mozartpc27

That's funny! I don't know if it is exactly true either, and I tend to think that oldheads like myself (I'm going to be 43 in a month so I guess I am just now qualifying as an oldhead haha) can tend to get a little overheated in the dumping on the younger generations, but the disposability of everything doe bother me. I was the sort of kid who always paid attention to grades and did very well in K-12, but what I have principally learned, I feel, as I have gotten older, is that knowing things is nice, but knowing how to do things is much better. My father had no handiness to him at all, he was mostly intellectual, I suppose, by inclination (but he drifted into being not especially good at that even as he got hooked more and more on junk television in his old age), and so he could never teach me how to do anything, and between that and the fact that, when I was in high school, going to "tech school" instead of staying in regular high school and getting yourself on track for college was treated like something for kids who couldn't add two and two and were lucky to muster the brain power necessary to breathe, I never really learned to do anything. One thing about the old computer hobby I like is that it has forced me to at least learn some basic stuff. With my son I am actually considering getting him lessons from an early age in things like carpentry or electrical work or anything practical he can do with his hands so he doesn't feel helpless, like I often do. I hate that about myself but at my age half the time I just feel like, "if I try this and wreck it or half finish it and then make it worse it will just be worse." It's a sucky feeling. And the thing is, because of the rising cost of college, I think adult attitudes towards things like trade schools have improved considerably since when I was in school, and thus it is also less stigmatized among kids. Hopefully I am right about that.

Sorry for thread hijack, and I never lived in Kentucky, but for some reason Cincinnati/then from there into Kentucky is like Number 1 on my list of places to do a road trip to if I can ever convince the wife to go with me. I have for some reason always really wanted to see Cincinnati and from there kind of tour Kentucky.

I know it wasn't an option but as I have no emotional attachment to any of the machines and got one simply to tinker around with, I recommend, if you can get one, the 800XL. To my eyes it is the most beautiful of all vintage computers (and I say this as a Commodore guy at heart), the keyboard is to die for, and it has the advantages of the XE (smaller footprint, more RAM, built in BASIC) with the build quality of the 800.

My turn for an admission: I don't know. carlsson, though, seems to have provided some good information that perhaps Protecto did produce some stuff itself; I was unaware of anything Protecto was involved in that actually originated with them. Even if Protecto did sell some items under its own brand, that does not, of course, mean that they were the actual manufacturer - perhaps they simply acquired hardware and worked out a license to brand it themselves, or bought out things from companies that were totally defunct and so they could brand the items however they wanted without repercussion (unlike, for example, when they liquidated Commodore B-series computers in the mid 80s). Here is a full Protecto Enterprizes catalogue from 1985 that features a printer interface to convert Commodore printers to Centronic interface that the catalogue indicates is manufactured by Cardco, so they did do some level of business with Cardco. I don't own a VIC-20 or a VCS (I have the Coleco ADAM actually, with the VCS Expansion module), but I am fascinated by this mystery now. Protecto has always been a bit mysterious to me; this makes it only more so.

That’s what I mean. 4cade’s video talks about Cardco, then mentioned Protecto advertised a similar product sometime later. 4cade follows others in calling it vaporware, since no extant examples are known. What I am saying is that the very fact that Protecto advertised a VIC 20 adapter that would play 2600 cartridges as something they had for sale suggests to me that some of these units by Cardco were actually produced and DID exist, even if they never got past a small test production run, since Protecto would not have developed and manufactured the product itself, and was a known reseller of dead stock of even small or late-prototype stages, like the C65.

On your actual YT page I commented that this story really fascinates me. I can’t imagine that Protecto actually ever intended to produce these things themselves... which makes me think they really did buy (or thought they bought) a stock of these from some supplier who wished to liquidate them, which makes me in turn think it is more likely than not that some number of units, however small, wound up actually existing. After all I think Protecto was one of the outfits involved in liquidating the C65 after Commodore’s collapse, and there were only 200 or so of those, and they didn’t get them all (I know I have read the Software Hut in suburban Philadelphia, much closer to Commodore’s HQ than Protecto was out in Illinois, got a few of the C65s), so there is a precedent for Protecto acquiring a small lot of some piece of hardware they then sold off.

Awesome video my friend. I left you a comment on the page itself which I could repeat here if necessary. Suffice it to say I love these deep dives into the real story type things as a genre, and now combined with one of my favorite topics, old hardware. Bravo!

We had a Clover in Warrington and in Feasterville, went to both from time to time. Upscale Kmart is right. Indeed, the last place I ever saw Atari 2600 games for sale at retail was... Clover!

Clover? Where you from brother? Must be from around these parts... they were totally regional to Philly, I think.

Answering my own question, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I wonder when the last time the drive head was cleaned was," then thought, "Oh right, never," and after 36 years decided that finally its moment had arrived. Everything in working order again!

