Using and powering shelf retrocomputers

The reception to my second post about keeping retro motherboard builds on shelves has been far more positive than the first post, which has been lovely. A few of you had questions, which I thought I’d answer here. Powering our machines Wouter of Brain Baking asked about power: I wondered: how do you power your babies? I’m not versed in hardware/power stuff so I’m intimidated when I see atx4vc and picoPSU and other shady converters all connected together (or not, YOLO). You and me both! I see electrical wizards like Hales, or Adrian Black repair and power supplies, or Jan Beta building his own, and I see images of myself convulsing on the floor upon touching a cap I shouldn’t have. Maybe one day I’ll posess their skills, but I’m self-aware enough to know that’s not today. My open motherboard builds use PicoRCs, paired with 120 W PicoPSUs. The PicoRC is a peripheral card that supplies the correct voltages directly through the ISA bus. There are a couple of cables that come off this that…