The Tom Conrad Collection

In October 2024, Tom Conrad, a vintage computer collector in California, contacted us to see if we were interested in his vintage computer collection.  He let us know that he had over 100 computers with their peripherals, software, manuals and promotional materials.  His hope had always been to have his own museum, but he was getting older and realized that that was not going to happen.  He was looking for a good home for his collection.

He has his whole collection photographed and online at his web site:  Conrad Vintage Computers
You can see his collection there, along with stories, links and humor.

Tom worked at IBM for over 30 years and was an active member of the "Home Brew Club" and a founding member of the Palo Alto PET Users Group.

In January 2025, UW Computer Museum founder, Lawrence Folland, along with UW Alumnus Steven Garan, the Computer Museum's "Silicon Valley Ambassador", visited Tom Conrad to see his collection, housed in his barn.  What we saw there was astounding!  The challenge was how would we get it here to Waterloo?

Steven Garan offered a potential solution to the shipping issue - he was involved with a business that would be shipping some equipment from their office in San Francisco to Detroit.  If they could rent a larger truck to do the shipment, then they could include the donation on the truck and then drive it to Waterloo.  We proposed this to Tom and he agreed to the plan. 

The logistics of the shipment took some time and ended up in two stages.  In October 2025, Steven arranged for a truck to pick up the donation from Tom Conrad's barn and shipped it up to his office in San Francisco.  There it waited until they could make the final arrangement for the shipment to Detroit and Waterloo.  That happened in January 2026, arriving at Central Stores on January 20, 2026.

One concern was what would happen at the border?  With much help from our Finance Department, our International Customs Broker, and Tom's detailed notes, we created a detailed packing list of all of the items, with international shipping codes for each item and an estimated value along with a letter from Tom Conrad specifying that this was a donation for academic and research purposes.  When Steven got to the border, they took a look at the documentation, approved it, and he was quickly on his way!

The items were unloaded into Central Stores who then packaged them up onto skids and delivered to our temporary workroom provided by Systems Design.

Our next steps are to sort through the items and organize them by system.  We need to determine where we have duplication and what to do with such items.  We are fortunate to have a large workspace to do this work through the generosity of Systems Design Engineering, but we only have it for a limited time.  We are working with our staff and volunteers to process these items which will include photographing them and adding them to our catalogue.  The final step is to move them into storage or put them on display.

We will have a selection of these items on display on our glass shelves in DC1316.  Additionally, we will be featuring a number of these items at our Open House events March 24 and 28, 2026

If you are interested in seeing more of this collection, contact our curators to arrange a visit to the storage area for these items.

Lawrence Folland is a co-founder, curator and volunteer of the UW Computer Museum.