I'm sure these things go in cycles.
For me, there's a 30 year 'unwritten rule', where you are nostalgic for something and you have the disposable income to spend on it.
From my own personal journey, I was computer mad. All my friends had 8 bit micros, but I was late to the party, but started off with a 'bang' with an Amiga 500. Some friends had oodles of backup games and I kept clean for years, but then gave in.
I attend the South West Amiga Meet which is 3 times a year and it's great to hang out with like minded fans. Some fans are flush, some aren't. Some want owt for nowt, some are willing to pay.
Where we find ourselves in the Amiga world is far from the original hardware with Gotek drives, upscalers, PiStorms, Checkmate and various new cases. There's still the 'iconic' Amigas, I'd love to own, including the 4000 and the 3000.
But, when you can emulate this lot on a Raspberry Pi, Amiga Forever, WinUAE etc, what is it that you want to acheive with your nostalgia.
For my A1200, I have the Philips monitor (which I never had in the glory days), scanners, CF Drive, RAM and accelerator card.
When the PC took off with gaming and multimedia, I still championed my Amiga. Our famliy upgraded to an Amiga 1200 and then got left behind. Thankfully, that Amiga 1200 is the one I still own to this day.
..And that's when I started collecting retro PCs. This for me was reliving the point in time where I didn't have a PC and couldn't afford to keep upgrading parts.
But, then you have Mister, PCEMu, even emulating your favourite games on Internet Archive in the web browser. How's that for a quick fix?
I have more kit that I can hope to tend to in my lifetime. I can't yet bring myself to sell it. I was using 'moving house' as an excuse for cataloging my collection and working out whether to sell stuff.
So I guess my point is, the focus will shift, but to what end?
Good luck!
