128Kgames

It took so long to get mine, I lost interest in playing it and never opened it.

Yeah, I have a hard time explaining 4 different names for essentially the same product, let alone explaining the "Montgomery Ward" variations! Bally only had anything to do with the first 3 before Astrovision and then Astrocade took over, selling the remaining stock (or whatever they could fit in a box!) before releasing their own "Astrocade" branded console, the last iteration. Alas, no, there is no such factory box or paperwork that would have said "Bally Astrocade" (which I stopped correcting people on, it wasn't worth the aggravation) but its quite possible some third party company or vendor called it that on some sales sheets or dealer paperwork. But it was only ever Astrocade that called it "Astrocade" and labelled it as such. Great older site by Lance F. Squire if you want to peep most of the label and box variations, outside of the Bally Alley website (another great source of course): http://glankonian.com/lance/Ballyfaq.html

We can agree to disagree on the "any console is only as good as its games" 😉 Of course the Astrocade never had the support Atari received, but my "spank" reply was more along the lines of a hardware perspective when Jess referred to it as "maybe not as good as the Atari 2600 or Intellivision." Maybe Jess wasn't referring to it from a hardware standpoint, so my reply may have been unwarranted. Thing is the Bally / Astrocade systems often get overlooked when in fact they could hold their own if not surpass the other systems at that time. Years back we even had proto 512k bankswitching carts made to try and expand the gaming library and show off what the Astrocade can really do, but the protos are only as far as things went.

Have to disagree it spanks the Atari 2600 and while I own an Intellivision now I'd still play my Astrocade over it. I'm sure someone can chime in hardware wise and compare specs on those systems. I gave up on correcting people years ago on the differences between the consoles but refer to the 4 versions correctly myself 😉 Hands down best hand controls of that period, even the console design was ahead of its time!

Thankyou I will check it out 👍

Not working for me, takes me to Discord but to a blank page that says "no text channels" ...

Kind of hard to replicate the true Vectrex experience without a screen 😉 They could attempt it with an LCD with some effects like 1Up did on their vector game cabs, but now you're adding to the cost.

I probably should have asked "what do you consider "reasonable"." I completely agree with your assessment, problem is a lot of people have no clue what these systems are going for or more importantly what they should be going for. When prices first started to climb a lot of people just didn't get it. Honestly though the ones that aren't tested or people refuse to test I always chalk up to "not working" from experience. Occasionally you do get lucky but I stopped actively collecting the consoles years ago after getting each model / variant and then backups of each, then backups of backups. As far as Allen's auctions its not only what he includes in them but more so the fact that its working and most likely he's refurbished it (I actually told him years ago he was charging too little for his auctions!).

Not sure the last time you priced them but they've been soaring. Common models like the Professional Arcade or the Computer System model 100% working can run anywhere from $250 - $500 easy. Even "broken" models with their chips intact can bring in decent money as their chips (if working) can be used to restore Bally arcade boards like Gorf etc. If its a Home Library Computer, White Montgomery Ward Professional Arcade, or an actual branded Astrocade, the skies the limit, easily $750 or more.

FYI if you want to glue heatsinks on and retain thermal conductivity try using Thermally Conductive Epoxies Allen 😉

I think they consider the dust "patina" 🤣

As long as its internal for the Bally and 100% functional a Bally / Coleco board doesn't bother me. I see it as a win win for both consoles. I did an internal mod on my Astrocade years ago with the 8bitDomain S-VIDEO board which I'd switch out for something like this, and hopefully run the cables the same way without cutting like I did for the S-VIDEO board. To me it looked real smooth and the fact that I didnt have to cut the console was a plus (I hate modding the cases with holes on vintage machines). https://ballyalley.com/pics/hardware_pics/s-video_mod/mike_di_salvo_pics/mike_di_salvo_pics.html

Did you try giving it a beer, eh? 🤣

You should reach out to the ballyalley@groups.io group, lots of guys in the know and old school Bally guys who could answer any questions to help with and rgb mod. @kenzre or @Allen Schweitzer here as well 👍

For sure somebody did, all 512K 😉 https://msdconsulting.wixsite.com/128kgames