How much of your place do you have set aside for retro computing/gaming?

[ImmortalA1000]

I doubt I will ever be able to have everything I own out for use permanently set up (think medium sized museum with almost one of everything that ever had a PAL video output + a PC Engine lol) but even so, having even the major 8bit/16bit consoles and computers set up and connected to a display will be taking up a lot of space.

I've also noticed if you can get a machine with the standard 3 box design in your collection it saves a huge amount of space i.e. C64+disk drive+TV vs C128D+monitor on top ditto for A500 vs A1000 and 520STFM vs Mega ST with etc and for badly designed machines you can pop the detachable keyboard of the 128D and Mega ST on top of the monitor when not in use. Win!

How much space do you use in your home for such things?

[jotd]

I have a real pinball machine. Does that count?

Apart from that, I have the old A1200 desktop on the left of my desk, ready to fire one game or two. And other computers not directly useable without some adapter plugging in and powering.

[Weasel Fierce]

Currently just a corner desk in our living room. It houses the A1200 plus a spare Mac Mini which is set up just to run Openemu and a bunch of emulator games.

It means I can spend time with it and still hang out with the wife, instead of being all stuffed away in the bedroom where that stuff was previously.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by jotd

I have a real pinball machine. Does that count?

Apart from that, I have the old A1200 desktop on the left of my desk, ready to fire one game or two. And other computers not directly useable without some adapter plugging in and powering.

lol I mean total space in your home, rooms etc, is taken up with actual retro gear so yes pinball machines and arcade cabinets etc all count

I wouldn't mind an arcade cabinet of something I used to play as a kid in my workshop I keep my cars in but the prices of Galaxian etc can't be justified in the last 7 years since I could afford one

[d4rk3lf]

Simple straight forward answer would be:
I am currently in the process of arranging my working room (I am a freelancer) in the house I purchased recently, and right from the start, I have left some nice space for my Amiga 500 + Aca 500+, and my CRT TV.

Long, boring answer would be:
I don't wanna get too much political, and my country (Serbia) is poor, but one of the stuff I don't envy Western countries and how they manage living space for their citizens.
Giving away 1/3 of your (pretty rich) salary just for renting or owning house, is, imho, very insane. In Serbia, you pay like 100-200-300 euros per year. if you own the house, and EVEN THAT makes me pretty angry.
Did our ancestors fought for our freedom so that we pay 1/3 of the WHOLE salary to live in the lands where our ancestors already lived for free ? To whom we are paying that? Shouldn't the right for (basic) home should be granted as human essential right.. right where you don't need to pay anything to anyone to just live on the small piece of land?
Taxes? Country must live up to something.. FINE..
Take me taxes for the food.. take me taxes for the roads... how can you take tax for where I live, for God's sake? Tomorrow, if there is a war, army might decide to retreat (for strategic purposes) from the lands where my house is, so why do I pay you 1/3 of my salary every month?
Seriously, I have wondered, and I still wonder why westerners don't revolt for this insane renting/owning house policy... people.. these houses are yours... these lands are yours... I understand if some foreign country occupied you, so you need to pay 1/3 of the salary, but isn't England, France, Germany etc countries that are not vasal states?

All above mentioned, and if we ask how much space we have for Amiga, or any retro hobby.. well, if you pay serious money each month, for renting or owning apartment, it will certainly not be too much.
I remember when DamienD wrote here how he was moving out into smaller apartment, and didn't had space for Amiga...
Sad.. really sad...
His ancestors might fought Hitler very braveouslly.. died,, and all that... for what? So their descendent moves into smaller apartments?
Bah!

[seb132]

A full attic…

[malko]

@d4rk3lf : some valid points here. And, yes remember also Damien move in the "shoes box" room and low speed Internet connection ...
Anyway, put aside rental price and house moves, space that was allocated to "retro" computing was naturally reduced as time goes and family grew. Because mini-Godzillas require place/space to live as well (and also due to rental prices it's impossible to move in as bigger appartement as they grow up...). So most of my "retro" things are in boxes in the cellar and thanks to emulators to keep the experience alive

[chip]

Just my notebook with a pair of amplifiers on a table inside my room

[stevelord]

I'm fortunate enough to have a home office at the current place, so my Amiga 4000 and G4 Mac Mini get their own desk there. I have another desk in the living room which houses some Hi-Fi gear and the CDTV as well as some of my ham radio gear. My main desk in the home office also has a MiSTer for when I need a bit of a break from work, so I can switch over and have a quick blast on R-Type and then go back to work, which is nice.

[PDrill]

Pretty satisfied with the current situation, especially compared to what many people seem to have to do with Could quite easily get all my A and C= stuff available 247 but no reason to so I don't. The A1200 is always there, the other systems vary by what I'm interested in at the moment. Surely it would be nice to have two-three times the same space to get some arcade cabinets and and and

And never enough sockets

[Megalomaniac]

About a 1/3 of my living room floor for the systems, and 1/3 of my bedroom shelves for the games. Need some more units to store and display everything, as the collection has rebuilt quite quickly. Not enough ports on my TV to have everything plugged in, but the antenna and all three AV ports have consoles or computers plugged in.

[Daedalus]

We have a spare room that I mostly fill with my computing and engineering stuff. The bed in there also serves as an area for boxes of parts, machines I'm sort of working on and so on, but all of that has to be packed away when visitors come to stay.

Edit: Found a photo from a little while ago...

[ImmortalA1000]

Not too fussed about displaying stuff myself, it's always more convenient to use real hardware with things like Gotek, SD2IEC, TAPuino etc just that CRT monitors and the machines do take up a fair bit of space. Boxed items go on top of various wardrobes, thankfully this old house has 10 foot high rooms so plenty of space above bookshelves and wardrobes.

