spacecadet

Well, in terms of legacy and historical impact I'd say the PS1, which almost seems obvious. But I have a real hard time playing most PS1 games today; the system hasn't aged well. And ditto for the PS2. I don't think you can really entirely separate the hardware from a poll like this. I wouldn't pick the PS4 as the "best" PlayStation either, despite it having the best hardware, but for me the PS3 is the point where the hardware had progressed far enough that we no longer had to overlook obvious flaws in the graphics and gameplay just for the novelty factor of having 3D on a game console. That's the way almost all PS1 and even most PS2 games feel to me now, unless they were actually 2D games just gussied up with some basic 3D.

Avoid the fat PS3. I babied mine, didn't use it much, kept it fully out in the open with plenty of clearance for all vents and fans, and of course it died in the same way so many others have. Sony had this problem with a lot of their stuff around that time. I have a VAIO laptop that has the same exact issue. It's something about the way they were soldering stuff back then. The solder just cracks. I haven't heard of any real problems with the slim or super slim. At this point I might be more inclined to get a super slim, just because a super slim is likely to have fewer miles on it, and they're mechanically simpler machines. There is no motor for the eject mechanism to go bad, which is something happening to a lot of PS2's now (including both of mine). Also, the laser mechanism and disc motor are just right there; no need to even take the system apart to access them. So I think the super slim will be somewhat more reliable as time goes on, and will also be easier to work on if anything does go wrong.

I'll give this a try but I have a feeling it's going to be really hard to remember most of my games. Intellivision (1980 Christmas gift). Either with the system or very soon after, I got: Skiing Auto Racing Armor Battle Space Battle Major League Baseball Horse Racing NFL Football I believe all of these were gifts. Then through the system's run I got: Astrosmash Space Armada Boxing Pitfall! Burgertime Microsurgeon Advanced Dungeons and Dragons One or two of these I bought with my allowance and the rest were gifts, but I don't remember which were which. My family was really into giving me video game stuff at that point, though. I think it was easy for them; they didn't need to think about what to get me, just needed to make sure it wasn't a game I already had. I got an Intellivoice soon after its release, but the only game I ever had for it was B-17 Bomber. I played the hell out of that game, though. I also got an Intellivision II, I thought for Christmas 1982 but it may have been for my birthday in 1983 instead. I remember my mom saying "are you sure you want this?" because by then she thought I'd be outgrowing games and also I think the crash was kind of in the process of starting, and games were being discounted. I also remember playing Burgertime on my Intellivision I, so I was still using that for some part of 1983. I have very vague memories of actually going with my mom to buy the Intellivision II and it costing $50. I think I was trying to think of something that was pretty cheap for her to give me, since we didn't have much money at the time. The only games I remember getting after getting my Intelly II were: Star Strike Atlantis Demon Attack I think Star Strike and Demon Attack were gifts from my mom too; Atlantis I may have bought. NES Action Set (1985 Christmas gift). I don't think I got anything with the system other than the pack-in game. I think my mom knew SMB/Duck Hunt was in there and SMB was the hot game of that year. I never cared for it that much, though. I feel bad for that now, because I know she thought she had done really well finding an NES that year and keeping it hidden from me. She thought I was gonna love it. Then I wasn't that excited about it, and didn't play SMB much at all. Well, now I appreciate it more. The only other game I specifically remember getting for it was Ninja Gaiden, which is bizarre because that was like 3 years later. I believe it was a Christmas gift that I asked for. I think I ended up with 5 total NES games, but I don't remember the others. Sega Genesis (bought myself! Used, for $90.) Really hard to remember all I had for this because I was in a college dorm and we both shared a lot of games and rented from Blockbuster. The ones I *know* I had and were mine: Altered Beast Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Hardball III NHL Hockey NHLPA '93 Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football John Madden Football '93 Road Rash Road Rash II Bought most of those myself except for Sonic 2, which was a Christmas gift in 92. But really, I *played* a whole ton more for that system at the time. I probably played 100 games or more for it in total just in 1992-1993. That's how it ended up as probably my favorite 2D system ever. I saw a lot of what it could do at the time.

I don't know if I ever wrote in the feedback thread but I can vouch for eightbit too. I wouldn't have any problem doing F&F if I were buying this.

They're different policies... I put "no returns" on all my listings but I'm definitely prepared to take something back if it ends up breaking in transit or something. But putting "no returns" makes it clear that there's no "try-before-you-buy" thing going on - you're not going to buy something, use it for 7 or 14 days and only then decide if you want to keep it. You're going to get it, test it out as soon as reasonably possible and if it works, it's yours. The Ebay guarantee is not a "satisfaction" guarantee, it's a listing accuracy guarantee. They call it the "Money Back Guarantee"; not "satisfaction". So if a seller describes something as working and it isn't, or something as new when it's used, you can get your money back. But if a seller puts a return policy of their own on something, it just opens up a can of worms and people think they can return something for basically any reason, even if you try to be really specific with your policy wording. Basically, I look at it the opposite way you do. Given that Ebay guarantees returns if something isn't as specified in the listing, there's no reason for a seller to have a return policy of their own. There's no reason a seller *wouldn't* say "no returns" as a blanket policy. Ebay's policy already covers the only situations in which most sellers would want to accept returns. A seller only needs to specify other terms if they accept returns for other reasons, and I don't know why any seller of retro game stuff would do that. I'm not Blockbuster; I don't rent games out... This doesn't really have anything to do with your specific case, but I guess I'm just trying to answer your general question.

