When Maurizio Banavage was about 15, he was given an old Spectrum ZX81 computer to convert into traffic lights for a school project.
When friends and relatives realised what he could do, they started giving him their unwanted computers.
But, instead of dismantling them all, he started to collect these fascinating gadgets.
Today Mr Banavage, who is now 40, has 250 computers dating as far back as the 1970s – and is still collecting.
He admits he has a soft spot for the Commodore 64, which was one of his first machines.
“I used to love playing games and also used it for spreadsheets and stuff like that,” he said.
Back then, he had to connect the keyboard of the home computer to the television and saved files and documents through a cassette player.
“What I like about vintage computers is their design and construction, which are unique. In today’s computers, there is no passion, apart from certain specific models.
“The shape of today’s computers is identical and they get outdated quite easily, while these computers were designed to remain unique through time,” he said.
Mr Banavage also likes sharing his passion and sets up exhibitions through the Vintage Computer Club Malta, which he helped found in 1998. The most recent exhibition was held at Birkirkara local council.
“Our policy, as a club, is to preserve computers and divulge history of computers to the general public. We are an online group but we also meet every month,” he said.
Recently, he added, the club had been in discussions with Government to set up a computer museum.
Mr Banavage, an IT systems administrator, is glad to have been born during a time when he could experience various operating systems.
“I also had the luck of seeing the internet being spread in the business industry and the first browsers which spread the internet in homes such as Netscape and the first version of Internet Explorer.
“Today, things have changed drastically and I feel that the passion that we were taught is somewhat missing in some of the students venturing into the IT industry,” he said.
The Vintage Computer Club Malta can be contacted on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/vccmalta or on www.computermuseum.com.