendo GameCube, as well as some Nintendo Game Boy. Eventually I am going to start building up a Nintendo DS collection as well, just not quite sure when. Probably rather soon as now's probably the best time to start on that.

[jpstewart]

I limit my collecting to old Unix workstations. I've got an O300 headless server and a Sun T5240 headless server largely because they were good deals I couldn't resist. But other than those two, I'm primarily interested in desktop systems with graphics hardware.

I'm fascinated by the various hardware architectures along with how the many Unix vendors (especially the ones who are no longer around) customized their OSes. I know there's a lot more out there beyond Unix (e.g., VMS, OS/400, MPE, ...) that could be highly educational, but I've got to draw the line somewhere. By sticking with Unix variants there's at least some familiarity right off the bat with a new system and then I can get into the subtle little details that differentiate them. I think if I were to venture into the other proprietary OSes, I'd feel lost at first and spend too much time fussing over the big picture while completely missing the subtleties.

As far as a roadmap for future acquisitions, it's basically "whatever I can get a good deal on". I don't set out to get anything specific at a certain time or in a certain order. When something pops up (on ebay, in the marketplace here, anywhere) that interests me at a price that fits my budget at that moment, I'll get it. I don't really put much forethought into it. I do have a wishlist of systems but it's not organized in any way and I'll likely never have everything on it.

I've never been much of a gamer either.

[Intuition]

I originally wanted an O2 and an Octane. I have been pretty happy with them.

Though I have this nagging itch for a Tezro with 4 cpus. I don't really want the rack mount one, though I would probably be better off since it takes up less space. I have a fetish for the strange cases as well so I like the big purple workstation case of the tezro with the big SGI cube on front. The Fuel has always intrigued me but seems like it can be a hardware hassle.

I see Indigo Iris from time to time that I almost buy but then remember that I can't really run much of the 3d software that I like on it like the latest softimage or maya. It would likely end up as a dedicated Power Animator machine.

I have the Origin 200 and at some point will attempt to use the cpus as extra render nodes in a maya mental ray setup.

I am interested in trying out a Next Cube or Workstation. Though maybe not enough to buy one.

[jan-jaap]

So my aim, as far as retrocomputing is concerned, is to dabble in as many different types of systems as I possibly can, and learn as much as I can along the way.

I therefore don't plan to focus on any particular type of system for an extended period of time, and will migrate from one type of system to the next, as time goes on.

I started a bit like that, except UNIX workstations only. I used to have SUN, HP, DEC Alpha (and SGI of course). But reality gets in the way. There's no way you can have a relevant, more or less complete collection of all these brands. Plus the books, software, spare parts and all the rest that goes with it.

So I decided to put clear limits to my collection:

1. SGI only. I sold all my other computers. Well, I have a PC and a MacBook Pro, but the moment these are no longer usable they will be replaced.
   
2. MIPS/IRIX only. No Itaniums, no Visual Workstations and none of the current systems. I may make an exception for an 68K IRIS if I ever have the chance, but I doubt it.
   
3. One specimen of every family of systems. From a collection "completeness" point of view, five Octanes are just more of the same
   

Since SGI doesn't make MIPS/IRIX systems anymore, and I own a specimen of every family, I'm effectively done adding systems to my collection. If I find a better specimen of a system I already own I might go for it, but the lesser system will have to go. Which is good, because space is finite, and I'm sure there are limits of what my wife will put up as well.

Rule #3 is the most fluid one, btw, because what makes a family? I consider a rack-Onyx2 the same family as a deskside Onyx2, so for reasons of practicality I settled for the deskside. Except I have this 4D/380VGX rack, but also a 4D/440VGX deskside. I have an Indigo2 R4400, a PowerIndigo2 R8000 and an Indigo2 R10K because I consider them different. I "only" have a blue O2 R12K and a purple O2+ R7K, but not the R5K or R10K versions. I once eliminated a deskside O2K with 8*400MHz CPUs and 16GB RAM because I already had an Onyx2 and big compute jobs could be done better on my O350. Yet I still have a Power Challenge *and* an Onyx1. A well, if all the rules were cast in concrete it would be neurotic and not a hobby .

Looking forward, I intend to:

* Finish wiring my computer room. That's one thing I underestimated, and one more reason to put a clear limit to what you drag into the house. When I moved into my current computer room, I decided to wire *everything* on all of my ~ 25 systems. All of them have (remotely switchable) power, networking, serial, often fiber network or fibre channel. No maze of extension cords and little junk network switches and scattered all over the place, but everything wired straight to a single equipment rack. This adds up to a total of more than a kilometer of wire in one room... Also, I need many, many adapters, dongles and converters. It takes soooo much time to figure it all out, buy and install it. A lot of it isn't particularly exciting either so I have to put myself to finish it.

