Software engineer Josh Dersch loves old computers. He spends countless hours tinkering in his garage, trying to coax decades-old machines back to life. He estimates he owns more than 200 vintage computers and devices in his Seattle home.
“It’s always been fascinating to me to see the origins of things,” Dersch said. “It’s a fun challenge to debug and repair. You can understand the entire system from top to bottom.”
Dersch is part of a growing community of vintage computer collectors who are preserving the classic machines that helped launch the digital revolution. While Silicon Valley has since moved on to shaping the future of artificial intelligence, these hardware enthusiasts are intent on saving the Atari, Commodore and IBM machines that are ancestors to today’s laptops, wearable devices and smart phones.
Where others see junk, people like Dersch see artifacts of computer history that are worthy of attention and respect. They delight in hearing the beeps and chimes of their childhood and firing up a low-def game of “Pong” or “Space Invaders.”
“The enthusiasm for the history of computers and all the stuff around it is growing,” said Erik Klein, president of the Vintage Computer Federation, which organizes an annual festival at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Vintage computer festivals bring collectors together
This year more than 3,500 people attended the two-day Vintage Computer Festival in early August that celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apple, founded in 1976 in nearby Cupertino, Calif. It featured a panel with co-founders Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne reminiscing about the company’s early days as a scrappy startup led by the late Steve Jobs.
More than a dozen such gatherings have since sprung up in cities across North America, South America and Europe.
Growing interest is reflected in more demand for vintage computers in online marketplaces, Klein said. Rare, iconic computers like the Apple-1 — the company’s first product — can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Collectors exhibited the computer systems that they have painstakingly restored to their original working condition, allowing attendees to play with the computers built long before the internet, social media and AI transformed the world.
Restoring the ‘grandfather of the modern computer’
Dersch drove down from Seattle to showcase the pride of his collection: the Xerox Alto. He spent years restoring what's considered “the grandfather of the modern computer,” which was developed at the pioneering Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s.
The Alto was one of the earliest computers to move beyond text on screen and use the mouse and graphical user interface, such as windows, icons and cursors, that became the industry standard. The model famously inspired Jobs and Bill Gates to incorporate the technologies in their early products.
Dersch’s exhibit featured a fully functioning Xerox Alto workstation with its boxy vertical monitor, chunky keyboard and mouse, as well as pizza-sized spinning disks that store tiny amounts of data by modern standards.
“It’s fun to share what I’ve done with people. It’s fun to share in what other people have done,” Dersch said. “Also, there’s a consignment area where I can buy more junk to take home with me, so that’s always fun.”
Klein, a Silicon Valley software engineering manager, was a passionate collector until his hobby overwhelmed his home and family life. He had as many as 150 computer systems — complete with accessories, documents and packaging — crammed into his closets and garage.
He said his beloved collection had become an “albatross” and he worried about burdening his family. So he started selling and giving away his machines until he only had a few favorites left at home.
Similar events for collectors spread around the world
Now Klein channels his passion for vintage computers into organizing festivals, repair workshops, swap meets and other events as president of the Vintage Computer Federation.
“So it’s really about evangelizing that history and evangelizing this hobby of maintaining, collecting and enjoying this vintage technology,” Klein said.
Sellam Ismail is thrilled to see the collector community develop and mature since he organized the first festival in 1997, drawing about 150 hobbyists to a venue east of San Francisco. He ran the events for a decade.
He later co-founded the Vintage Computer Federation, which runs festivals in the US and Canada. He’s helped other groups launch similar festivals in Argentina, Germany and Switzerland.
“The community grew up. More and more people started getting old computers, started collecting them,” said Ismail, who once had a massive collection he stored in a warehouse. “Next year is the 30th anniversary. And I expect this to continue and grow even bigger.”
