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Atari-Collector

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Posts posted by Atari-Collector

  1. Posted

    I bought a new clone Genesis controller for $14 called "HYPERKIN", does fell good, but after less then a minite of play, the left direction then the fire would stop working. power cycling would bring it back for about the same time, tried it on both a 2600 Jr, and 800 computer, exact same thing. :mad:

    Bothe the 2600Jr and 800 had no problems when I put in a Gemstick.. So must be a compatibility glitch..

     

    So going to take it back and try a different controller, then had a whole Genesis system there with original controls for 29$, so I might get that then have a new platform to collect for :-o

  2. Posted

    I actually have better luck with USPS. Nearly 1,000 packages shipped in 2014 and not one Item damaged. I think the USPS has had something change, I never would have used them 10 years ago. With UPS, everything comes with a problem. FedEx seems OK. And what is the company Amazon uses to ship? Ontrack, They seem OK.

    Yes, I prefer using Canada Post and US Mail over anything else. My biggest complaint with Canada Post is the mailman often doesn't bother trying to deliver a package and just cards it and I have to go pick it up at a postal outlet in a grungy convenience store.. On the good side, a used game store just opened up in the same plaza.. So I can now turn a annoying pickup run in to a game shopping trip. Picked up two 2600 games and a Genesis (clone) controller today:)

     

    I've shipped ham radio gear all over Canada and the USA, including tube type radios, while no problem.

  4. Posted

    He should have removed the power brick and bubble wrapped it separately, He has offer to send me another cover to replace the broken one. sounds like he does a fair bit of buying and selling stuff. Now I have to wait til the HxC floppy emulator gets here to really put it to use, The HxC is the TRS80 and PC counterpart to a SIO2SD made by the same person.

    • Like 1

  6. Posted · Edited by Atari-Collector

    Not sure if it was repacked. I"ve emailed pics to the seller via eBay in case there needs to be a shipping claim..

    There was lots of bubble wrap but still there was damage.

    Under that door is where the power supply goes, a brink sort like what an atari 800 uses.. May guess is it wasn't secured well, it got loose and rough handling turned it in to a wrecking ball from the inside..

     

    and yes, I do take pics of expensive stuff before and during unpacking just in case..

  7. Posted

    I thought I share a pic of latest victim eBay's Global Shipping Program..

     

    Yes, I've already contacted the seller about.. I haven't hooked it up yet, but plan on doing that shortly.

    I'm pretty ticked off about this, since these unit rarely come up for sale, I've only seen 2 or 3 year in the last year for sale..

     

    PLEASE US SELLERS. STOP USING THE GLOBAL SHIPPING PROGRAM!

  8. Posted

    Never have tried one of those. Just looked on the evil auction site and lots on there cheap. So I may give one of them a ago. As a bonus, I called the local used games store to see of they had any trackballs, none, but they just opened a new store that's about 5 minutes from where I live :)

  9. Posted

    After seeing how a couple recent threads about our history in Atari and other computers have taken off, I thought this could be an interesting topic (ok, I've doomed this posted to died by the end of the day saying that...)

     

    Are there still users groups? Back in the day there were groups for every computer platform it seems. Doing some googling I found a couple website sites for user groups, but not much. I forums like this have become the modern day user group. Sadly I couldn't find a forum for TRS-80 that had any signs of life... Seems the Atari has a far stronger following :)

     

    Back in the day, were you in a user group? Perhaps more then one? I went to an Atari group meeting once.. But found the meeting unwelcoming and never went back. Lot's of people there, but nobody was interested in talking to the newcomer.

     

  10. Posted · Edited by Atari-Collector

    It's been almost a year now since I hurt my right arm and still giving my troubles, making playing with Atari joysticks uncomfortable fair quickly so I haven't hardly touched my games in all this time. And yes I have seen the doc, she's mostly passive useless.. I finally have an appointment with a specialist next month to have it checked.. And have over an hour drive each way when the time comes...

     

    I have a few different type of joysticks now, heavy sixer Atari stick, Wico, some Gemsticks I haven't tried yet, but mostly I'm using a Slik-stick I completely torn down and cleaned when I play.

     

    anyway, back to the question.. I seen a track ball online yesterday, and thought that could be a solution since there's not the side to side force needed. So I'd like to hear from track ball owners how they are for game play in place of a joystick?

     

    It's frustrating having collected 50 or 60 games now and can't really play them. As a side note, I have a PS3 and playing don't bother me, so I was thinking about buying a cheap PS3 control and cannibalizing it to my it an Atari controller.