An ancient thread, but seemed as good a place as any to stick my question. After 36 years or so, my Coleco ADAM seems to have finally decided to stop reading Digital Data Packs. This is a bummer mostly for the three super games I own, namely Buck Rogers, Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong Junior. Any advice on how or whether this can be addressed? The drive spins and spins, but appears never loads anything anymore.

Interesting. What was the upper age that someone could redeem the offer, anyone know? Like, did the parents of any 17 year olds who were about to graduate buy the computer and get the scholarship? I figure the only way it could work financially (had Coleco made it) would be that they were counting on putting $X amount money per kid or expected kid in some kind of interest-bearing account, much less than Y kids time $500, and so they could make an offer that would cost them nothing today, that had a value of $500 to a parent on paper, but would require them to place $350 in an account for a kid who was 13 assuming a 7% interest rate (not unreasonable at the time) compounded monthly over 5 years. It would be a liability but would also count as cash on hand for accounting purposes.

I only discovered this game in the last couple of years, but it's awesome. I wholeheartedly second the notion of a "Super" TimePilot and a TimePilot 84 release.

Get the heck out. 2010!?!? How old is the page with ColecoVision games?

I believe that is true in the arcade version, but I am pretty sure I have exceeded 20+ levels on Donkey Kong without this happening on the CV.

Are there any ColecoVision games where if you get far enough you break the game, a la Pac-Man or Donkey Kong (arcade)? I have never come across one of those either.

Still do!

So let me give you all the final resolution to my posts on this topic, and if you are from the vague area of SE PA, you may want to pay particular attention. I just had such a positive experience I feel the need to share on here with anybody who might be in my area and has an old Commodore monitor that may be broken or need some help. I have a 1084S that had the sharpest and most beautiful picture I'd ever seen on a CRT monitor when I got it some 7-8 years ago, but I only had it for a few months when the picture went out, in what was finally diagnosed as a fried flyback. If you have a Commodore monitor for your Commodore computer, you know these are starting to get old and expensive to replace. 7-8 years ago replace is what I did - I wound up getting a 1084 that I paid around $150 or so for plus $50 to ship. Today you'd be lucky to get a 1084 for $450 with shipping and tax, and I watched a 1084S go for $660 at the end of 2020 on eBay. My replacement 1084 was starting to have problems with keeping the picture (something must be loose on the inside), and that led directly to me making the original post in this thread, but seeing how much these things were fetching these days made me think about taking another shot at getting it repaired . I first contacted Ray Carlsen, who said he could get a replacement flyback for it (when it had first broken years ago I had taken it to a place relatively local to me then in south Jersey, and was told basically that this part was unobtainium in 2014). So I shipped it off to him, and he replaced it and had it working, and shipped it back. Unfortunately, somewhere in that process, a new problem arose, and by the time I got it it produced no picture and smelled of burning. I live in the northern Philadelphia suburbs. I called around looking for what I thought must exist, some older fella who must have used to work on these who was still in business, no doubt doing other things, but who would remember enough about the old days to have a poke around. It was hard to find. Finally only one shop even agreed to take a look: Carl's TV & Vacuum in Lansdale, PA. The guy who worked on it for me (Mike) was extremely patient and helpful, and though he was unsure he would be able to do much with it, he was game. In the end, he got it working again, good as new, with that beautiful sharp old CRT picture. Now it sits on my desk proudly. It was a lot of fun and even he seemed to get a kick out of it. So here are my plugs: if you have anything Commodore, give Ray Carlsen an email. He is quick, reasonable in his pricing, and knows Commodore like no one else. But y'all knew that already. But if you live in SE PA or somewhere even within a few hours' drive and you have some old Commodore monitors that could use some repair - and given the prices they fetch, fixing them is worth it! - Carl's TV and Vacuum is a place that will do great work. Ask for Mike!

How much of this stuff works, rietveld? Also whoever posted, “you must have 2MB RAM there, congrats” - that is an A++++++ comment, huge laugh from that.

ROFLOL - getting a hardy laugh from this. Exactly so. The collection is amazeballs, rietveld!

So the issue with my first monitor, the 1084, continues: it will occasionally effectively lose the picture, but if I tap it lightly on the top or side, most of the time I can get the picture back. I haven't pulled it apart just yet, because it had been stable and because I had a second monitor, an old 1084S, that I sent off for repairs to the inimitable Ray Carlsen; it had a flyback that had flybroke, which he did indeed replace and repair; but alas, upon its return to me, it had developed a new issue: when I plug it in, if I get any response from the screen (which eventually I did get an all white screen), I got an overwhelming smell of something similar to burning matches, but slightly sweeter (I think?) and definitely less pleasant. Ozone? I did pull the back cover off of that one as far as I could, and I did not see any indication that the seal to the tube was singed, cracked, or otherwise unsealed. Anyone with any ideas? I am researching what might be available around my neck of the woods (southeastern PA) by way of repair shops that still deal with these things. Would love to wind up with two working monitors, but I'll settle for one reliable one. Monitors make me nervous to work around, hence the outsourcing. Any guidance on either one is as always appreciated. Or if you have a lead on an inexpensive-ish "new" one, I'll take that too. This is where having a local Commodore User Group would be awfully handy.

