As AI grips world, thrill of collecting vintage computers grows | Latest Tech News
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Software engineer Josh Dersch loves outdated computers. He spends numerous hours tinkering in his storage, making an attempt 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 a component of a growing neighborhood of vintage laptop collectors who are preserving the basic machines that helped launch the digital revolution. While Silicon Valley has since moved on to shaping the future of artificial intelligence, these {hardware} fans are intent on saving the Atari, Commodore and IBM machines that are ancestors to today’s laptops, wearable devices and smartphones.
Attendees play on Apple Macintosh computers from the Nineteen Eighties at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif., on Aug. 2, 2026. AP Photo/Terry Chea
A 1981 Commodore SP9000 “Super PET” laptop and floppy disk drives are displayed at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif., on Aug. 2, 2026. AP Photo/Terry Chea
Where others see junk, people like Dersch see artifacts of laptop historical past that are worthy of consideration and respect. They delight in listening to the beeps and chimes of their childhood and firing up a low-def sport 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 pageant at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View in the center of Silicon Valley.
Vintage laptop festivals convey collectors together
This 12 months more than 3,500 people attended the two-day Vintage Computer Festival in early August that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Apple, based in 1976 in close by 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.
An individual holds a circuit board for the Xerox Alto, an iconic laptop from the Nineteen Seventies, Sunday, August 2, 2026, at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif. (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) AP Photo/Terry Chea
Growing curiosity is mirrored in more demand for vintage computers in online marketplaces, Klein said. Rare, iconic computers just like the Apple-1 — the company’s first product — can fetch a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars}.
Collectors exhibited the pc systems that they’ve painstakingly restored to their authentic working condition, permitting attendees to play with the computers constructed long before the web, social media and AI remodeled the world.
Restoring the ‘grandfather of the modern computer’
Dersch drove down from Seattle to showcase the satisfaction of his assortment: the Xerox Alto. He spent years restoring what’s thought of “the grandfather of the modern computer,” which was developed at the pioneering Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the Nineteen Seventies.
The Alto was one of the earliest computers to transfer past textual content on screen and use the mouse and graphical person interface — such as home windows, icons and cursors — that turned the industry normal. The model famously impressed Jobs and Bill Gates to incorporate the applied sciences in their early merchandise.
Dersch’s exhibit featured a absolutely functioning Xerox Alto workstation with its boxy vertical monitor, chunky keyboard and mouse, as properly as pizza-sized spinning disks that store tiny quantities of data by trendy requirements.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, middle, seems on stage at the Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View, Calif., Sunday, August 2, 2026. (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) AP Photo/Terry Chea
“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 program engineering supervisor, was a passionate collector until his pastime overwhelmed his home and household life. He had as many as 150 laptop systems — full with equipment, paperwork and packaging — crammed into his closets and storage.
He said his beloved assortment had develop into an “albatross” and he fearful about burdening his household. So he began promoting and gifting away his machines until he only had a few favorites left at home.
Similar occasions for collectors unfold around the world
Now Klein channels his ardour for vintage computers into organizing festivals, restore workshops, swap meets and other occasions as president of the Vintage Computer Federation.
Arion Paylo repairs a circuit board at the Vintage Computer Festival on Sunday, August 2, 2026, in Mountain View, Calif. (Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) AP Photo/Terry Chea
“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 neighborhood develop and mature since he organized the first pageant in 1997, drawing about 150 hobbyists to a venue east of San Francisco. He ran the occasions for a decade.
He later co-founded the Vintage Computer Federation, which runs festivals in the US and Canada. He’s helped other teams launch related 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 huge assortment he saved in a warehouse. “Next year is the 30th anniversary. And I expect this to continue and grow even bigger.”
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