krslam

I see a mix of 82, 83, and 84 dated chips, so you've got a bit of a hybrid there. I'd recommend you check the forums at www.lemon64.com for repair guidance.

Electromechanical calculators worked the same way. Division was handled as a series of subtractions with a counter. Ask an old Friden to divide by zero and it would run forever.

I've never heard of Washington charging a B&O tax to someone who's just an ebay seller from another state. There must be something more to your story.

According to ebay's tax page, they only started collecting sales tax on shipments to Illinois on Jan 1 2020, so you'll likely see it on all purchases going forward.

They weren't cost competitive. As Microsoft showed, the real money in computers is in the OS and other software. IBM tried to grab that slice of the pie with OS/2 but was unsuccessful, and PC clone makers undercut them on price. They were always a business machine company, like thier name says, and have pretty much gone back to those roots. Selling to home users, except the failed Pcjr, was never thier market.

No, the sales tax collected gets paid to the state where YOU live. What state or country the seller lives in has nothing to do with it.

Me too! I have a foolish goal to own at least one homebrew from every system I have. Supervision was one of the more improbable.

There was a version of Lotus123 for the PCjr that ran from two cartridges, but, yeah, the regular disk based version didn't work.

So what happens if you put a regular game cart in? Or is there no cartridge slot?

That's pretty cool. Rat Shack made a bunch of variants of the CoCo1, but this is one I hadn't seen before. Does it boot straight to the Videotex screen? Can you get to the normal BASIC screen?

Other. I'd take either Pikmin game over anything on that list, though I do quite like several of those games.

I did a fair amount of TI-59 programming for work back in the day. Still have the unit and print cradle but have lost the key. Didn't try out a TI99 until many years later.

Did you notice your thread title says 'Nice reasonable person on ebay'? I'm assuming this was an auto-correct issue. If anyone does truly find a nice, reasonable person on ebay, that would be a truly rare item!

Looks good, but you didn't identify the games as being for the Atari 2600 in the titles. This omission may cost you a lot of hits as many people search by title keywords. Good luck with the auctions.

It's not so much that PriceCharting is useless, but it can be misleading, especially for common titles. For example, your listing shows a value of $6.64 for Space Invaders. That's a title that would go unsold in the $1 bin at most game stores. And you've got 2 of them, for a total claimed 'value' of over $13. There's a lot of things that can throw off the pricecharting algorithm: shipping costs, condition, completeness, etc. A game that sells for $4 with free shipping isn't a $4 game, but the algorithm will think it is. You're right that Atari collecting has slowed down. You might be better off waiting for the next wave of nostalgia. You might also consider selling the lot locally through Craigslist, OfferUp, Kajiji, facebook, or whatever. Sometimes people will pay more if they can see the item in person and don't have to pay shipping, plus you save the fees, the hassle of packing and shipping and avoid the risk of a chargeback. I've found this to be a much better way of selling larger items.

HaHa. Wouldn't you have loved getting this in your Christmas stocking?

Congrats on getting the azimuth adjusted. There's no way to erase a single file on a tape. Tapes don't have a directory or random access, so the only thing you can do is record a new file over the old one. Be careful doing that because if the new file is longer than the old one, it may overwrite not just the file you're replacing but also the next file on the tape. If the intent is to erase an entire tape, both sides and all files, a magnetic bulk eraser can be used.

It's for grounding the unit. I never used it.

Bio Compatibilty is not a game. It will determine your 'biorhythms' based on your birthdate and you can then compare those with your potential sweeties birthdate to see if you're compatible. It's about as scientifically valid as Astrology, but these were in vogue back in the 70s/80s. Haven't tested it but I don't think the program is Y2K compliant. More info on biorhythms at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorhythm This YT video might explain Blue Meanies

It's not so much region locked, which wasn't really a thing back then, but the system runs at different speeds and outputs different video formats depending on where it was intended to be used. These differences can make some software not run correctly so generally the only way to know for sure is to try. There's an adjustment knob inside the VIC (inside the metal can on the board) that'll tweak the video signal. This youtube video shows it. Depending on your modulator (several models were used), there may be adjustments inside there as well but they are a pain to pry open. I recommend you get a composite video cable and ditch the modulator entirely.

There wasn't much software released on disk for the VIC. Most of it was tape or cartridge, so if you want to stick with original hardware and software, the C2N will be more useful than a 1541. If you're going to explore writing your own, you'll soon find the tape drive to be intolerably slow so a disk drive could be useful. As much as I like the 1702, any CRT monitor or TV with composite inputs will work just fine. You didn't mention a joystick, but I'd strongly recommend NOT searching out any of the Commodore-branded ones as they're all cheaply made. Get a Wico, Epyx 500XJ, Suncom, or any of the other fine 3rd party sticks instead. For games, I always enjoyed Omega Race, Gorf, and most of the Atarisoft titles. You might consider getting a Behr_Bonz multicart (127 games on one cart). Not sure if this link is still good: http://c64os.com/buyersguide/behrbonz Have fun with the VIC!

The data you're asking for likely doesn't exist, and even if it did, rarity is more about the number of surviving copies than how many were produced.

IF they're doing it right, the tax collected goes to the buyer's state, not the seller's, so if your state has no sales tax you as a buyer should pay no tax. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to find that eBay is skimming a bit for themselves, though.

If you sell your Vectrex, you'll have to change your name.

Good suggestions, all. Looks like I'm in for a few years of work as I dispose of it piecemeal.