Digital Vintage
Ever wonder what the iPhone’s grandparents looked like? Chances are Lonnie Mimms has one in the massive collection of vintage computers he keeps outside of Atlanta.
By Axel Gerdau, Taige Jensen and Jason Drakeford on Publish Date June 8, 2015.Lonnie Mimms has been a collector all his life. Even now, Mr. Mimms, 52, has a selection of hippopotamus figures displayed under track lighting in his bedroom. But vintage computers are his real obsession, namely ones made by Apple.
He has created an exhibit on the history of the company in Roswell, Ga., where he is the chief executive of a corporate real estate firm. By his own estimate, he has invested more than a million dollars in his collection.
Mr. Mimms, who has a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of Steve Jobs’s life and career, said he is reluctant to turn on old non-Apple computers for fear they will turn into “smoke bombs.” But his passion for and obsession with Apple has a clear, if surprising, limit. “I don’t own an iPhone,” Mr. Mimms said with a smile, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a Motorola Droid Turbo.