Turbo-Torch

All that could easily be sold, just not in North America. There's incredible wealth in other parts of the world, especially the Middle East. Drop a $ million without blinking an eye and brag about it all they want. And I'm sure someone will come up with being able to buy it legitimately if they're that rich...sorry that doesn't work when there's only X amount of items and the owner doesn't want to sell.

Diodes don't leak. They also don't typically go bad unless something else down line fails. Post some pics.

You didn't say you took it apart. If you meant the blue pot on the motherboard, that has nothing to do with the display. I believe it's an adjustment for the internal modem. Hopefully you got it back to where it was. Try contact cleaner on the display pot. DeoxIT if you can find it is the best.

The rotary dial on the right next to the power switch. I think it says display under it. I don't know what blue thing you are talking about. Can you post a picture of it?

New caps didn't help mine when it got that way. I replaced the screen with a new one from Best Electronics and it looked new again. I'd also recommend a new speaker as the originals seem to fail over time for some reason.

They never came with 4K. 8K was the base model.

Turn it on, type BEEP and hit enter. If you hear a beep, at least the motherboard is ok. Good chance the brightness control is bad or just needs cleaning with Deoxit. When the LCD screen fails, you get missing lines...it doesn't fail all at once. Missing lines are bad zebra strips and you can usually tweak the retaining tabs to add pressure and clear up the problem. If the zebra strips are bad, you're out of luck as I've not been able to find replacements. I have 7 Model 100s of which 5 work/look great (all free) but most have needed tweaking of those tabs and cleaning the brightness pots. Capacitors are another issue and highly recommended. Lastly is a rechargeable barrel battery that can leak and corrode the board. They are very easy to disassemble and work on, but if you have no electronics background and don't own a basic Philips screwdriver, you're better off selling it and getting a known working one. Disk drives are rare and it's probably worth more than the $50 you paid, even if it needs a belt.

It's at the end of September and I'll take plenty of photos this year. I only took a handful last year of odd things that interested me, such as the Lobo System clones. Just finding the hi-res board for my III was worth the trip.

If you're around the mid west, Tandy Assembly is next month in Ohio. Last year they had the MISE and M3SE systems running and you could play with pretty much anything you wanted at the event. Looking forward to it again this year.

Google Ian Maverick TRS-80. He'll most likely have what you need. If all you have is $50 into it, then yes, it's worth getting a cable. A fully functioning system with monitor, expansion interface and three drives will easily sell for several hundred.

Just don't invite your stinky friends!

I agree. For someone like you who has none of that, emulation is the perfect alternative. ? You can also emulate friends by placing your stuffed animals around your Pi and pretending you're in an arcade back in the 80s. Good times! ?️????? A retired coworker (who has a family and friends he likes to entertain) made an authentic 1950s malt shop in his incredible basement. Real authentic bar top, stools, tables/booths, mixers, dispensers, signs, lighting jukebox, etc. Amazing place to visit and allows me to experience a cool social gathering place from a time before I was born. I wonder how it would have turned out if he chose to emulate the 50s experience by purchasing the fake plastic nostalgia garbage that Walmart sells? Yeah baby...a Crosley MP3 jukebox vs his Wurlitzer Bubbler HAHAHA! Thankfully, he's intelligent enough to maintain what he has, wealthy enough to purchase it and loves to share it since he's not a demented shut in with no friends.

That's awesome. Also amazing that they contacted you after 2.5 years.

Most likely 1993 as that appears to be the only year it shows up in their catalog. http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/1993/hr166.html

I'll burst a few more bubbles. The games need to be repaired and maintained, for most, it's half the fun of owning them. It's unlikely you'll find a local arcade repair man to stop by and fix your 1980s games...and if you do, it'll be hundreds of dollars each time they show up. You'll really need to learn basic repair and troubleshooting. Games also vary in reliability. Most Atari games are like Toyotas, they just work forever. A sophisticated game such as a Williams Defender is like a temperamental Ferrari, you cringe every time you turn it on and hope for the best. Some games will even burn your house down; research Sega vector games with a G08 monitor. The days of cheap games are over. 20 to 25 years ago was a good time to get into them. I have 5 games with about $550 total invested (each requiring minor repairs when bought). I also had 3 other games that I quickly tired of and sold; the profits I made more than paid for the 5 I still have, so basically I have nothing in them. If you want nice originals without some crap emulation board, figure on $500 to $1,000 each these days. Your arcade isn't going to be some forever utopia that you'll escape to every day. Like everything in life, you WILL get bored with them. They'll become functional art (really cool art) that you'll hopefully enjoy occasionally. They will also be a ton of fun when you have friends and family over for parties. You'll also want games that you like AND kick your ass every time you play them. Get something easy to master or has continues, and you'll be sick of it within one week. You don't need to pack a basement full of them. When I was on RGVAC back in the 90s, there were some truly sick individuals that had their houses filled with arcade games...living rooms, all bedrooms and the kitchen. Then you had those who looked at those guys as heroes and aspired to do the same, while feeling ashamed of their meager collection of "only" 10 or 12 games. Many of my favorite arcades back in the day were in back rooms of places like Wards, Sears, bowling alleys and the roller rink containing 10 to 12 good games. Not everything had to be an Aladdin's Castle with 100+ games. Personally I have one spare room dedicated to games and you won't find anything game related in my house outside of that room. My house has 12 gauge wiring 20 amp circuits, but even a 15 amp circuit will easily do 5 games, lighting, music, mini frig etc. Make the room your personal creation. Work on color schemes, ambient lighting and any cool items from the time period you're most interested in. When family and friends see what you're into, you'll be getting plenty of retro stuff for Christmas and birthdays...it just happens. Lastly, you need to aim much higher than Gamestop. For what you'll earn, the closest you'll get to a basement arcade is a dumpy one room basement apartment. Older video of my room, but still close to the same.

