Info about ourselves...

[jrmunro]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
For fun along with my Telegraph Insulator collection.

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
An Intel 8088

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
1700+

4. What do you collect?
CPU, FPU, MCU and BSP

5. How long have you been collecting for?
Late 2000

6. What chip do you long for?
C4004, C4040 for now.

John

[bacterio]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
Because it's my little hobby

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
A Zilog Z80 from my brother's Amstrad CPC 464, which today goes well

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection?
About 60, don't know really

4. What do you collect?
Mainly CPU, motherboards and videocards, soundcards, etc...

5. How long have you been collecting for?
Don't know, i love computers since y have my first computer, jejejej

6. What chip do you long for?
Puffff, difficult question, a complete sun ultrasparc server, or a server with a lot of processors

[mvortikar]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
Mainly because I'm a geek.
Additionally because I have an ongoing project to complete this display case (which won Lee's contest. as well as just being a cool hobby.

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
D8085

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
About 60 or so.

4. What do you collect?
Intel CPU/FPU only, lowest clock speed and rarest examples of each type only(for the display). Additionally, keychains with chip dies.

5. How long have you been collecting for?
About 12 years.

6. What chip do you long for?
C8080, C8086

-Mvort

[Qwerty]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
I like old computers, but I have no room to collect them. So I have decided to collect the CPUs.

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
It was my spare A80486DX-50.

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection?
More than 550 different chips.

4. What do you collect?
Intel and compatible CPUs/FPUs, from 4004 to Slot A/1 CPUs

5. How long have you been collecting for?
About two years.

6. What chip do you long for?
C4004, C4004, NX686

[Grampa]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
I guess it's just curiosity combined with historic and sentimental reasons

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
dunno, I always had some old spares lying aroound. must ahve been either a plain 486 or pentium-s

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
644 distinct chips, ~900 total.

4. What do you collect?
any cpu as well as really exotic but usable hardware.

5. How long have you been collecting for?
about 7 years now. less active in recent months

6. What chip do you long for?
ns32k by NatSemi.

[Hippo]

1. I love retro tech and I would collect whole PC's if I had the space. However I dont and the CPU is the most important part of a computer and inversly almost the smallest.

2. The first CPU I had after I decided to collect CPU's was an intel C80287XL pulled from an old PC.

3. I have only just started so Im around the 20-40 mark. I aim to have several hundred in a couple of years time.

4. Mostly x86 CPU's but I will hold onto other IC's/CPU if I find them attractive.

5. 1-2 Weeks!

6. My first PC processor, an AMD 386 DX-40. Just for the awww I used to have one of these factor. Other than that maybe a Rise MP6.

[Windmiller]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
It started because I couldnt bear throwing out old PC's and decided to keep the brain of the PC then I started noticing how many interesting packages there were and it progressed from there.

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
A RISE MP6 that was sent to me with a few Pentiums from a fellow RAGE3D member.

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
350 or so, I havent really counted.

4. What do you collect?
Currently I only collect IBM chips and any type of samples. I am thinking about starting to collect AMD K6 chips.

5. How long have you been collecting for?
2 Years but most of my purchases have been in the last year.

6. What chip do you long for?
IBM Sample...mmmmmmmm.

[naked1300]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?

I like CPU´s ....

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?

i am not sure, but i think it was a 386DX33

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection

about 800

4. What do you collect?

i prefer collecting intel cpus and support chips, but i also have many
other manufactures in my collection.

5. How long have you been collecting for?

since 2000

6. What chip do you long for?
C4040, 486DX ES, C4002-2, ........

[doccybrown]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
Because they are very collectible. And they
are so impressive... in the beginning there was
the mechanical adding machine!

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
Not in my collection but in my electronics hobby box:
some Z80, 8080 and 8085 (my pre-collection)

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
I guess over 1000, never counted, time is too precious

4. What do you collect?
Everything that can be called processor.
Plus some RAMs, ROMs, EPROMs and
unusual looking chips by the way

5. How long have you been collecting for?
For about 4 or 5 years

6. What chip do you long for?
MCS6501, IM6120, C4004, C4040, EA9002, VM860, P1750....

[g0b]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
At the beginning, I wanted to get some of the CPU of computers I would have dream to own/work on and never could afford (a kind of revenge . Now I collect almost any...

