41–50 of 83 posts
Maybe think of it as curating or collating your collection?
There may be museums that would take your items, and you can be sure that they'll be cared for correctly by experts.
I seriously suggest finding a therapist. The fact that there are so many boxes that you haven't opened makes this hoarding. Don't make it unnecessarily hard on yourself. A therapist will help you through this.
Yeah it's hoarding. Though a day may come where I might find life is at the right point to create a little computer museum. Maybe.
Add to that, you should check the condition of the equipment regularly. If you have zero days per year for that, you'll be very sad if you try to turn on that Apple 2 in a decade or two. But you already know that. OTOH if you have half a Saturday per month, you can probably open up and visually inspect at least 20 machines per year; if you have the know-how, maybe pick one to repair. Doesn't matter if you do it over a weekend or over two years. If you have a room for storage, outfit it with a desk for your current repair project - good lightning, scopes, soldering station, good note taking (important when rarely working on it), decent part bins.
Cutting to the chase, I ended up giving away a few systems and recycled the rest. It was very difficult for me to do since I had an emotional attachment to a couple of the systems, as well as the idea of some day getting around to playing with them. In the end (after regretting the decision in the short term) I can say that I don't really think about it anymore, and the burden of storing all that stuff is no longer an issue.
I'm an anti-stuff guy so just reading this is giving me anxiety! Why people need to collect anything? It's just stuff!
Well, vintage computers are the ki d of stuff that there is less and less of. It’s like trying to find and buy a CRT TV these days. Utterly impossible.
Or find a museum with nice people who know what they are doing and are looking for this. Gift or sell to them or borrow it to them (I don’t know the english word) like collectors do with paintings to museums. I have 1000s of vintage computers myself and different places are showing and keeping them. Right temperature etc and fixing them when broken and having many people who can see and try (some of) them. I kept 20…
Yes if there was a really great museum I trusted this might be something I'd consider. Here in Australia there's not much in the way of technology museums. There's Powerhouse, but I don't know if they would care much about such a collection.
Many collectors end up shopkeeps as a retirement hobby.
There's a million caveats here -- you need to live somewhere that has enough people to visit your shop, you need to be financially secure enough to sink some money into renting a storefront, you need to be able to spend time in your shop on a regular basis, and you shouldn't expect your shop to actually make money.
But if you like collecting more than having a shop gives you a space and an excuse to putter around with your collection, repairing, maintaining, and displaying it while selling and occasionally buying new pieces. There are any number of antique shops or used bookstores that started from someone who retired with a large collection.
I collected classic video games for a while. After a while, I realized I'd be happier if I focused on one area (Atari). Eventually, I wasn't playing or displaying the consoles or games, so I got rid of all of it except for one nice 2800 console and a couple of the funnest games which I wanted to show my kids.
Somebody else got to enjoy the stuff that was just sitting in my boxes. No regrets.