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ussexplorer

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Posts posted by ussexplorer


  1. On 11/14/2020 at 9:19 PM, Silverfleet said:

    Not exactly a thrift find, but you gotta hear this one.

    A few months ago, a buddy of mine sent me a text. He was cleaning out a relative's house who had deceased and came across some "old games". After looking over what he found, I was going nuts. I told him what it all was and what it goes for in case he wanted to sell it. He said, "No, this isn't for me, this is for YOU. You want this stuff? Otherwise, I'm going to toss it". Well, yeah I wanted it! I tried offering him money and he refused. We settled on some bike parts and good beer. I also repaired a guitar for him last year, so he said it was payback for that as well.

    Tonight, I finally met up with him. This is what he gave me:
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    Tons of NES games, most with instructions! There were even manuals that didn't go to these games that I needed for my existing collection, like Zelda and Castlevania III.

     

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    Some quality Game Gear games, especially Space Harrier and Halley Wars.

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    Rental case SMB2 and a sealed SNES Ascii Pad. Gotta love those old NES rental cases.

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    CIB Diablo for the PS1, which is hard to find.

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    Some GBA games, one of them being Doom!

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    And to top it off, some quality cassettes in excellent shape!

    The NES game haul had some really great games. Here's some highlights:

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    Mega Man with the instructions! I have never seen the instruction manual for this game. The cover art looks even worse, which I didn't think was possible.

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    Batman Returns, which is tough to find. Good little beat-em-up that came out at the end of the NES's run.

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    GI Joe: The Atlantis Factor, a game I've always wanted but never had.

    And the crown jewel:
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    Sword Master with the instructions!!! This is a cool side scrolling Castlevania-esque game, and I have never seen a copy with my own two eyes until tonight.

    There was even more, but it was later-gen stuff and my friend kept it (and rightfully so). I still cannot believe he gave this stuff to me; I am floored. They were going to toss it out! I can't believe this stuff is still out there. This is my first gaming pickup since before the pandemic started, and I would say the wait was worth it. 

    When the local video rental place in my small town closed down. Not only did I purchased the small collection of Genesis games from him. I asked him about the trash bag full of rental cases for the games. He said he was going to throw them out. So I got those for free.

    • Like 4

  2. 8" floppy was used on business machines due to more storage and out first. Home computers was more to use the mini floppy. That is why the Model II is so different from the model 1 or 3. As for mfg of one. The prices have gone down on everything. Take a look at 5.1/4" drives. The full height one was 400.00+ mostly retail and the price continued to go down. Then for under $100.00 in the mid 90's Before they went away. So continue building a TRS-80 would get cheaper. Esp. if they moved to more common parts.


  3. I play that path all the time with all the computers. After getting an Apple II+ computer over a year ago to replace the one I had in middle school. I started reading all of the vintage magazines that I Could remember. What I found seemed to be a flood of people just purchasing IBM PC for xx reasons. Reminded me of when the Sega Dreamcast came out. Sure people purchased it. But they waited for the PS/2 instead. Seemed like people purchased IBM because it was IBM. Though I have found out compared to the U.S. Other counties Micro computers lasted longer in the market place. Sometimes due to cost and the amount of systems around among other things. But all within  Three years. All the magazines and companies went from our computer is better priced, more hardware, more software, faster, etc etc compared to the IBM. But yet the IBM won out. Sad in a way. Plus one more thing. the Model II was a business computer. People seem the want one type of computer. Read and article about how the Apple II / II plus was purchased by home users and more so business. Thus, one reason they developed the Apple III. But now I'm getting way off course.


  4. I finally got around to getting a programmer to read roms from a printer.  But before I do that. (I have not done anything with roms in over 20 years. So I didn't want to kill anything.) I had a case of Atari 2600 roms to copy. It was find along time ago at a thrift store. I really did not not to remove all the hand written labels. I like to get stuff original to a point on history. But the one or 2 chips the stickers fell off of. I cannot cross reference them. I did a little digging and found out some ??? atari carts did not use a standard 2k 4k 8k etc etc rom chips in some instances due to changing the pin out. So between the tl866 ii Plus and the AMI c012031c-01 1980 atari korea rom chip. Any ideas?  Also one more questions not related to reading and writing chips. Can this be used to test dram memory modules?

     

    Thank You,

     

    Josh


  5. I was wondering about that. Putting in jut a 65c02 and see if that would satisfy the few terminal programs that required a 65c02. Since several upgrade exist for the apple ||+ include the 65c02. For instance one forum talks about using a 65c02 in apple II+ to run ProDos 2.0.3. Posted from about 17 years ago. So my guess before they removed the requirement on prodos I guess. It does also explain some 65c02 won't work in the II+. Not sure why.  The link so I can give credit to credit do and you can read the article. https://comp.sys.apple2.narkive.com/vHszPodU/65c02-in-an-apple-ii 

    One more thought was to bad they didn't get the memory bank switching the same in the IIe. That seems to be another issue. Thus, even if you have say a Ram factor card. Some programs that require 128k will not work unless they have built in support or a patch from Either the company who makes the memory card or a patch from the software. Well something like that.