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
Probably a 486

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
1500+

4. What do you collect?
CPU and FPU after I began to work on computers. So to make it simple any non-DIP CPU

5. How long have you been collecting for?
1-2 years

6. What chip do you long for?
intel iAPX432

[Chiefish]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
I think i collect them for a few reasons, i like the craftsmanship of the old ones and the immense diversity of them. I also think that the cpu has and will continue the greatest contribution to mankind that we have divised yet.

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
My first cpu in my collection was a 486DX that i pillaged out of an old machine at work.

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
Up until now i had 120 but in the last couple of months ive added another 130 so itll be around 250 at the end of the month or so when i finish recieving the last of my recent purchases.

4. What do you collect?
I like all things different as well as trying to make matched sets of stuff.

5. How long have you been collecting for?
Ive been collecting since 1995 but i never bought a chip for it until just recently, they all came from upgrades and such... old machines that i would build new ones to replace. Ive also picked a few from the side of the road on junk weeks.

6. What chip do you long for?
I dont think i long for any one chip in particular yet. Altho i remember seeing a beautiful Transmeta chip that ide like to find and add to my collection.

[FDIV]

1) I collect them because they are the innovation that changed the world in my generation. In addition they are small and feel good in ones hand. I also get a kick out of imagining the journey each one took to my door. This is especially true for es chips that came thorough China to me.

2) Pentium 60 SX835. It was big and beautiful and I scratched the hell out of the pretty gold heat spreader trying to get the thermal glue off. I still have it though.

3) At one time I had about 400 but they were crowding my storage cabinet so I sold the common ones for scrap. I have about 300 now 30 are es chips.

4) I collect mainly pentium pro and before x86 stuff. I also have a soft spot for parisc, mips, and ibm mainframe processors though.

5) I started collecting for about a year in 1998 and then picked it up again in 2006 when I found this forum.

6) More than anything else I want a socket 4 es chip I'm just not willing to part with 3 hundred bucks for it. I want next a 386 es and after that any other ceramic es chip.

[Shockwav3]

Extended a little and changed the questions slightly.
Thought this was the best way to introduce myself.

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
I don't. I collect/use vintage computers though. I guess I'm a geek. No seriously, I'm interested quite a lot to the (oldschool) demoscene and dislike emulators.

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
That would be a CSG 6510 in a Commodore 64

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
If I'd desolder all CPUs/FPUs/Soundchips/Custom Chips in my collection, I'd most likely end up somewhere around 60

4. What do you collect?
Old 8/16/32Bit homecomputers (pre 1995) mostly Commodore, Atari, Sinclair, Amstrad and a few obscure. Additionally since a while older soundcards ("popular" 8bit cards, boxed Gravis Ultrasound cards, cards with SIMM/EDO slots and historically "important" cards) and wavetable boards.

5. How long have you been collecting for?
About 2 years

6. What chip do you long for?
Not exactly a chip, but a CT63 (MC68060 100MHz based) booster for my Atari Falcon (MC68030 16MHz). Also a homemade russian clone of the ZX Spectrum called "ZX Pentagon" (Z80B/Z80H or russian clone)

7. Why the hell did you register here, if you're not a CPU collector?
Figured this was the best place for asking CPU specific questions and obtaining spares

8. What's the pride of your collection?
An Atari STE boosted to the max [CPU upgrade (MC68000P8 -> MC68030RC50B), RAM upgrade (1MB -> 68MB), ISA graphics card (ET4000), HD-Floppy controller, custom desktop case]

9. Are most of these comps older than you?
Yup

[JoelTheGeek]

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
It's neat to remember when some of these chips were worth scads of money, and you could only dream of having one. Also back then, these chips seemed as fast as the fastest ones do today. It's also neat to think that some of these chips once had important jobs (i.e. P-Pros).

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
Acquired Intel 8088 and 80286-6 around the same time (early 90's). Collection only grew by maybe 5 chips over the following 10 years.

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
~ 50

4. What do you collect?
Went on an Intel spree, but also collect AMD, Cyrix, and whatever else comes along (so far including Sparc, Harris, Siemens).

5. How long have you been collecting for?
15 years, inactive for most of that time.

6. What chip do you long for?
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.0GHz. I could sell it and get many nice vintage chips .

[hugo929]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Why do you collect CPU's?
one of my hobby

2. What was your first CPU in your collection?
Cyrix 6X86

3. How many Chips do you have in your collection
300+

4. What do you collect?
286/IDT/Pentium/...

5. How long have you been collecting for?
more than one year

6. What chip do you long for?
every nice chip, may vary with time:-)

hugo