I was wondering if many people do need/want dedicated retro hardware.
Nowadays with so many compute horsepower and resonably good emulators, are that many games left that wont run on modern machines?
Well, nostalgia may be a big factor but one good reason might be the use of CRT monitors, wich some people still prefer to modern displays.

I have thought about it since there are so many classic games I miss which are still unavailable on GoG.
Abandonware is crap because it is often buggy, missing soundtracks or other important elements.
Buying the original floppy or 3 inch and have the machine with the original operating system may be the only solution.

There's also the distinctive sound of floppy disks and tape loaders, though I've heard some emulators will even play similar sounds during load times to recreate that retro atmosphere :).

Just the opposite I feel the need to only have one pc what can run everything :P

That's actually a good point. I think emulation is good enough in all other aspects, but a CRT had a way to charmingly make lower resolutions look good, while the merciless sharpness of modern panels exposes all the ugly pixels.

That's also a reason I kind of dislike retro-pixel look. I simply looked different, less "in your face" pixellated back in the days, because of CRT.

I think it won't be long until that is caught up with though. The current HD displays are too sharp to do it natively, but not sharp enough to emulate the comforting "adapting unsharpness" of CRT, but 4k is already another matter. And it won't be long until clever emu-devs find ways to make it look like the real thing on those screens.

Another thing that can't be emulated, and that's something that won't fix, is the haptic experience of the joysticks of the time. Because that hardware isn't made any more, and even if you manage to get something like that, and make it work with adapters and what not, you wouldn't dare to mistreat it like in ye olde days.... so many I broke... ;-) Some emus do it. Some even emulate the original loading times. Pretty Zen were were back then....

I must have broken a dozen joysticks playing Sid Meier's Pirates back in the day.
They were poorly manufactured Chinese crap.

I still have mine, but it doesn't get any use. It's an AMD Athlon XP running Windows 2000, so not super retro.

Can't deny your name choice. It suits you.

emulators are not the same thing as actual hardware... they do have their place and are helpful but sometimes you really need a certian tech

yes I have older systems [mostly for work] but this is Gog so most of their games run fine on modern Windows 10 machines... it helps a lot that I actually know how to fine tune a Windows system however

Thanks to GOG, no.

I really miss CRTs. Wish they would come back.

Not much to thank gog here for.

The problem is, you need a reasonable big space to put all those retro hardwares (including CRT) and their adapters.
I do love the idea and often check game forums to see other people do this.
But in real life, I just use emulators for all old games.
If one game could not be supported perfectly by the emulator, I just play other games. :-/

Not everyone can be LGR and have tons of room to put old hardware and have walls of games and software on display.