Vintage Computer Collecting Surges as 3,500 Attend Silicon Valley Festival
Updated
Updated · Jamestown Post Journal · Aug 15
Vintage Computer Collecting Surges as 3,500 Attend Silicon Valley Festival
1 articles · Updated · Jamestown Post Journal · Aug 15
Summary
More than 3,500 people attended the two-day Vintage Computer Festival in Mountain View in early August, underscoring rising interest in restoring and preserving pre-internet machines.
Collectors say the AI era is sharpening fascination with computing’s roots, while the hobby’s hands-on appeal comes from repairing systems simple enough to understand from top to bottom.
The event marked Apple’s 50th anniversary with a panel featuring co-founders Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, and exhibitors showed restored Atari, Commodore, IBM and Xerox Alto systems.
More than a dozen similar gatherings now span North America, South America and Europe, while online demand has lifted prices for rare models such as the Apple-1 into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Organizers trace the movement’s growth from about 150 attendees at the first 1997 festival and expect further expansion as the community approaches its 30th anniversary next year.