Retro PC's are they really worth 100's?

[Retro6]

It's all a niche market. The majority of people don't care for old computers though. Personally I don't get the attraction of wanting to run old crappy games on Windows 95 or dos.
On the other hand, I have a collection of old computers - Acorn Electron, BBC Master, several Acorn Archimedes machines, C64s, Spectrums etc. Likewise, the majority of people will have no interest in these and won't be excited to run old crappy games on them such as Granny's Garden on the BBC

There was also a version of Granny's Garden for the Acorn Archimedes a later version different from the BBC Micro version but has seemed to of disappeared from history, only the BBC version is well known.

Its not just about playing old games. There is so much more to having an old computer. Yesterday I was looking at the Acorn A5000 wishing I could get one for a decent price even if its a broken one I love how it looks. I was going to see if I could get a AT PC case that looks like one to build a similar looking computer with a grey floppy drive and make some Acorn logos to stick on it.I will be running Windows 3.11 instead of RISC OS

Having at least a 3.5 floppy drive is a must for me on every retro build I do 5.25 disk drives are nice too even if the 5.25 disk drive isn't used it looks nice on the machine but the 3.5 floppy drive is always used. I like using floppy disks and I like old operating systems and old computer cases. I have quite a few Acorn Electrons I was planing on sticking a Raspberry Pi in one and making the Acorns keyboard work with the Pi. I used to get them on ebay for less than 20 quid but they probably cost a lot more now. I've got about 5 of them. I had a few BBC Micros too "one still in the attic in its original box and packaging" I sold the other two but I might just leave the other in the attic for another 5 years or so as the prices go up.

There is a lot of nostalgia in old computers. When I build my Windows 95 PC I will make sure I choose a system that dosn't turn off when you shut down the computer so I can see the message on the screen "It is Now Safe to Turn Off Your Computer" in red text. The feeling of pushing in that quality power button off/on and hearing the hard drive spin up, the sound of the CRT monitor coming on and the feeling of a quality keyboard. I have one of those old IBM keyboards with the clicky keys as well as many others. I'm glad I bought all these old keyboards and mice when they were cheap because they are big money now. I'll be keeping on mine to use on my retro builds.

If nobody was interested in these old computers then they wouldn't be so desirable with high price tags on them.

 

[LewisRaz]

There is not a lot of them around and there are a good number of people willing to pay for them. It's fine.
A good amount of people in this hobby are more than capable of replacing parts should they need a service of some sort. Quality components from back then were more robust than they are now.
I dont see many people whipping out a soldering iron on current motherboards to replace components like we can on the 90s stuff.

If you are patient and have a pinch of luck there are still great deals and even freebies to have. My storage cupboard currently has 2x P4 systems, a 4th gen intel system and and 8 core AMD FX system (as well as other machines...) that were all FREE from sites like FB marketplace and trash nothing.

 

[Retro6]

There is not a lot of them around and there are a good number of people willing to pay for them. It's fine.
A good amount of people in this hobby are more than capable of replacing parts should they need a service of some sort. Quality components from back then were more robust than they are now.
I dont see many people whipping out a soldering iron on current motherboards to replace components like we can on the 90s stuff.

If you are patient and have a pinch of luck there are still great deals and even freebies to have. My storage cupboard currently has 2x P4 systems, a 4th gen intel system and and 8 core AMD FX system (as well as other machines...) that were all FREE from sites like FB marketplace and trash nothing.

Wow an 8 core AMD FX for nothing? mind you I can't say I'm surprised there is a hell of a lot of good things out there that get wasted. My experience with recycling companies is that they don't want to let people have anything because of there health and safety policies. There are plenty of people out there who throw away vintage PC's because they think nobody wants them. Computer Aid International scrap some really nice old PC's some of them rare. I asked them if I could take a few but they wasn't allowed to give anything to people even when I offered to pay them. Its ridiculous. I wont give up I will try again at some point.

The thing with many old PC's is that many were built on the cheap mass produced for business's. I've said this already and I'll say it again. Old PC\s do fail easily and sure there are some good quality machines worth paying a bit more for most of the stuff you see on ebay is not worth it. You can get out the soldering iron and replace some parts on a faulty motherboard but not everything. I've had my fair share of old computers fail on me They are pretty old now. I think its an absolute joke that P4's are now demanding vintage computer prices.