Spain: Retro Gaming Room Built on Terrace Without Permit

Retro Gaming Room Built on Spanish Terrace Without Permit

While many use terraces for laundry, one resident with a small 36m2 apartment decided to roof his terrace and build a 9m2 room for obsolete computers. The author of the original post describes converting 9 square meters of a 120-square-meter attic terrace into a hobby space. The work was done in 2011 without a building permit. "I believe it prescribes after so many years," he speculates. However, responses are not reassuring: another user recounts a similar case where the enclosure was intervened by both the cadastral registry (catastro) and the town hall.

The inventory transforms this room from a simple storage closet into a museum of computing history. It houses an FM Towns, an X68000, two Beige G3 Macs (tower and desktop), an iMac, a G4, a distant G5, a lamp-style G4, MacBooks, iBook G3s, a Pentium Pro on board and in a dock, a dual Slot 1 system, a non-IBM HP, a Siemens R3000 CPU board, and a PSX. The author, aged 44, has a clear motivation: "when I tinker with my gadgets, I feel twenty again."

What Can Be Emulated and What Cannot

The most common objection is practical: why keep all this hardware when emulators run on a €400 laptop? The technical answer is more robust than it seems. No emulator faithfully reproduces period x86 PCs, and associated hardware—EPROM burners, soldering stations, proprietary buses—is impossible to simulate. The FM Towns is the perfect example: lacking PC BIOS or compatible hardware, it is not "almost a PC" but something entirely different.

The second objection concerns space. The room appears more like a warehouse than a workshop. The author admits that his soldering station remains in his main bedroom, where he also stores boxed video games and his daily-use PC. His vvife, he says, is "fed up with the smell of tin." Moving the workshop to the new room is the plan, but it hasn't peine yet.

Insulation, Temperature, and Dust

The construction isn't a standard aluminum and glass enclosure. It antiestéticatures polycarbonate panels on the outside and fiberglass insulation between the panel and the interior. It gets hot in summer, but not excessively; being an attic unit, opening the window suffices. This detail separates a hobby room from a greenhouse.

Regarding dust, there is no nuance: "I'm not big on order or cleanliness, just enough. If I see things too tidy or without their dose of dust, I dislike it." This is a statement of principles, and a warning to those expecting museum-quality photos.

The Hidden Value Inside

Here comes the twist. Among the stored cartridges are Neo Turf Masters, Garou, Metal Slug 1, and over twenty other Neo Geo titles including KOF, Fatal Fury, Real Bout, and Samurai. The author bought them between 1997 and 2002, often at Spanish flea markets when prices were still in pesetas. He estimates the Turf Masters cost about €150 at the time. The conversation then shifts to current values for these European versions, with figures reaching tens of thousands of euros for the rarest carts. He remains skeptical: "I don't think they're worth that much." They are currently stored in Tarragona, owned by his brother, alongside some arcade machines and an Indiana Jones pinball table.

The Plan: Pay Off Debts and Retire to Tinker

The financial aspect is significant. About eight years remain to pay off all debts, including the mortgage. The stated goal is to retire then, work minimally to live, and tackle "everything pending." His children are grown; two are still in university but lead independent lives. The room is, in his words, the place where no one touches his things.

He doesn't provide the final conclusion. The lingering figure does: a cartridge bought for €150 at a provincial flea market may now be worth more than the floor of the room storing it. No one has gone to check.