While visiting the Bay Area Maker Faire this past weekend, I was struck by something: we’re seeing the emergence of a full-fledged retrocomputer industry. There were at least two retrocomputing-specific businesses exhibiting (GGLABS and Manila Gear), and a couple of others selling newly-designed systems running BASIC that would have been at home in 1982. Yes, this stuff has been around since back when retrocomputing was just “computing”, and there have always been vendors providing replacement parts for obsolete machines. But it’s only within the past few years that we’ve seen businesses developing new hardware for 25-year-old computers with no practical purpose beyond nostalgia.
This is a surprisingly big market. Name any brand of computer from the 1980s, and there’s almost sure to be someone in 2017 who will sell you new peripherals and expansion hardware for it. Just within the retro-Apple community, besides BMOW and the two others I already mentioned who are developing new retro-centric hardware, there’s Rich Dreher, Nishida Radio, Michael McMaster, A2retrosystems, RetroConnector, Sigma Seven Systems, Plamen Vaysilov, and many many others (let me know who I’ve forgotten). Then there are also general merchandise stores of retro-Apple products, like A2Heaven, UltimateApple2, and Reactive Micro. I’m not always clear whether those are storefronts for a single business’s own products, or whether they’re reselling products developed by others, but either way they’re impressive. If you’re in love with old computer nostalgia from decades past, then these are the golden years.