  12. Posted

    Functionally no, but casing is not that easy as you need to cater for five buttons, three LEDs and a display which - at least in my version - are all at different "heights".

     

    I just bought on the floppy drive emulators he makes for my TRS-80, so once I get that and see how it runs I'll probably get an SIO2SD. I do have 3 good Atari floppy drive, and a homemade SIO2PC.. But I'm think a SD card solution would be a easy way to put all my disk in one place and make it fairly easy to move between my 800 and 600XL I may go do a cased version since I've never been that great on building custom cases.

  15. Posted

     

    There should be a "Game Cycle" store that's open now in London. Give them a try if you haven't. They've got two stores here in Windsor and I believe they just opened a store in your area.

     

    Yes, that's the store I was talking about, just couldn't think of the name off hand. Been a while since I've been there last, guess it's about time for another visit. I picked over there 2600 carts pretty good last time I was there :)

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    I said my bit in the video and it's not even the customs that bothers me the most - it's the repackaging so they save money. As a buyer, part of what I'm paying for is proper packing. I often request items be boxed and bubble wrapped and I make this request before I bid and the seller will tell me shipping costs will be more and rightfully so. However to have Pitney Bowes take that properly boxed item and shrink it down while removing the protective materials is, to me, theft. I paid for a box that size and weight. They have no right to shrink it so THEY can save money.

     

    This is a headache for buyers and sellers and items will have a much greater chance of arriving damaged, necessitating refunds and returning items. In my case, they lost two packages out of two attempts. In the latest one, Pitney Bowes shipped my package to someone in Canada with the same name as the SELLER, who lives in the US. How does that even happen???

     

    First off, thanks for chiming in and I did like the videos of yours that I watched. And you are lucky to have people to buy and trade with in person. I'm in London ON btw.. Only thing around here is store that has a small selection 2600 carts, but mostly caters to the more modern game system. and has not for the computers at all. So Have to use ebay and I have an ad on kajiji looking for TRS80's right now... (I've rarely had any luck with kajiji though..)

     

    I've noticed "ebay tape" on some of the packages I have received, but I didn't pay much attention to it.. Now a will thanks to you. So I have to guess those boxes had be repacked too. I'm one of those sellers that believe in over doing the packing, and hate that idea of somebody who is just paid to re-stuff boxes. I would like to think most sellers care about what they are selling and do a go job packing, and with some stuff it could require special handling. Like when I sold a couple tube type ham radios that went to the US, I spent 3 hours on one building a foam packing frame hot gluing it all together totally encasing the radio and protecting the 40 year old knobs and front panel. I hate to thing some body being paid to repack as fast at the can handling something like that.

     

    And the mess you had with them shipping to somebody with the same name as the seller is totally insane. All they had to do it pull up the tracking info and that should have told them where it was from and going to.

  17. Posted

    be. Usually, with USPS, it takes 3 weeks to get something delivered from US to Canada. Then, Canada Post will lie and say "Attempted Delivery" when no such attempt is actually made, forcing me to drive to the Shoppers Drug Mart to get my damn package.

    I've had that happen a number of times too,, Except I have to go to a grungy convenience store that's a couple miles away in am area I usually avoid due to the high traffic in the area. I refuse to mail anything for that postal outlet as they try to make you buy a higher service. So when I have to go there, I get my stuff and backtrack 15 minutes to go to a different outlet where they treat me fair.

     

    I have on just before Christmas they marked it "name not on directory". My name has been on the apartment directory almost 7 years now..

     

    FedEx is my favorite since they come at almost exactly the same time every time.. And the delivery woman is cute and way too young... lol

     

  18. Posted

    Prior to the Global Shipping Program I found there were many sellers who would only ship UPS, and I find their fees to Canada exorbitant. They also charge tax on items that would normally pass through USPS/Canada Post without any in order to be able to charge their fees. I once had a item that was supposed to ship USPS Priority Post according to the listing shipped UPS instead, UPS wanted about $30 in fees on top of the taxes on a $65 item(after complaining UPS waived the fees and I only paid the taxes).

     

    More sellers are now willing to ship internationally with the Global Shipping Program, and at least you know what the charges are in advance.

