My retro collection

[IngoQ]

I thought, it would be a nice idea to see, how others have set up their system or arranged their collection.

So here is how I set things up. I had an old closet and turned it into a "Retro workplace" so to say :) I added boards and a foldaway desk that uses no space, when not in use. Here it is:

overview.jpg

As you can see, this set up is usable for pretty much any retro system, starting of course with my beloved 1040STE (4MB, HxC Floppy Emulator, UltraSatan):

st_action.jpg

And here comes my Amiga 1200: (28MHz 68020, 64MB, CF IDE)

amiga_action.jpg

Moving over to the 8-Bit era, starting with the almost 16bit Texas Instruments TI 99/4a (32k, F18A, Flashrom99):

ti994a_action.jpg

And of course the C64 (Aldi version, 1541 Ultimate):

c64_action.jpg

And last but not least my Atari 800XL (Ultimate 1MB, SIDE 2, VBXE, Dual POKEY):

atarixl_action.jpg

[exxos]

wow, some serious OCD somewhere there I think :lol:

[IngoQ]

Yeah, that's why nobody likes germans :-P

[exxos]

Yeah, that's why nobody likes germans :-P

:lolbig: :coolpics:

[DrF]

Some serious organization there :)

[exxos]

Some serious organization there :)

Almost makes me want to send him 50 ST's to see how he keep them all tidy :lol:

[Anzac]

Really nice setup... tidy and organized...

my mancave looks nothing like that... :)

[IngoQ]

You didn't see the other side of the room :-P

[IngoQ]

Of course, who doesn't like to talk about his stuff? :lol:

As you can see here, I placed the foldable workspace a little below the the shelf, to have room for roughly one rack unit:

overview.jpg

Leftmost is a standard 19" power distibutor with a switch. Hidden beneath are some surge protectors. Rightmost I placed a 10" keystone panel:

keystone.jpg

It has connectors for audio, composite video, s-video component video, hdmi and ethernet in it. The Audio goes to a small 2.1 desktop speaker system, I had lying around (an older model from Logitech). All video signals go to the framemeister, that sits on the shelf:

framemeister.jpg

It's not the prettiest solution, but I needed the framemeister visible (IR remote control) and accessible (sd card for firmware updates and profiles).
The keystone stuff is basically all Delock as shown here: http://www.delock.com/produkte/F_463_ei ... anguage=en It's cheap and does what it's supposed to.

Ethernet goes to a small switch under the shelf and from there to the router of course.

This worked quite well for everything that fit in the keystone form factor, but since I wanted SCART and VGA I had to make a custom panel:

video.jpg

It's basically a metal cover from a modular switch (HP 5406zl), with some cutouts (Dremel). There I mounted a female SCART connector going to the framemeister (RGB only), a female VGA (directly to the TFT), male DB9 (serial going to a Lantronix, work in progress) and a USB port (going to a PC not shown in pic).

I covered all with tape, to hide the cutouts, maybe I am going to paint it, when I am bored enough :)

The idea behind all this is basically that you connect whatever your retro system provides to the panel, chose input and profile on the framemeister, and off you go. In case of VGA you'd have to switch the TFTs input, since the framemeister accepts no VGA (at least not in any useful way). HDMI is just pass-through, although the Framemeister could scale that as well.

The USB connection is for things like SIO2USB and RespeQt, when using the 8bit Atari for example. But it comes in handy on other occasions :)

RS232 will be connected to a LANTRONIX, that provides Telnet via serial connection. It is again for the 8Bit machines to allow connecting to dial-up BBS that still exist and provide access via Telnet :)

[Anzac]

i don´t know if you´re extremely motivated or have too much free time!

anyway, very nice job! congrats...