I've kept all the machines I've owned, and salvaged others - I love to get the older ones going and use them.
Another blast (post) from the past. 4 lap tops. 3 towers. Wife has one of each. I have the other 5. All working, all with a purpose.
Have not kept all of the ones I have owned but usually have enough parts lying around to always build another. Always collecting\being given parts as well. Was given 3 lap tops recently. 2 old Gateways. A PII with 192MB of PC100 now running Wolvix. A PIII 600MHz with 256 of PC100 now buzzing along quit well on XP and a wireless LAN connection. The Pièce de Résistance an HP zd8000 17" widescreen that had been given up for dead by the previous owner and HP Tech(?) Support. Proved to be a bad stick of RAM. Belongs to the Wife now. 2.8GHz PIIII, 2 Gig of RAM, wireless LAN. Have one other being trouble shot as we speak for a hot\PS connection>mobo problem. A slightly older HP with a 1.8GHz PIIII (if I remember right) and 2 Gig of RAM as well. Once fixed it will take the place of the PIII as my primary lap top.
6 Towers of various sizes (boxes) with most of them sporting at the most 3 internal hard drives each most of which are dual partitioned so i can research and switch over to different units. Unfortunately, manually by changing out harnesses and plugs to various HD's. I am however sorely lacking a MUCH NEEDED laptop and frantically looking for at least 2 of them, a project soon upcoming now Spring is near.
She finally had need to take it out of the house. I fixed her up with a nice lap top case w/shoulder strap. She came back complaining about the weight. I bit my tongue but smiled to myself. Graciously offered her the smaller liter one currently at the shop. She is seriously considering the trade.