Yes, not from the time, but in my retro collecting phase.

If I had $5K to spend on it I would. But then I'd have to have at least enough money to: pay off all of my outstanding debt, including the mortgage; have money in escrow for my kid's college, and a second escrow fund for a second child, just in case; actually have enough money to move into a bigger house, in an all cash transaction; and have a pretty significant chunk of change sitting in savings as a "rainy day fund"; before I could begin to consider spending $5K on a video game for children from 1983. So I will let you all know when that windfall $1M or so in after tax dollars comes my way.

Lot of truth in this. For some reason I just HAD to have a Commodore 1551 disk drive. Wound up dropping $250 on one in 2016. Mostly it sits in a shelf I have, dust it off once in a while basically to test that it works, then back on the shelf for months at a time. And yet I can't see myself giving it up anytime soon. Somehow it is a comfort that I have it. It was probably my most irrational retro computer want. Occasionally I find myself wanting a Tandy Color Computer 2, but I had one and sold it (for now what seems to have been a ridiculously cheap price) and kinda wish I had it back; I find myself occasionally coveting a 1200XL, though it is not as nice in many ways as the 800XL I do have; I discover things all the time that I kind of want, like a Compaq C140, which I only discovered existed this very morning, which by definition makes the want irrational; But my most irrational want of all is the effectively unusable if you had one, which would likely set you back $50K, Commodore 65 I guess. I will never have one, so in substitute I would love a "Mega" 65, whenever it enjoys its official release: https://mega65.org Not sure what on Earth I will really do with it if/once I get one, but boy, I want one.

Recently, I have been having trouble with my Commodore 1084 monitor, and that has gotten me looking at prices of things for the first time in a while. I had a non-working 1084S that I wanted to send to the incomparable Ray Carlsen for repairs, and wanted to know how much to insure it for. Turns out one sold in the last two months for $660 (I probably paid In 1999, after my sophomore year of college, after 6 or so years of more-or-less continuous usage (I got into Commodore LATE, obviously), I put my Commodore 64C away, and pretty much neglected it for several years. Around 2003 or 2004, after I was out of school and working, I started getting interested again. What I decided I was interested in was the Commodore 128 - a mysterious computer I had always wondered about but had never owned or even seen in person. So I bought one, tested and working, on eBay, which came in a package with a 1571, another 1541 (I had one from my original set up), a Sanyo monitor, a modem, and I think maybe even a printer (although I also had a Commodore MPS 1200 from my original system), shipped to me in two boxes, for about $140 TOTAL (I paid $50 for the actual stuff, the shipping was well more than the items). This is what I consider to be the beginning of my "retro" computing hobby (before that I had tried, more or less, to use the 64 as my main computer, through at least late 1996 anyway). Around the same time I also bought the Commodore 1581, a 3.5" floppy drive that was the ultimate in exotic. I paid $61 for it. I also bought a Plus/4 around the same time for $10 in its box and obviously brand new, that I stupidly sold a few months later for $26 (I wound up buying another some time later for closer to $50). Adding it all up, excluding shipping, I paid $121 for a Commodore 128, a 1541-II, a 1571, a 1581, a monitor, and a Plus/4. Today, I have no doubt that without breaking a sweat, if I broke up the set, I could easily get ($300 for the 128 + $65 for the 1541-II + $100 for the 1571 + $300 for the 1581 + $150 for the Sanyo monitor, if I still had it [I don't] + $85 for the Plus/4). Even once you subtract eBay fees and the shipping I paid in 2004, that's $800-$900 - a conservatively estimated 260% over the inflation rate over the same period. So good ROI. Now, of course, I have spent other money. But the point is: Commodore has held its value and then some since it bottomed out (and some of the deal is that I bought a bunch of my stuff at the absolute bottom of the Commodore market). But it's interesting to me that some hasn't. I somehow acquired an extra TI-99/4A in my collecting phase, which I have up on eBay now. It's tested, it works, it has joysticks, they are also tested, they also work. The auction has about 8 hours to run and it has not attracted a single bid, and I listed the thing at $30. I just want it out of my house. Meanwhile, a tested and working Commodore 64 - the supply of which is presumably much greater - will reliably fetch you $150 or more in today's market. I suppose the TI community is smaller and that accounts for it, but on the other hand TI is still an extant company like Apple - and NOT like Commodore or Atari (well the names are still around I guess). Wondering what others have found recently in terms of the value of these old things.