Geek Chic: Old Computers As Collectibles

Apart from the hipness factor, Michael Nadeau, author of "Collectible Microcomputers," a field guide of sorts for collectors, says holding on to a vintage computer is about taking a stroll down memory chip lane.

"If you grew up in the late '70s, for example, and you used this computer, the computer meant something to you," says Nadeau, who founded the Classic Tech site. He has a soft spot for Radio Shack TRS-80s, affectionately known as Trash 80s. "I think cars make for a good analogy: If you grew up in the '70s, the Corvettes, the Mustangs, the Camaros meant something to you. Maybe you didn't own one of those cars, but you wish you had."

For uber-collector Sellam Ismail, storing his more than 2,000 computers locked in a 4,500-square-foot warehouse in Livermore, Calif., is akin to storing history. If the warehouse weren't so messy, he says, he'd fit more. He owns Commodore 64s, one of the most popular computers of the 1980s; every member of the Apple II family; and a PDP-8, a rare creation from the now-defunct manufacturing giant Digital Equipment Corp.

"It's worth at least $20,000," he says of his PDP-8, considered by many to be the first "minicomputer" -- meaning it didn't fill an entire small room -- of the 1960s.

"Everything is happening so fast -- computers that are only 20 years old are completely outmoded, and even today computers that are only five years old are considered outdated, " says Ismail, a self-described "computer archivist" who seems to keep every detail of every computer ever built in memory, and that's not an exaggeration. In computer circles (read: lots of guys who studied engineering in college and cut their teeth on their first PCs and Apples), he's known as the proprietor of the world's largest collection of privately owned computers. He organizes the Vintage Computer Festival, an international Shangri-La for computer collectors and hobbyists. Now regularly held in Mountain View, Calif., in the fall, the festival started in 1997. Three years later, the first European festival was held in Munich, and the inaugural Midwest Vintage Computer Festival at Purdue University in Indiana will take place July 30.

For Ismail, another reason for collecting vintage computers is that computers back in the '60s, '70s and '80s -- the way they looked, the way they were built -- were much more interesting.

"Most of the PCs that have come up in the past 15 years, there's nothing special or interesting about them. It's the same box, no matter from what manufacturer," says Ismail. "What computer collectors tend to focus on are computers that are unique -- you get to play with architecture that's completely foreign from what you're used to."

For this reason and others, the Holy Grail of any serious collector is the first in the Apple line, the Apple I, which was designed by the Steves -- Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak -- and sold in 1976 for the superstitious price tag of $666.66. It even has its own fan club; the Apple I Owners Club was born in 1977, the same year production of Apple I's was discontinued.

"There were 200 made in total," says Ismail. "I've tracked down 35 so far."

In the past five years, during the festival in Mountain View, Apple I's have been up for bidding three times. One sold for $16,000 in 2003, Ismail says, and to his chagrin, he doesn't own one.

The Apple IIc (the "c," by the way, stood for "compact") is not as scarce as the Apple I -- some 400,000 were produced the first year it came out. But tinkering around with his Apple, a gift from Mom and Dad, is always a good time, says Ballos. He shows it off to people; for a while, his 12-year-old son, Colby, played with it.

Ballos, who works in sales for Covad Communications, an Internet company, owns three modern computers: two Shuttle XPCs and a Dell laptop. If he sold his Apple IIc, he'd include the original manuals, and give away the games -- Flight Simulator; Mickey's Space Adventure; One-on-One, a basketball match that pits Julius Erving against Larry Bird -- that are on 5 1/4 -inch floppies, from when a floppy was still floppy.

How much would his Apple sell for? He isn't sure.

Ismail estimates no more than $300, if Ballos has all the original materials; author Nadeau puts it at a more modest $200.

For now, it seems, the Apple IIc that Ballos got for Christmas in 1986 is still a tad too young to be worth real money.