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Dolt

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Posts posted by Dolt

  2. Posted

    Permit me to add a few. Ever wonder...

     

    ...how come if the flea market vendor had "a huge box of Atari stuff" sitting untouched for years, someone managed to buy the whole thing THAT MORNING before you got there?

     

    ...why we all call Pac-Man and Space Invaders "commons" if it's hard to find ANY carts in the wild any more? ;)

     

    ...why a game box is--at most--only worth as much as the game it once contained, yet game boxes are much harder to come by than games? :?

     

    ...what Atari was smoking when they released ET? :D

     

    ...how your friends can say that collecting Atari is a dumb hobby while they're running off to their rotisserie baseball draft?

     

    ...if George Plympton actually knew what an Intellivision was?

     

    ...if any 8-year-old kids actually knew who George Plympton was?

    :)

  3. Posted

    Yep, I guess that's what I meant. I don't blame you--I'm sure building your repro wasn't cheap. I had thought perhaps they could be done as a sticker or something, but I'm sure you've done a ton of research on this and know what is reasonable for it. Regardless, congratulations on a great job!

  5. Posted

    OK, I wasted about 90 minutes at the S&B library today, getting sent from one desk to the next by clueless people. Most of their Billboard collection is on microfiche but the collection is incomplete and they don't know which years they have have. You have to request the sheets and then 20 minutes for them to be delivered to you, so I had to fill out multiple requests (one at a time no less) for 1981, 1982, etc., since I don't know when the chart began or ended. They discovered that MAYBE they didn't have them--they might be out in use. I had to wait 20 minutes each time to learn that. Then I was referred to the Performing Arts library which is on the other side of NYC about 40 blocks north--which may or may not have those years.

    I guess I'll call them next week to find out if they have those years there before I go up there, but if they're as clueless as the chuckleheads I dealt with today, I expect I'll have to go up there and find out the hard way.

  6. Posted

    I kinda got the impression from Klove's post that this was maybe a comparatively "small" project like, say, the portable VCS units as opposed to some big commercial venture.

     

    I remember in the late 90s I talked with a group of nuts in SF who called themselves BOLT (Bureau of Lo-Technology), and they planned to take the guts of some VCS units and encase them in lucite so that they would work but the unit itself would be clear. On some level, this reminds me of that project (which I don't think ever came to fruition, 'cause I would have LOVED one of those babies!)

  7. Posted

    I got all 12 with manuals but no boxes last fall for $50 (also included in the deal was a stack of videogame mags, a Chuckwagon copy, a sealed-boxed joystick, 12-15 common carts and about 10 of those interlocking game holders). Apparently the guy used to be a big collector and sold most of his collection to Albert via the mail a few years ago--and then opened a closet in the basement some months later and found this stuff. Lucky for me, we managed to stumble across each other before he put it all on ebay!

     

    The best part of it is that about a year earlier in a junk store, I had found a complete box and manual for Starpath Frogger--but no game! I bought it for a buck figuring that I ought to, but I doubted I'd ever be able to complete it. Now I have a CIB Frogger. :D

     

    That said, I only have about 5 of the boxes for the Starpath games and doubt I'll ever complete that corner of my collection--but at least I have the games and that's the part that counts.

  8. Posted

    I'll go take a look this afternoon at the Science and Business library. The person above was talking about the Main Branch of the NYPL (My wife is a librarian and used to work for NYPL until she managed to get a much safer gig in the suburbs...not every NYPL branch is in as nice a neighborhood as the main branch!). If they don't have it, the NYPL Performing Arts library at Lincoln Center probably will. It's a cool place to visit--they have an Oscar in the middle of it that you can look at upclose.

    Additionally, I emailed a friend who is an editor at Billboard (I *knew* this writing career would come in handy someday :P ) to ask if they have an available archive that I might be able to dig through. I suspect I wouldn't be allowed since I don't work there, but it never hurts to ask.

  10. Posted

    While I have a bunch of games that I got cheap (Quadrun, Glib, Z-Tack, boxed Mines of Minos, Waterworld, Guardian, Stronghold, etc.), my favorite item has to be the set of snapshots I found one day--they were taken by an adoring parent of a kid who was in the Swordquest: Fireworld championships. I've told the story a few times and you can find them online if you search the 2600 Connection website, too. They were a great find. :)

  13. Posted

    ...And now, here is what I actually got. I went to Target next and found the "Furio Villa Collection 7-Drawer Cabinet," which holds 64 games per drawer, for a total of 448. It's not an all-in-one solution like the Jardine cabinet (or as tasteful), but it fits inside the tiny space that I have to keep my collection (less than 18" wide).