  6. I did that for a few months. Tried to find a terminal program to work with Linux after I got my apple ii plus. PRoblem seemed to be most programs wanted a 65c02 or something. I'm surprised that since the vt-100 was introduced in 1978 that by 1983 we didn't have a good group of programs. Then again I searched a few magazines about that. Found a few programs that once again. Was not for the apple II plus or couldn't find them in an archive anyplace.


  7. I'm enjoying my apple ii plus I got back in July. Loaded it up too. Enjoying the booti card. Still a few more things on the list. Floppy emulator of some type, real time clock chip (I have a card but all slots are full.) and a color monitor. If one shows up local so I don't have to pay an arm and leg for shipping. Also if I do run into a local or cheap IIgs or IIe. Probably pick that up just to be more compatible. I would think at that point. I hope I'm done. Anyway enjoy your time with the new fruit.

     

    ttfn,

     

    Josh

    • Like 1

  8. If you want to mess around with old stuff. Find a CPM card for the iie that goes int he critter. Then you can run cpm. Memory card upgrade perhaps. Just really what you want to do. But as stated above. You want a serial card for adt pro. I enjoy it so much.  TTFN, Josh


  9. Yea. I ended up with a few things missing / thrown out throughout the years. The tough one was storing stuff in my dad's garage. Once I found a place I drove back and forth to pickup items / through stuff out. I had a small 4 door Suzuki sidekick. Fun trying to fit stuff in. Well one day I came back after a few months. Most of the stuff was gone. Not all of it. Seemed to be strange too. Chucked the stuff that was worth money or I was going to keep and left the stuff I was probably going to get ride of. I tried to explain to him if I known he wanted a quick decision. I would have come over and did a quick clean up. So it was things like. Had the container of Atari 2600 games I purchased used from yard sales and such as a kid in the 80's. But chucked the whole 2600 system. Left the CED video discs and got ride of the player. Etc, Etc. Interesting how life works.


  10. There's no reason to go with a II+ unless you're an Apple II collector and want it for nostalgia's sake....   That is exactly why I purchased my apple II+ in July. But I keep thinking the next one will be a IIe or IIgs just so I could run some more programs. But I still have a few things to add to my apple ii plus collection first. The nice thing about the iie and the iigs is you can use the cards from an apple II.  TTFN, Josh    


  11. From my understanding most of them are  just clones and or support Vidterm? video card and sometimes come with more features. I think I got that correct. If I did that is what most software works with right out of the box. This just happened to be about 10 or 15 cheaper than most apple II / II+ 80 column cards. Plus the fact he has like 5 of them. So I put the word out.

     

    Thanks,

     

    Josh


  12. I remember going into the local ComputerLand. It was based on credit and the fact the computer would be an investment / last 10 years. About the pricing it was already going down each year. What people didn't know if after a certain point. Computers would become outdated quick. When I started working in computers we still had people showing up with computers they purchased 10 years ago and expected to run windows and this was in 1992. They didn't realize the processor among other things started to outpace any upgrade they could put in the the original IBM AT. (Had a guy who came in and just purchased a large 2mb I think expanded memory card). He couldn't understand why windows would run in enhanced mode. Anyway to follow things up. Companies went from upgrading say each 5 years to 3 years to 2 years and even some down to 1 years do to cost dropping and change of hardware. Now it kind of has reserved. Well the hardware is still cheap. But A computer that is 5 years old. Can still run stuff pretty well with a few upgrades. TTFN, Josh


  13. Well with the exception of the RFI keyboard. The apple II + based the Apple II diag. All it found was a memory chip that needed to be re-seated. The APPLE II super serial card I picked up worked like a champ to get the ADTPro software installed. First time in years I had to notch a disk. Got to love one side is bad on vintage disk. The other side is good. I would like to thank everybody for the help and I hope they enjoy the pictures.

     

    Thank You,

     

    Josh

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    • Like 2

  14. So I didn't want to really start a new topic. But I wanted to post and update. I broke down and ordered a ps/2 to Apple II + adapter. I'll post my experience about it when I get to receive it. I also keep trying to fix the rfi keyboard too. Next on the list when I get a few dollars will be the super serial card so I can get some diag. programs loaded to it and see what else is up with it. Once of many cards I want to purchase.

     

    TTFN,

     

    Josh

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