boxpressed

Side deals and seller's remorse are an unfortunate fact of life on eBay. Not very long ago, eBay would have a two-day or so delay before publishing sold items, so it was possible to have your purchase in the mail before those wanting to make a side deal even knew it was for sale. But now it's immediate.

Nice thing about Goodwill as the seller is that the carts probably aren’t fakes, and the winning bidder doesn’t have to worry about a side deal.

5% back in eBay Bucks. No minimum. Must activate.

I don't play DOS games as much anymore as listen to their music on different wavetables. It may sound weird, but I like those games that let me mess with hardware. A few obvious titles have terrific music and are fun to play in short bursts for me: Descent, Duke Nukem 3D, Tyrian, Doom, Dark Forces, Jazz Jackrabbit. Others are still great, but the music isn't as memorable: Blood, Hexen, Return of the Triad. One Must Fall is the best. I sent off for the full version BITD and still have it.

When I got into retro computing, I realized I no longer needed resources such as IRQs for parallel ports and peripherals such as modems--things that were a hassle to remove or disable. These days, everything is pretty streamlined for me since I don't need or want to network these old PCs. Just a video card and a sound card (or two or three). Plenty of resources to go around when all you need is a gaming computer rather than a daily driver. The challenge now can be to have three different sound cards in the same build. I have a CF HDD on my 486 with about 20 different autoexec.bat/config.sys setups for each sound card--I just rename the extension after I pop in the card. For my P3 with 98SE, I image the OS with different video card/sound card combos on DVD-Rs. Takes about 10 minutes to reimage after I've selected the combo that I want.

What's nice about DOS gaming today is the benefit of all the knowledge gained from the trial-and-error memory management bitd. Just look up what works and go.

I voted for Intellivision because of the overall quality of its packaging--the gatefold box, the pocket for overlays and manual, and the white plastic tray for the cart. BITD, it gave off a mature "deluxe" vibe that escaped 2600 games and only seemed passe with the advent of the wonderful, audacious Colecovision game boxes. But I wanted to vote for Channel F and its absolutely 70s retro Peter Max artwork vibe. My friend had a Channel F, and the chunky, colorful carts made it more fun to play the games (or at least anticipate playing them).

It was fdisk /mbr Check out this thread https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=35885

I think there is an operator that you have to add to the command line when using format or fdisk with a CF drive. I can't remember what it is, but it doesn't work without it. Check out Phil's Computer Lab on Youtube. He switched to SD drives but may have an old video on CF drives.

One of my retro PCs is a beautiful Wang 386SX-20. I had to use the CD-ROM interface on a Sound Blaster Pro 2 (CT1600) with the proprietary Matsushita drive. Drivers over at Vogons. Works great.

I'm hoping that someone can help me figure out how to synchronize Minecraft installs. First off, I know almost nothing about the game. My ten yo has played it for years, mostly on an iPad (preferred) and some on a Kindle Fire. I've probably spent about $100 on skins and packs across both platforms. We also have it on the Xbox 360 and PS4, although those don't get as much play. With the advent of Bedrock for the PS4, I'm ready to unify these installs, if possible. I'm guessing that my son would want to use his iPad worlds on PS4. The iPad version is 1.81 and hasn't been updated in about a year. It asks me to sign in to an Xbox Live account to save my worlds (never did this, although I have an Xbox Live account). We also got a new iPad for Xmas, and the Minecraft loaded on this new iPad seems to be a newer version that wants you to sign into a Microsoft account (not Xbox Live account). I assume that all versions are now asking for a Microsoft account log in. The PS4 version says I have one chance to link a Microsoft account to my PS4 account. I think my son may use this one version in the future, especially to play with friends who come over. My question is: can I transfer the worlds and add-ons from our old iPad to both the new iPad and PS4? I just don't want to lose those assets. The old iPad is many years old and isn't as fast as the newer model, obviously, so I'd like to make the transition now. Thanks for any advice!

New promotion this morning that I'm pretty sure is site-wide: 10% back in eBay Bucks if you buy with the app, 8% otherwise. Expires August 6, 11:59 PM PT. $25 minimum. Must activate first!

Never knew about this feature. Users with a 100-to-1 ratio between posts and points should be banned, lol.

Went to Aldi today and saw this in the parking lot:

I didn't get this offer for any of my eBay accounts. I'm pretty sure that a lot of these offers are targeted, maybe intending to "juice" one account into greater buying or selling activity. Sometimes when I use the app, I get a $5 off a $10 purchase coupon that seems kind of randomly issued.

Do you mean that the PS4 has won against the XB One? It seems as though the Switch is a pretty big player too.

The console war mentality to me is similar to how committed some American car and truck buyers are to Chevy, Ford, and Dodge, to the point where their cars have even MORE logo insignia than what the factory installs with some even having a decal of Calvin urinating on the logo of another brand. Advertising encourages these comparisons for cars and trucks but the consoles don't really seem to engage that way anymore. It matters that cars (especially trucks) and console advertising targets men mostly. I just don't see this kind of aggressive brand loyalty among women targeted by advertisers. I'm sure loyalty exists, just displayed in less overt and confrontational ways. That's probably how it should be.

Not sure if this is what BSRSteve is looking for in this thread, but Space Spartans (US) has the running man/no running man variant. (Also, the link in the first post is 404.)

Have many FCTVVO variants that are still sealed turned up?

The two most important factors are title keywords and price. Photos are a close third. Beginning sellers often use all the wrong keywords in the title. Keywords you should include: Make (e.g. "Atari," "Intellivision"), Model (e.g. "2600 VCS," "Genesis"), Title (e.g. "Space Dungeon"), completeness (e.g. "CIB," "complete"), functionality (e.g. "tested," "works," "sealed"). The number of characters gets eaten up pretty quickly, especially if the game title is long. Here's how I would write a title for a game: Space Dungeon for Atari 5200 with Coupler / Complete in Box, Tested Other title-writing tips: * stay away from keywords such as "rare." * No need to repeat the identical word unless it is in the game title. * words that a buyer would never search for (e.g. "video game") * Some games may include a compound word that buyers will search for using two words or vice versa (e.g. "Pacman" and "Pac Man"). You may need to include both in the title, if feasible. (Not 100% sure about how the search algorithm works in this case). As for price, decide whether you want to get rid of stuff or make the highest profit. If it's the latter, your items should have almost no competition on eBay, and you should be prepared for "longtail," which is sitting on an item for a longer than usual time to get the price you want. If it's the former, undercut the lowest comp in the same condition by $1-$2 for a BIN. Also, use BIN rather than auctions. Just be the lowest price when buyers sort by price (this includes shipping). Most retro games will ship first class for $4-$8.

Recently got an email from Amazon that Prime Video will no longer be offered on a Roku device I just retired. I can get a $25 credit on a Fire device. Not a bad deal.

I transitioned a buying account with some hundreds of feedback to a selling account. Then, I started a new buying account (feedback score doesn't matter here). Eventually, the seller account will get seller feedback of its own, of course. Separate accounts can protect you as a seller from a user seeking retribution if you had a bad transaction with them (with you as buyer). Also, I don't like my buyers to see what I myself have been picking up on eBay (from reading feedback).

Have one eBay account for buying and one for selling.

For sealed collectors, here's an Astrosmash with the contest sticker on the shrink. Item number: 283553568485

I noticed that they are definitely flaky when charging in sleep mode. The light sometimes blinks when it is completely powered off. I may end up returning them just on principle.