Lol...he drops the price every few hours. By noon tomorrow he should be down to the proper $20.

I always assumed it had something to do with Sears since Outer Space was always in their stores well into the 80s. Not an exclusive title like Steeplechase, but close enough. Only way I knew Star Ship existed (and was the same game) was through the game catalogs included with the older games like Flag Capture. But Star Ship and Space Invaders couldn't be more different and why keep selling it at Sears? I believe Star Raiders was released in '82. Imagic Star Voyager and Activision Starmaster were also '82 games so there was no competition until years later.

I think Outer Space was the first Sears game I bought for my Atari. I liked it back then and still do. The sound effects give off an ambience which is rare for a 2600 game. If I want the ultimate best in that genre, I'll fire up the SuperCharger and load in Phaser Patrol.

You need to be more specific. I,III,4,4P,4D,II,12,16,6000,100,102,200,mc-10,coco1,coco2,coco3,2000...get the idea? Also what kind of video issue? Text messed up, graphics, random characters? Does it respond to keyboard commands?

The guy is stupid enough to post that he had to relist due to bad buyers messing with bids. He mentions receiving threats. He then mentions receiving hate mail. He put 3 giant red flags right in the description.??? If anyone is stupid enough to bid on and win that game, they deserve exactly what they get. And with the way he's worded things, I doubt eBay will do anything if someone complains about receiving a fake.

I'd love to find one of those...one of the coolest computers ever made. Did it come with a communications program? If so, use a null modem to download programs from your PC. I often do that with my Model III. I download anything I want for the III off the internet to my PC. I use DOSBOX to run Telix (what I used to call BBSs with back in the 80s) in host mode. I attach the III to my PC with the null modem cable and use my favorite comm program on the III. It's just like calling a BBS with my III and the PC being the BBS. If your current PC doesn't have an RS232 port, you can buy a USB to RS232 adapter...pretty cheap and Best Buy stocks them. I'd also look into the DD upgrade. I have no idea what it involves but the people on vcfed.org should be able to help.

Cameras were around back then. Surely a super star go getter like you has plenty of incredible back in the day photos you can share with us. Right? ?⭐

Try your bank. I like $2 bills and they always seem to have plenty kicking around.

First game I ever saw with the 50¢ tag was Missile Command with the Super Missile Attack kit at Aladdin's Castle. It had a large warning on it stating it was for professional players only...it had a real seriousness to it, and when someone dared to play, a crowd gathered. My Missile Command has the 50¢ labels, one of these days I need to change them out. The lame laser games were the real start of 50¢ plays followed by the very expensive cockpits that move around like a ride. The machines are very versatile in how they can be setup. Below are the settings for my Asteroids Deluxe and as you can see, a 3rd slot was available and supported. Games like Defender also support a 3rd slot and have even more options set through an on screen bookkeeping display instead of DIPs. 8 SWITCH DIP (L8) 87654321 -------- ......11 Free Play ......10 1 Coin = 2 Plays ......01 1 Coin = 1 Play ......00 2 Coins = 1 Play ....11.. Right coin mech * 1 ....10.. Right coin mech * 4 ....01.. Right coin mech * 5 ....00.. Right coin mech * 6 ...1.... Center coin mech * 1 ...0.... Center coin mech * 2 111..... No bonus coins 110..... For every 2 coins inserted, game logic adds 1 more coin 101..... For every 4 coins inserted, game logic adds 1 more coin 100..... For every 4 coins inserted, game logic adds 2 more coins 011..... For every 5 coins inserted, game logic adds 1 more coin 4 SWITCH DIP (M12) 4321 ---- ..11 All coin mechs same denomination ..10 Left and center mechs = same, right is different denomination ..01 Left = one denomination, right and center = another denomination ..00 All 3 mechs different denominations

It may be including the ROM which is 16K total? Add your 8K and you're up to 24K. Also, are you sure the memory card is only 8K? I have one that's 32K. See how Radio Shacks lists the memory here. http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/catalogs_extra/1984_rsc-10/hr057.html