paladiin

I don't know if she'd buy that item, but I could definitely see her picking up a game, especially if she knew I was looking for it. One time, on a used game hunt one Saturday, she found a cheap used copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for Dreamcast! Then we went home, and she proceeded to kick my butt in it!

Oh, by the way, here's the games that I just got on ebay: Star Voyager Fire Fighter Trick Shot Fathom Fire Fly Final Approach Freeway Fantastic Voyage Keystone Kapers Human Cannonball Realsports Football (soccer) If I would have come across any of these in the wild, I would have been stoked! But I got all of them in the mail, and it just wasn't as exciting.

Just curious about what you guys think about buying games on ebay versus finding them in the wild (ie. thrifting, flea markets, garage sales). Since I started collecting back in January, I've found a decent amount of atari stuff here locally in Salt Lake. Got 2 ataris (6 switch and 4 switch), controllers, paddles, Wico joystick, and probably about 50 carts (mostly common and uncommon, but a couple more rare ones as well). I've also found lots of NES, SNES, and Genesis stuff as well. I've really enoyjed "rescuing" these and giving them a good home. And with it just starting to thaw here, I haven't even started hitting up garage and yard sales yet. However, I've been finding that finding new games for my 2600 collection has been slow going lately. Did manage a couple carts a few weeks ago, but that's about it. Then I started checking out Ebay. Found a good deal on a bunch of scarce carts, and some Imagic carts I didn't have, and won the auctions on those. I added about 10 carts I've never played before (a few I'd never even heard of before), along with one of my all time favorite 2600 games when I was younger, Keystone Kapers. Paid about $2 a cart for these, which is a tad bit more than the $.49 and $.99 I've been paying for games, but it's definitely a fair price. Anyway, I found as I was cleaning up the games that I just didn't find it as exciting getting these games in the mail as I did when I found games in the wild. In fact, I was kind of disappointed that I used ebay to get the games. I know that for some games, I'll never see them unless I use ebay, but still, it doesn't match the thrill of actually picking through junk or walking into a store and finding that poor, lonely cart just begging to come home with me. And funny, it's only with the 2600 games so far that I've felt this way about. Gotten plenty of NES, SNES, and other system games from ebay. Maybe it's because I can find games for these systems all over the place, yet the 2600 games are always elusive, and when found, look so sad sitting there surrounded by other video games, or at the bottom of a box full of cables and power supplies. Anyone else feel this way?

My local shop here in Salt Lake got some new games in. Picked up a bunch of commons and uncommons for .49 and .99 each. They also had a few scarce titles, but they really overcharge for them ($5 and $10, which is too much IMO). But spring is coming, which means spring cleaning. So I'm hoping to do good at yard sales in the next few weeks!

Like I mentioned, they obviously have an issue with you spending money on your hobby. But whether that is because they feel you should be saving your money, or they feel you should spend it on something else, or some other reason, you really can't come up with a positive solution unless you speak with them in my opinion. It may be something as simple as they want you to save money, which can easily be resolved with some sort of compromise (saving a certain amount in a savings account, and spending the rest on what you want (ie your hobby). If they feel like it's a waste of money, you can educate them that what you are collecting has value. But until you know for sure what their concern is, it's going to be hard to try to come up with a way to resolve this.

I know this may sound off the wall, but have you ever talked with them about it? Maybe they have a concern about you collecting games that could be straightened out with some communication. If I were in your shoes, I'd bring up the issue, and try to find out what their concerns are, whether they feel it costs too much, is taking presidence over other things they feel is important (like school or social interactions), or some other reason. I'm sure your parents are on you about this for a reason they believe is completely valid. But until you talk with them, you really won't know why they don't want you to pursue this as a hobby. I'm sure they're not dumb, and obviously they know you could be doing a number of dangerous or harmful things with your time instead of collecting something you have an interest in. Once you find out their reasons, I'm sure a solution will present itself, even if it involves some kind of compromise.

