The tall full page display above and slightly to the right of my keyboard, and the clunky huge 8" dual floppy drives to the right of that, are both components of an ancient IBM Displaywriter, of which this full page display model is one of the rarest types out there (yet, in spite of its age, it remains one of my most dependable computers ever. Although I do have back up Displaywriter systems, i.e., another full page unit and several 2/3 screen units, I've never had to use them as this one is still operating after nearly two decades of hard use. The only things that ever seem to break are the newer dual density floppy drives, which are far more likely to break down than the older single density floppy drives, something I've never understood). I actually use the Displaywriter mainly to do outlines for films because I like the full screen aspect of it, and then transfer the files over to my PC before I actually go to a full script (and if you want to know more about my screenwriting credits and background, click here or use the screenwriting resume link on my home page). Since this picture was taken, though, I'm increasingly doing my outlines on a Mac with a big 21" color display (not in this picture), so the Displaywriters are sadly beginning to fade away in terms of usefulness.

Next to the clunky huge Displaywriter floppy drives is a 17" monitor hooked up to the 486 directly below it for games only (I'll often play videogames, surf the net, and watch a movie at the same time while writing to avoid blocking up)(odd, but it works, so that was the point of this particular machine). Since this photo was taken, though, both the monitor and that particular 486 have been given away.

And the really big monitor next to that is a 19" black and white monitor hooked up to a Mac II (directly beneath it) where I store the printed version of my screenwriting resume, among other things (I use Pagemaker on the Mac, and that just happens to be where it's kept).

What you can't see in the picture is the gigantic old daisy wheel type printer underneath the middle of the desk (an IBM 5218) which was used to print out my Displaywriter work when I didn't want to bother transferring it to the PC, but since then, the printer died and I just couldn't come up with any good reason to replace it (although they were probably some of the best daisy wheel printers ever made, they weigh a ton, are impossible to maintain or replace once they break, and in this age of laser printers, it just doesn't make sense to use them any more, retro computing or not).

And completely off to the right of the picture is a set of heavy metal shelves where I kept a Mac LC and a color monitor for videogames as well as an Amiga 2000 with its own Amiga color monitor (also for videogames) and even a German Apple II clone (a Basis) with a black and white monitor (to this day, I still occasionally play my favorite Apple II game, STELLAR 7, on the Basis).

And elsewhere, I keep functional Atari 8-bit and ST computers (all used strictly for videogaming), and even an old Commodore Vic 20 (which I use as a dedicated OMEGA RACE machine, since I still like to play the old OMEGA RACE cartridge). I even had an old Atari 2600 hooked up at one point, but it has since died, and my old Commodore 64SX portable color computer started to have too many problems with its disk drive, so it was given away to a friend of mine who is also into retro and, fortunately, happens to be a computer tech as well. I also still have a collection of older Apple II's and even a few Apple III's as well as a handful of Apple II clones (other than the afore-mentioned Basis), plus three Apple MacXL's (upgraded Apple Lisa's) and a small stack of old Apple Prodrives (hard drives with 5 meg capacity) to go with them.

And that's about it for the retro collection. It's just a hobby, but all of it ultimately ties back into things I do because of, or to support, the writing (even my state of the art Pentiums are used to back me up on the writing, since I'll nomally start a writing session by playing a few videogames on them first to unwind).