There’s something wonderfully direct about an old computer.

You switch it on, hear the drive come to life and wait for a blinking cursor or familiar desktop to appear. There are no cloud accounts, background updates or notifications competing for your attention. The machine has a purpose, and every limitation is right there in front of you.

That simplicity is part of the appeal—but nostalgia plays a role too.

My first computer was a Commodore 16. It wasn’t powerful, even by the standards of its time, but it opened a door. Computers were no longer mysterious machines used by governments or large companies. They were something I could explore, understand and control.

That feeling never really left me.

Today, collecting and restoring retro computers gives me a different relationship with technology. Modern devices are often sealed boxes designed to be replaced when something fails. Older computers invite you to open them, trace a fault, replace a component and understand how the machine actually works.

Restoring one isn’t always straightforward. A computer that has been sitting untouched for 30 years may have leaking capacitors, brittle plastic, failed storage or a power supply that should never be trusted without inspection. Bringing it back to life requires research, patience and often a little creative problem-solving.

That moment when it finally boots is difficult to beat.

Retro computing also provides perspective. These machines achieved remarkable things with tiny amounts of memory and processing power. Developers couldn’t solve every problem by adding another framework or expecting faster hardware. They had to understand the system, work within its limits and make deliberate choices.

There’s still a valuable lesson in that.

Technology has become enormously more capable, but greater capability doesn’t automatically produce better experiences. Sometimes constraints encourage clearer thinking, simpler design and more inventive solutions.

I don’t collect old computers because I believe everything was better in the past. It wasn’t. I collect them because they represent an important part of where modern technology—and my own career—began.

They remind me how far we’ve come, how much can be achieved with very little and why understanding how things work still matters.