Wow, very nice stuff! Description says Waterworld, CIB. It'll be interesting to see how high this goes for.

quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out this auction.. I had a ton of spare 2600's and games lying around, plus I just bought out a flea market guy. http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?V...item=1320641088 [Check out the quantity on the auction] How many do you think I can sell? 50 Atari units? How cool is that? I admit though, the price is a little high. Got mine for $15 with 7 games (2 rated as Rare), though I did spend another $15 getting the AC adapter and RF to Cable adapter. But you never know...anything can happen on Ebay.

lol...actually my Pitfall cartridge seemed to do the best out of all of them that I picked up with my system! Just picked up a soldering kit last night to do some work on a Genesis 2 (power connector to the board was loose), so if it's a loose connection, hopefully I can fix it now. I'm just afraid of making it worse! Who knows when the next 6 switch 2600 will pop up at the swap meet?

Thanks for the advice. I'll give these a try. By the way, in regards to the Radio Shack adapter, I got a 9V 800mA adapter which allows you to connect different jacks, and you get 1 free jack (called an adaptaplug) when you purchase it. The jack is the 1/8" mono jack (listed as Adaptaplug F). I'm pretty sure here are the model numbers (got them from the website, as I'm at work): AC Adapter: 273-1770 Adaptaplug F: 273-1709 Total for both is $13.99.

I recently obtained a 6 switch Atari 2600 It didn't come with the power supply or RF adapter, but that was easily fixed by a trip to Radio Shack. I also got a few games with it, and when I tried it, I had some problems. When turning the system on with a game inside, I would often get visual anomolies, like vertical lines of color that moved with the sprites on the screen, or blobs of pixels instead of normal looking sprites. This happened with all of my cartridges, even after I cleaned them. I found that tapping the bottom of my Atari seemed to resolve the problem, allowing my games to run normally. Anyone have any idea what may be causing this? I would suspect either the unit is dirty, or there is a loose connection inside? Any recommendations on how I could fix this?

As part of my second weekend searching for classic gaming consoles (my new hobby), I decided to try my luck at the local swap meet (pretty much the only one in Salt Lake). The week before yielded absolutely no Atari stuff from the thrift stores I visited, but I did find a Genesis and Sega CD that I picked up pretty cheap. Anyway, braving the cold my wife and I began to wander around. For the first 20 minutes, there were no games at all in sight, and only a terrible looking N64 for $40. As we continued to walk around the indoor shops while we defrosted. Then I spotted an Atari console with the RF cable wrapped around it, sitting on top of some other electronics, and 2 controllers laying on the cement beneath it. Surrounded by TV's, VCR's, and the like, the 6 switch console stuck out like a sore thumb. My wife nudged me and pointed at it, and I kneeled down to take a look. It had a red sticker with the price on it ($. I noticed it didn't have an AC adapter though, and one of the controllers wan't an original Atari one (was a Slik Stik). So I began talking to the older Asian gentleman who was selling it and asked if there was anything else with it. He told me no, but he had some games for it. He opened a large metal door, which hid a room FULL of old TV's and stuff, and pulled out 2 boxes of neatly organized Atari games. Since this was my first ever find of Atari stuff, I and my wife were pretty excited! I recognized most of the games from my youth, and decided to pick up Kaboom, Stampede, Pitfall, Ice Hockey, and an 01 Combat ( I didn't know about the numbered ones before I came to this site). I was told they were $1 each, which seemed fair to me. But wanting to get a better deal, I asked him if I could get 7 games for $5 instead of the 5 I selected. He gave in, as it was nearing closing time for the swap meet. I quickly grabbed 2 other games that I didn't recognize, gave the man the cash, and thanked him. After picking up another Genesis with 4 controllers (3 were the 6 button style) for $5 from another vendor, and passing on a boxed Atari 5200 for $30 (I didn't bother checking it out, since I was already at my spending limit for the day), I headed home to see what I could find out about the other games I got. They were Cross Force and Survival Run, both apparently fairly rare games! I've yet to try out the Atari (since I have no AC adapter for it), but I figured for $8, it's worth the gamble. But I'm still kicking myself for not picking up the cool looking Basic Math game he had there. Well, maybe next weekend! Anyone else have any good finds this weekend?

Actually, I just started getting into classic gaming, but AtariAge and rgvc are my most frequent stops!