    The cabinet was "only" $108 with tax, as opposed to $450 for the Jardine. That is a lot but even at the higher in-store price (Today, I discovered Target has it for $85 online--DOH!), but $108 is still less than 25 cents per game, so I'm OK with it. Once I build it, repurpose some bookshelves in our house to hold my other Atari crap and then reorganize everything, I'll post a photo.

     

    Love Target's online description of it, though:

    "In a dark wood veneer accented by brown wicker panels, this Furio® cabinet is a beautiful fit in a casual or eclectic setting LIKE AN ATARI ROOM OF DOOM. The tall, slender cabinet has 7 drawers for organizing clothes in a bedroom or linens and other everyday items in the den LIKE ENOUGH 2600 CARTS TO CHOKE A HORSE. :D

    post-3788-1090439327_thumb.jpg

  14. Posted

    OK, here's what I found after spending some free time yesterday shopping at a bunch of "big box" stores.

     

    Michael's Crafts: Nada.

    Pearl Art: Nope.

    Home Depot: Nothing.

    Home Expo: Zip, unless I wanted to have them make something out of their closet shelving dept., which would cost $$$$$.

     

    Then I stopped by that Babies R Us I mentioned above and took a photo for the record of the great cabinet I found there the other day. It would be ideal...if it wasn't $450 (the discounted floor model I mentioned previously is gone).

     

    It's called a Jardine Windsor Cherry. Each of those 5 glass-fronted drawers on the left can hold 95 carts by my estimates, so it would hold 475 games. (Yes, I actually brought dozen carts with me so I could extrapolate some numbers...and wound up joking around with a very amused salesperson as a result. Atari spreads goodwill wherever you go).

    Anyway, the two drawers above the cart drawers would be idea for holding controllers. The empty space above those is big enough to hold an Atari storage unit.

    On the right side, that's a cabinet with a door--this photo, though it's not too clear, is shot with the door open. On the shelves in there, you could easily fit a traditional 1980s small 13" TV, and then there's room for game boxes, etc. All that storage, with only 43" width--it would have been perfect. Well, if anyone hits the lottery and wants to buy me one, I won't say no. :D

    post-3788-1090438202_thumb.jpg

  18. Posted

    I keep the collection in my tiny home office--a room which looks pretty nice and 'grown up', except for that corner that's filled with cardboard boxes and miscellaneous crap all piled up. Naturally, that corner is the Atari area. At 35, I no longer live a dorm-room style life so it's just killin' me to have all these games in cardboard boxes. So my question is, has anyone found some kind of "upscale" or "adult" way to keep a large-scale collection?

     

    I *was* going to put my games in the interlocking storage libraries, and I managed to buy up about 16 of them before I realized that I'd need 27 just to hold my collection as is. I could surely get another 11 libraries, but I don't have the wall space to put them all up! (At this point, I'd like to mention that if anyone wants to make a deal on 14-15 libraries, 3 of which are still boxed, send me a PM offer :D )

     

    What I really need for my collection is an imaginary piece of furniture that would resemble a TV armoire, with 4-5 BIG drawers on the bottom to keep carts and other crap in; a shelf that would roll out like a computer desk keyboard shelf, which I could keep a 2600 on; a shelf above that to hold the vintage 1980s 13" color TV that I play on; and a series of shelves above that to hold cart boxes, extra 2600s and the like. If I was rich, I'd go to Gothic Cabinet Craft and have them build one to spec, but if I had that much money, I'd live in a bigger house and would have more room to keep my collection in!

     

    I was at Babies R Us the other day, and they had this awesome piece of furniture that was actually fairly similar to what I described there. It was about 5 feet tall; on the left were about 8 thin drawers with glass fronts that were perfect for holding games. On the right was a cabinet door that opened to reveal a series of shelves that would hold 2600s, etc. pretty nicely. It was all a very dignified dark cherry wood--and it was in the clearance section, no less--but there's no way I could bring myself to drop $360 on furniture to hold my games. Fun to think about though.

     

    So anyway, does anyone have any ideas, suggestions, photos, on how to keep your collection in an upscale environment (or at least out of carboard boxes!)

    Thanks,

    Clive

  24. Posted

    So I managed to find someone in NYC selling a 2600 system complete, with 21 games in the boxes, for $45. About 60% of the games, I didn't have boxes for them, so I met the seller on my lunch hour, figuring I could turn around and sell the rest of the boxed games and the 2600 to break even.

     

    The deal got better when I discovered that one of the boxed games was 51 Blackjack in the book-styled box, which I needed.

     

    And then it got even better when I unwrapped the 2600 and discovered I'd bought my first Heavy Sixer! It may be filthy and covered in cat hair, but it's a keeper! :D

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