* Keep things running for as long as possible. Unfortunately, things do break from time to time, and not everything that breaks can be repaired. This means I need spare parts, I need to know these parts *work*, and I need an inventory to know what I need to look out for and what I don't need. This is not how you acquire parts usually, though. Most of it comes in the form of "please take this cubic meter of junk out of my hands". So I'm always trying to reduce the immense pile of parts stashed away in my attic to a relevant set of spares for my systems and weed out the junk and unnecessary parts.

That's the "boring" part of what I'm up to. Of course I also intend to keep tinkering, run interesting software on my systems, and make the interesting software run in the first place. I want to explore the video capabilities that many of my systems have so I'm slowly acquiring some video gear to make that work.

[theinonen]

I have sized down my retro computer collection a lot because of space restrictions and have mainly focused on ZX Spectrum computers with 13 Soviet/Russian clones. I also still have few Alpha systems, IYONIX, and couple of MSX computers.

I am now expanding a little to Russian school/home computers and my newest acquisition is Elektronika MC 0511 (UKNC) PDP-11 compatible Soviet educational computer. Still need to make video cable for it before can actually use it, but looks quite nice.

[Jacques]

My roadmap has one more SGI on the list - an R10k Indigo2. That is probably my favourite SGI and the only one I've not been able to acquire, for one reason or another.

Then I'd like to acquire an Amiga 1200, as this machine was pretty much my favourite when I was younger. I used to spend hours on it working on Imagine 2.0, Real3D and also spent waay too much time on irc. I wouldn't mind an A3000 / A4000 either but these are much more difficult to come by.

I try and get my machines to as good a hardware state as possible, finances allowing. So my Octane could probably do with a dual 400mhz cpu but I'd take an Indigo2 over a better Octane pimm any day. Same thing for my O2, a 400Mhz pimm would be nice, so would 512mb ram, but it's in brilliant cosmetic condition so I'm quite happy with it as is.

I've never had much interest in Sun / DEC machines, I grew up with Amiga and really wanted an SGI so those are my focus areas.

But they are not for serious use, they are for me to remember better computing times in my personal opinion, when there was variety in OS choice and a huge selection of hardware depending on the task at hand. For me, computing stopped being really interesting around 90's with the decline of cpu and gpu chipset manufacturers.

[Irinikus]

I would love to be able to buy something like this for my collection one-day and get it up and running!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/APPLE-1-REPLICA...%7Ciid%3A1

It's ridiculous money, but I still think it's worth it though, as the board was endorsed by Mr Woz himself!

Here are some pics of it, in case it gets sold and the link goes down:









Here's a pic of an original apple 1 board for comparison purposes:



The 40th anniversary of APPLE 1

The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 at a price of $666.66.

One piece of history which changed the world

Apple Computer Inc. was founded on April 1 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne



For sale:

1 pcs Apple 1 pre NTI Replica Signed by Steve Wozniak

( first version of APPLE 1)



Assembled by Giuliano Mingarelli



Very nice item, fully tested and working

for museum or collectors



Most parts used are same periode from 1973 to 1978

(Only 2 2400uf 25v Sprague Capacitors are with date code 1984 ,

and PCB come from Newton Computer 2016 )



Fairchild ICs, Signetics and National ICs (from '73 to '77)

TEXAS Instruments closed frame sockets

Plastic MOS 6502 1977

Motorola MC6820L GOLD purple CERAMIC 1977

SIGNETICS 2513N CM2140 date code 76

Gold National LM323K 1975

Mostek ram 4096N-11 1978

5x 22uf 25v Philips capacitors



17pcs 0.1uf Bel Ceramic capacitors (very hard to find)

Circle D ceramic capacitors

CINCH 44 PIN EDGE CONNECTOR

330 ohm Piher resistor

Yellow Spectrol trimmer

GE A14F DIODE

FAIRCHILD DIODE

Motorola MPS 3705 GOLD Legs

Molex connector

Wakefield Heat sink

[theinonen]

12 000 USD is crazy money from a replica, especially when it is not unique (Other than that Woz signature.) and empty boards are sold for self assembly.

[Irinikus]

Period specific components coupled with the Woz signature make all the difference here.

Something as simple as a signature on the right item can be worth 10s of thousands of dollars. (I know it sounds crazy, but we do live in a crazy world!)