     

    Oh I agree the UPS is a horrible way to ship across the border. I too have fell victim of the insane broker fees when a seller promised to ship US Mail and sent it UPS anyway. A $15 fan cost about $50 by the time I got it. And it was something I had to have to get a computer back up and running as the local computer store refused to order what I wanted... I've also had a lot of trouble with UPS just not delivering stuff or damaging hardware.. They destroyed a computer monitor on me once. Or the time I had a COD coming, I was home, they couldn't figure out how to look up my buzzer on the apt directory even though it was listed so they RETURNED the shipment to the sending across the country the same day with only one try! My phone number was also on the shipping label..

     

    So I will agree that the Global Shipping is better then UPS. Carrier Pigeon is better the UPS.

  19. Posted

    I'm not going to say I'll never buy something that has the Global Shipping ripoff, but now that I have all the main Atari stuff I wanted, I can be a bit more picky. Same goes for my TRS-80 collecting, it would have to be something I just have to have before I'd buy from a selling using it it.

     

    I think what they do is convince the seller they are making it so much easier and that's a lie. A seller would be fine boxing and item up and mailing it at the post office with in the US, yet they are tricked in to thinking it's a big deal to ship to Canada or other countries. The only difference is shipping is a bit more (fine you pass that cost to the buyer, no big deal) and fill out a customs sticker. For those that have never done that, it a piece of paper (usually green) the size of a post-it note that you write a basic description of the item, it's value and if it's a gift or same etc. Even if you've never done one before it won't take a minute to do. Takes me about 10 seconds tops. And you'll save your buyer shipping cost and time, making them happier and getting the seller better feedback.

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    For anybody that buys on the evil auction site and lives outside the US like me, you have probably seen listings using the "Global Shipping Program". It's supposedly supposed to simplify shipping for US sellers, but from a few videos I found on Youtube last night it's causing buyers and sellers problems.

     

    What happens is the US seller ships the item to some address in Kentucky (usually) to add the customs papers and charges the duty fees and then ships it on to the buyer. But apparently, they are also opening the boxes and repackaging stuff in smaller boxes with less packing material to save shipping costs.

     

    I've recently bought a bunch of Atari stuff on ebay, most from the US and did notice the 2 (from different sellers) 1050 drives were packed in boxes that were a tight fit and the only protection was that of the original Atari box the drives were in. And when I got the 800, I thought it was odd it had very little padding on the bottom of the box to protect the computer other then the bubble wrap. (all were ok btw). One thing I've notice is you never know what carrier will bring it, it's been Canada Post or Canpar mostly..

     

    But I was wondering what experiences other non-US buyers had had with packages that came that way, if they were repacked, or what ever.

     

    Hers some of the videos:


    (about 7 minutes in)

     

  21. Posted

    wow, great to see people are saving these old machine of all kinds, a number of them I had never heard of before.

     

    Some how I doubt 20 or 30 years from now game systems like the PS3/4 or Xbox, or and current computer will be being collected like we do. They probably won't even turn on because the can't home home to see if they are still approved to run by the big cooperate computers. (As PS and xbox owner found on on Christmas, if the server goes down so do the games, yes I have a PS3)

     

    But I'll bet there will still be people collecting our 8-bit friends. The newest game crazes come and go, but Pong and Pac-Man are eternal :)

  22. Posted

    Just wondering how many people here collect old computers besides Atari here?

     

    My first computer was (and I still have it) a TRS-80 model 1. And while I have focused on Atari, I've decided to get some TRS-80 stuff too. Just bought a model 100 on ebay and hunting for a model 4 for a reasonable price.. the shipping on them is super high to Canada though :(

     

     

    So what other brands to use collect? Know any TRS-80 counterpart to the forum? OH i know I'm at risk of being lynched now :) LOL

     

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    Yes, I rember my first computer. A TRS-80 model 1:) Took a long time to get one. My father couldn't seen any point to a computer.. Eventually my mother bought me one for my birthday, and I still have it:) In fact I plan on unboxing it soon and setting it up again full time.

     

    In addition to collecting Atari, I've decided to include TRS-80's also. About 15 years ago a friend of my brother's was helping us move and tried to buy my model one, he actually said "Name your price." and the only answer he got is 'not for sale.'

     

    Just bought a model 100 on the evil auction site and on the hunt for a model 4. I've already got most of the Atari gear I really want, but will surely add more when I see something interesting.. (money permitting..)

     

    Just got to figure out where I'll put them when I find my new treasures:)

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    I ran an Atari BBS back in the 0s then switched to PC, then gave up on it after I got tired of the nonsense of stupid people causing problems..

    I resurrected the PC BBS (focusing mainly on Atari files though) last summer for about 4 or 5 months but 1 or 2 callers a months just wasn't any fun to maintain..

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