Instant Vintage Intel Collection

You may have wondered what happens to all the old CPUs and other components in old computers and other equipment that are no longer useful to most people, or to the remaining stocks of obsolete components.

With gold prices as high as they are currently, many of these components get scrapped, and some people make a good living out of that, or supplement their main incomes. Other components have a much more interesting future. The forums on CPU-World are full of people who collect them. Some collect pretty chips that have a lot of gold plate on them, while others have their favorite type of processor, microcontroller, or other types of component. Another group of collector collect chips from specific manufacturers. In the CPU collecting community, early Intel processors and support chips are a big area of interest for many. Whatever your reason for collecting, it preserves early digital (and related) technology that falls within your area of interest.

One of the largest collections in the world of early Intel chips is owned by Mats Byström from Sweden, whose collection is currently insured for £100,000 and is for sale. The collection can be viewed at CPU-Zone.

Some of the rarer old chips can sell at upwards of several $1000, and make a great investment, as over the last several years rare collectible chips have been shown to mostly hold their value. Mats' collection contains many examples of some of those rare chips, and he has started putting many of them in frames for display, along with short descriptions. There are many duplicates as well, which aren't listed on the website. This is a real museum piece!

Collecting computer chips (and other electronic parts and equipment) is rarely an easy hobby, but it is certainly an interesting and rewarding hobby. And if the geek in you wants something unusual to do with your time and/or money you can't go wrong with this hobby.

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Mats' interest in computer chips started while he was working for a small computer company in the early 90's. When they upgraded peoples computers, they kept all the old working processors in a box, which they gave him when he left. That sparked his interest in collecting, back in 1995.

Mats had always been fascinated by how much information could be stored on a small piece of silicon, and that box of processors contained some of the most complex silicon produced. So it seemed logical to frame them and put them on display. Starting out with a knowledge of and interest in the chips provided a good starting point for a collector. A lot of us start out knowing more about the chips than the technology, but we all learn as our collections grow.

Possibly the rarest chip in Mats collection is a white 8080, with no prefix or suffix. There are not many known examples of that chip in existence. It's not the most valuable though. Most collectors want a C4004 with grey traces on the ceramic, and when they appear on eBay they can fetch upwards of $2000! You can see 2 examples of this chip in the frame pictured above.