Early 90's for me. Already had an A500 that I had purchased in the late 80's to replace my A1000. But by this time, A1000's could be had dirt cheap, so I started purchasing them, taking 'em apart, cleaning 'em, purchasing internal memory and Kickstart upgrades and selling them for just a nick cheaper than you could purchase a brand new A500 for. Refurbed only a handful before I really got "serious" and started collecting the various Amiga lines as well as consoles to restore and re-sell. Early 90's were the greatest time to do all of this as new parts and peripherals (talking about Amiga especially) were en vogue and people were letting go of their used stuff cheap. Playing around with and getting to know the hardware ins and outs was just so cool back then. Yellowing wasn't even an issue yet. Everything seemed like new when you got through cleaning 'em up
C64c's, TI-99/4A's, Atari 8-bit line, you name it ('cept for the ST). Mid 90's, I was restoring and configuring a lot of A500's and A1200's for people. And keeping one representative each for myself
By the late 90's, I've had just about every game console, Amiga line, Mac line and portables ever made. And by the mid 2000's, down to just a handful of goodies I've kept for myself that's in my signature. Still won't pass up a good deal when I run across one though. Easy enough to repair/restore and re-sell to those that appreciate getting their hands on a bit of history
