It’s been over a year since the last one so it’s time for another of my semi-regular looks at the hoard of gaming stuff I’m storing round here. I’ve been actively collecting for something like 20 years now but the oldest bits date back to when I first bought them around the end of the 80’s. I’ll keep it shortish as there aren’t massive changes to the last time. The main difference is that I’ve replaced all the bookcases holding the big boxes for much larger and smarter Ikea equivalents. Other than that I’ve added a good few big box games, and a whole lot of PC Zones in my efforts to get them all scanned.

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The big boxes are in what would probably be a dining room in a more normal house but I’ve dedicated it to PC gaming (plus the occasional bit of work). Starting on the left, I’ve got a load of posters and a repro Crusader standee on the wall with the radiator. The glass desk is an oddity I’ve had since early 2000’s where someone had the bright idea of putting the CRT monitor underneath so that it doesn’t take up all your desk space. It’s great for that purpose but I really should get something a bit bigger one of these days for my main PC.

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Onto the big boxes. I still haven’t organised them particularly well but they are loosely clumped by company or theme. It has on occasion taken me 10 minutes to find something when I can’t remember what the side of the box looked like. Most of the Origin stuff is in that first bookcase. There are Star Trek, Infocom, Access, Westwood and SCI clumps in the other cases.

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Next is Sierra corner with everything AGI and SCI. After that, it’s Lucasarts, guide books too big to fit into their boxes, FPS’s and Legend adventure games.

The final case is extremely random, a little bit of an Interplay theme going on but it’s basically everything else. I may thin some of this out this year of the bits I’m not too worried about.

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On to the upstairs, the box room is currently storing all the old PC magazines. These are way better organised than the games and all in chronological order – if they weren’t I would never be able to find anything. The PC Zone coverdisks are neatly stored here in order as of about a week ago when I plugged all the gaps in the archive. The drawers on the right are largely full of Origin design docs most of which I’ve shared on this site over the years.

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Finally up another floor to the attic room which is where all the consoles and computers go. The stairway up has all the really big Origin posters that I can’t fit anywhere else. I’ve a few old books and the like shoved in the first corner. I expect my guide books may end up in here before much longer.

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Going round, most of my old systems are plugged into the B&O TV in the corner via an impenetrable nest of SCART switches and cables.

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I don’t especially collect games for any of these systems relying largely on multi-carts instead but I have added a load of Ultimate – Play The Game boxes this last year. My old TV from student days is on the right which is a bit more basic than the B&O. I’ve found that not all the systems will work on the B&O for whatever reason. The picture on the C128 is fairly patchy also and may end up moving to this corner in the foreseeable future.

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My favourite bit up here is the collection of old PC’s with a IIGS, Tandy 1000 TX, FM Towns 2, 286 (set up for composite CGA) and the Amstrad CPC at the end. You may spot that the monitors don’t actually match the machine they are sat on (for space reasons). The IIGS actually outputs to the TV in the corner. The rest of the magazine cover disks are nestled in an alcove on the right in a slightly disheveled state having extracted all the PC Zone disks the other week.

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I’ve got the heart of the tiger up here at the moment. He was supposed to go on the wall downstairs but is too wide to actually fit. I could move all the pictures around if I was keen enough but for now he lives up here next to the Vectrex and spare controllers.

That’s the lot. The collection isn’t likely to grow a whole lot bigger from here on out. I’d like to keep the rest of the house relatively normal and two games rooms is kind of excessive as it is. I’d rather enjoy what I’ve got at this point and most of these systems haven’t seen anywhere near enough use as it is. There is always room for a few more big boxes though and maybe a 386/486 this next year.

Addendum – By request, here are closeups of all the shelves:-

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