Collector’s Corner

Steven Furnell shows off his impressive home computer-focused hoard

This month’s collector has an impressive home computer hoard

This month’s collector hails from the nautical south coast city of Plymouth. Originally from Cornwall, Steven Furnell has assembled an impressive collection, and is fond of posting pictures of hardware, games and books on social media. This collector, however, has gone one step further, putting a large majority of his collection on display at the University Of Plymouth, where he works as professor of information security.

“The idea originally came about around ten years ago when I was head of school and we were looking to give some identity to the corridors,” says Steven. While describing the displays as a museum would

be a bit of a stretch, the carefully curated collection of computers and consoles is readily available for students and guests to view throughout the School Of Computing at the university. “We had the idea of getting some cabinets and displaying student project works, and for fun I put in a few retro computing devices in them as a holding position,” continues Steven. “This seemed to be well received, so I needed little encouragement to get some more cabinets and expand the display.”

As his collection is displayed within the university, the main daily visitors consist of staff, visitors to the department and students. “I often wander down the corridors and find people stopping to look at the cabinets,” notes Steven, “and you normally hear snippets of, ‘I used to have one of them,’ and so on. The students themselves tend to be surprised by the size, appearance and specs of some of the machines.” Known as the South

West Retro Computing Archive, Steven’s collection boasts famous machines such as the Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Acorn BBC, along with obscurer computers like the Yamaha CX5M and the Acorn Archimedes. Consoles are less represented, but there’s still room for a range of handhelds, several varieties of Grandstand Pong units and an Atari 2600. In addition to the regular displays, Steven also holds events in order to show the retro love. “We’ve done a number of retro computing and gaming events over the years for the regional branch of BCS, the chartered institute, as well as related talks for the local network of the Institute Of Engineering

And Technology,” he explains. Many of the machines also get an airing for the university’s annual science and technology showcase event, giving attendees a chance to sample computing history first-hand.

Given its location, the archive serves as an appropriate reminder of how far technology has progressed in a relatively short time. “I tend to say to computing students that much of the archive isn’t really that old, with many of them [arriving] within the last 40 years or so,” says Steven. “And it’s worth thinking that 40 years is roughly the working lifetime for the students once they graduate, so during their careers

they can expect to see the technology transformed to at least a similar degree.” The systems are maintained on a voluntary basis, with Steven’s colleagues Paul Downland, Bogdan Ghita, Ismini Vasileiou and John Welsh all contributing in various vital ways. To learn more about the archive, visit retro-computing.org.