When I have more of the house done one of the living rooms can have bookshelves and a large CRT TV with consoles like Coleco, Intellivision, 2600 connected and still space for some monitors and systems. Would still need to prioritise, when do you need a Dragon 32, Colour Genie or Thomson M07 set up and connected to a TV all the time

I would actually use the attic but the ceiling at the highest point is a few inches shorter than me as it is walking on the rafters/beams AND there is no easy way to put a staircase up to the loft without massive expense so going through a small trapdoor via a ladder in the bathroom is not good. The CDTV multimedia boxed bundle will never even fit through that trap door lol. Still I am thinking of putting some boards down and just using it for storage but stuff would have to go in sealed plastic storage boxes etc but it is an option.

[jotd]

The A1200 shares 1/3 of my desk with the cat

Attachment 77047

Also at lot of stuff on the side, 2 Orics, 1 steering wheel, 2 CD32 that I can connect quickly but what's the point and 1 A500.

I just repaired the "Black Hole" Pinball machine sitting in the main room. I had the replacement part for months but didn't take the time to remove the glass and change it... 1/2h of work...

[ImmortalA1000]

I thought the cat was no more?

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

I doubt I will ever be able to have everything I own out for use permanently set up (think medium sized museum with almost one of everything that ever had a PAL video output + a PC Engine lol) but even so, having even the major 8bit/16bit consoles and computers set up and connected to a display will be taking up a lot of space.

I've also noticed if you can get a machine with the standard 3 box design in your collection it saves a huge amount of space i.e. C64+disk drive+TV vs C128D+monitor on top ditto for A500 vs A1000 and 520STFM vs Mega ST with etc and for badly designed machines you can pop the detachable keyboard of the 128D and Mega ST on top of the monitor when not in use. Win!

How much space do you use in your home for such things?

I was hoping this question would never be asked by anyone here

Filling up a museum seems about right. But I have about 5-6 "stations" where actual hardware is hooked up. 6 Amigas with different configs are hooked up and connected, also a C64, and a MAME station + a bunch of mainstream Consoles (80s, 90s, 00s... Cable management for these.. I need to invent something clever there.. Jeeees...
Anyhoo, the other 98% sits in storage cupboards in the basement.

My son also has a "gaming station" with a bunch of more modern consoles at his room. My daughter plays 99% on a Tablet and the only time she plays on a console with a gamepad is when playing Minecraft on the living room Xbox.

And then you see these pocket sized things that can emulate 20 systems and it fits in your pocket

[ImmortalA1000]

I don't like having stuff in closed off areas, had a leaking radiator valve and it ruined a box for a 1902 monitor, Hopefully the new old stock monitor inside is fine still

lol I had one of those Chinese PSP look-a-likes that played NES and Gameboy games, they were dirt cheap too and the screen was surprisingly good (better than a real Gameboy except the Advance SP).

When the entire house is finished the PS2 (just for passing the time in GTA San Andreas free roam mode with cheats) will go under the big plasma and also one of my CDTV units (SCART RGB) so I can play the It Came from the Desert ISO on it wirelessly with the remote. Hopefully I will find some more working Cinemaware ISOs but Wings is on two disks only and probably would work OK if I plug in two floppy drives too. That's basically casual gaming on the sofa

The other living room will have the bigger CRT, would love a massive CRT TV but I can't move them, and all the retro consoles etc up to MegaDrive/PC Engine era. Also inherited a huge sideboard in that room so I can use that possibly as an enormous desk but I don't know, if it makes the room feel small maybe not. Hard to tell, 2/3 of all my remaining stuff is in that room, the other 1/3 in the third bedroom or this massive room I use.

Upstairs is mainly going to be computers on desks. One room that is fully finished at the moment has 4 monitors/TVs, 5 systems Amstrad 464, Amiga 1000, Commodore 128D, Atari 7800 and Colecovision together as the TV has a front RF input and selector switch. No space for the Vectrex in there sadly, run out of nest tables. Might need to take a trip to British Heart Foundation furniture store, they usually have nice glass/chrome nest tables.

The other room used to have a CDTV but I packed that away as bugger all worked really due to lack of memory ditto the failing CD32 I tried after that also packed away so it's just my fav' portable Trinitron and my fav' breadbin with a strong 6581. But it's really just a temporary dumping ground for all my stuff in boxes as it's really just a projector room for watching movies/TV etc.

Both rooms have a nice late 80s hi-fi but one set of speakers is a bit iffy. One is for the Amiga 1000 (well, I had this actual hi-fi connected to my A1000 back in the 80s so it seemed right) and the other is for the C64 which has a whole stack of SIDs and SIDplayer on the SD2IEC

It's just me and my 7 cats though.

[gimbal]

Technically I have a room to spare now to do some retro setup in...

I'm not going to do anything related to the Amiga though, my personal opinion is that only people who are willing and able to repair the old hardware should get one. I'd just use one up and then probably leave it in a box broken forever, feeling ashamed to throw it away but other than that I know nobody within acceptable distance who could do something with it.

Probably I'll just not do anything, much cheaper

[str0m]

I have a room setup with a large B&O CRT and an old LCD with about 19 consoles connected (inc CD32) then the main TV in the lounge has a further 8 connected and I have a C64 on the table for now, need to get a 1200 again and set them up in a more permanent setting.

[TCD]

Until recently I would have said none, but I got a few games, manuals and magazines in the last months. So... half a bookshelf