This is my vintage / retro computer and games collection and has been keeping me fascinated for the past 16 years. The collection covers systems from various manufacturers over a period of more than 35 years and ranges from machines, consoles, games, software, magazines and books to just about any other retro or vintage computing related items.

The original intention was just a single old computer to play some games on. It would be more 'realistic' and enjoyable than the variety of emulators available I thought. Over the years I've gone from nothing to hoarding and finally to a more focused attempt at collecting and rebuilding the systems from my youth. Be it systems that I played on at friends and family or ones I actually owned, the enjoyment of hunting down the pieces required has been both a challenge and a fantastic journey leading to many new friendships and an entire web framework to keep track of it all. On this site you will find some of those items that I have taken the time to document and photograph with, time permitting, many more still to come.

My primary area of focus is IBM and IBM Compatible machines starting from the 8088 up to the early Pentium II systems (last of the DOS days) but the Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, CreatiVision, Apple II, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and many others also make an appearance as many of the games and software from the IBM DOS days also appeared on these systems and it's awesome to see how the versions differ over the various platforms.

On occasion some of the computers in my collection have been used in television adverts, miniseries and film productions.

The aim of this website is to document my own journey and discover things about my collection that I might not otherwise have realised. If you have the time I can recommend doing the same. Please take the time to search around and use the contact option if you would like to get in touch with me. If you don't see items for a specific system on the website it may mean that I have not had time to capture them or it's something that I don't have in the collection.

This site has recently been updated and the earlier site is available on https://archive.oldcomputers.co.za. Over the coming weeks items will be merged into the new platform.

April 2022 has been a reasonable month

During this month I finally received a GoTek drive to make life easier and some IDE2CF / SD cards so that I can remove physical drives from all of the machines that are available for usage.

Finally after some searching for 3d printable brackets I managed to get together an assortment which has allowed my to mount the C64, C64C, ZX81, ZX81 and 48k Spectrum computers on the walls. This not only saves some space but makes them easily accessible and it's nice to have them on constant display.

The star of this months show however has to be Lode Runner. A game I first encountered around 1987 and one that I played for hours and hours on end without ever really completing the levels. A simple game that appeared on many platforms, as I later found out, yet one that even today still has loads of play value. The version that is coming to the collection this month is the version that I remember but was later updated as Championship Lode Runner.

April has also seen the acquisition of a photo tent which will hopefully spur on the next round of cataloguing. 

The following items joined the collection:

• Rainbird
• Janes Fighters - Antholoy
• GoTek
  
• IDE2CF card (for Amiga 4000)
  
• IDE2SD card (for Pentium build)
• Lode Runner