Our Philadelphia Collection focuses on the evolution of consumer and business computing, spanning from the early 1980s through the mid-2000s. It brings together desktops, towers, laptops, all-in-one systems, printers, and essential peripherals that defined everyday work, education, and home computing across multiple eras.
The collection represents a wide range of influential manufacturers, including HP, IBM, Leading Edge, Compaq, Dell, and Franklin, with a special emphasis on Apple and Macintosh products. Together, these systems illustrate the shift from early productivity machines to the design-driven computers that reshaped personal computing in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Apple systems are especially well represented. Highlights include a complete Apple IIe, a cornerstone of early home and classroom computing, and a pair of iconic Macintosh compact systems, an SE and a Classic, which defined Apple’s desktop experience throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. Rarer professional systems are also present, most notably a fully complete Macintosh IIfx, one of Apple’s most powerful and collectible workstations of its era.
Later Apple milestones include matching Blueberry iMac and iBook G3 systems, groundbreaking symbols of Apple’s late-1990s revival, as well as a Power Macintosh G4 paired with an Apple Studio Display, illustrating Apple’s transition into modern industrial design,
On the PC side, standout systems include a Leading Edge DC-2010E, reflecting the rapid expansion of personal computing in the 1980s and a Compaq Presario 5500 with original retail stickers intact, a rare time-capsule example of a late-1990s home computer.
Together, these machines capture more than two decades of technological change—blending business workhorses with influential consumer designs—and provide an authentic snapshot of how people worked, learned, and created during the formative years of personal computing.
