My little house doesn't leave me a lot of space to display my collection of old computers. Happily the pizza-box and outrigger computers from the 1990s stack nicely on top of each other. But what to do with the wedge-shaped 8-bit and 16-bit machines from the 1980s? They were designed to sit standalone, rather than be stacked with monitors and peripherals, so they take up quite a bit of desk real estate. Stacking them or putting them on a shelf doesn't show them off at their best.

Old computers

After a lot of shopping, researching, and brainstorming, I landed on these steel shelf brackets. The 8" deep ones with white primer would be almost invisible against the wall of my office, would hold the computers at a nice angle for display, and could easily support the weight. When mounted on drywall, each pair of brackets can support 100 lbs of weight... and these computers max out at 10 lbs. In person, they look totally nice.

Steel brackets in box Steel brackets

The brackets don't come with mounting hardware, but the folks at the Ace Hardware in North Seattle were super happy to advise. Tools in hand, I made a template, measured and marked up the wall about one hundred times, and tried hanging one. It looks so great!

Screw size guide at Ace Hardware Tools Measuring and marking the wall Hanging the first bracket First computer mounted

With that success under my belt, I hung the rest of the brackets... except, notice the janky-looking holes on the bottom end there? It turns out I hit a stud and learned the hard way that I need different mounting hardware for studs.

More brackets on the wall Oops

So... back to Ace for more supplies, and then 24 hours of patching the drywall and letting it dry.

Drywall patching supplies Patch step 1 Patch step 2

And... voila! These turned out great. There's room to fit more on this wall, as I expand my collection. It's so easy to pull any of these down and use it - they're just held in place by gravity, and a couple have silicone pads on the bracket to keep them in place. This display is directly behind me when I'm doing video calls, and it's really neat to see somebody's eyes light up when they recognize a computer from their childhood. It has prompted a lot of neat conversations with people about how they got started with computers and technology.

Computers displayed