There is one really specific memory I have that's almost singlehandedly what converted me from an Apple to a PC guy and that I don't think it's possible to recreate, and that was the first time I heard the *sound* of an IBM PC at my friend's house. My computer didn't have any fans and neither did the Vic 20, Atari 8 bits or other popular computers of that time. My friend's dad had his IBM PC set up in his den or something and he let us go in there and use it. I remember the lighting was very dark, the room was very quiet and when he turned on the PC, the fan inside just softly filled the room with this beautiful, calm white noise. The combination of dim lighting, the adult room and it being the first time I'd ever heard a home computer with a fan gave it kind of an unfamiliar, mystical feeling, like I was experiencing something meant for someone with knowledge and riches beyond my understanding. I remember me and my friend were actually whispering to each other because it felt like the way we were supposed to act in the presence of such a computer. Of course I've had plenty of PC's with fans in them since then but for one, you can never re-experience something for the first time, and that was a big part of that feeling I had. Nothing else I've had has sounded quite like the original PC either; over time computers have required more and more cooling so my current PC is a lot louder. I'm sure it's possible to build a PC that sounds just like the IBM 5150, but it would take some trial and error and I've never intentionally gone for that. And it wouldn't be the same feeling anyway; I have an IBM 5150 of my own now and I don't get the same feeling hearing it now. It's one of those "you had to be there" things.

At this point I'd say I'm 40% Pundit-Wanker, 20% Explorer-Sampler, 20% Hoarder-Collector, and 20% Player-Gamer. So obviously I feel like I have some of all those traits, but at the moment I'm definitely more Pundit-Wanker than the rest. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but it's the most fun I can have with the hobby right now.

Yeah, I've been thinking about BBS's and also ddial/cchat lately. I was heavily into both of those scenes in the 80's, but I don't know of any way to really recreate it. I have thought about trying out some of the few remaining BBS's that are now on the internet, but I just haven't bothered figuring out how to do it, especially on old hardware. (I would think you could do it with an Apple IIGS and a Uthernet card, but not sure and I don't have one of those anyway.) Doing it on new hardware really just wouldn't be the same. I started thinking about this again just a few days ago when I got my Atari 800 setup that clearly originally had an acoustic modem with it - I got the power supply that says "for use only with the Atari 830 modem" and also the Atari 850 interface that has nothing else to connect to it, but no modem. I was disappointed! But then I thought, "what the hell am I going to do with an acoustic modem these days?" I don't know if I could use it even if I wanted to. It's not like I have one of those old Bell phones lying around, or POTS wiring to connect one to. I also now have two external Hayes-compatible 1200 baud modems but I'm not sure what there is to dial into, and I'm not sure they even work over VOIP. My use of forums directly grew out of my use of BBS's back in the day; I've just always been doing this! But it's obviously a lot different now. There's no real analog (so to speak) to ddial anymore, which is just amazing. I guess the closest is twitter, which is definitely a lot bigger, but it's less immediate. It's funny that we've actually gone backwards in that way. You used to type something and instantly it would appear on everyone else's screen. Now you have to wait until twitter decides to refresh, which makes having a conversation that way basically impossible. As a teenager, ddial was basically how I communicated with all my friends. I completely stopped using phones once ddial appeared. I think a few ddials do still exist too, but not local to me, which was the whole point. I don't have interest in talking to people in Chicago. My thing in the 80's was talking to my actual friends online who I'd see regularly. I still use Facebook sort of in that way, but again the immediacy is not there.

Well it's unfortunately not just a bad connection; I did try reseating everything (cables and chips) and it didn't do anything. Unfortunately the good drive is up for sale right now so I can't really open it up anymore. I don't have a need for two drives at all, so I'm selling the good one to try to pay for some of the other stuff I bought and want to keep from this package. I don't technically even need one (I have an SIO2SD) but I was just hoping to get the second one working and then I might keep it because these drives are just cool. If I can't though, I might just sell this one too (as broken). I noticed that it looks like one of the big caps in the back (on the power board?) might be bulging a bit at the top. Could a bad cap cause these issues? Photo is attached - the angle isn't the best for seeing that cap, but I didn't notice the small bulge until later.

I recently purchased two Atari 810's (along with a bunch of stuff) - one works totally fine but the other has an odd problem in that it just never spins down once it gets going. It otherwise works and loads data just like it's supposed to; it's just that the motor never stops. The other drive that works fine does stop, so I know it's not just the programs I've been loading. Has anyone seen this and knows what it is? If it matters, I noticed that the "busy" LED on this drive is also very dim. I'm not sure if that could be related or if it's a separate problem.

They certainly used plenty of plastic, though - the Model F keyboard that some hold as the standard bearer for keyboard construction is still about 70% plastic, the entire front of the PC itself is plastic, and 100% of the monitor housing is plastic. They just knew how to build stuff. They knew where they couldn't skimp and where they could, and they supposedly had armies of engineers inspecting every last detail at their third party vendors. I remember realizing how much better built their stuff was even at the time, but I'm still amazed at the difference today vs. basically every other machine I own. Even machines I otherwise consider well built have various creaks when I pick them up, they'll bend when I push in the wrong places, their switches and keyboards might be scratchy or mushy, they're almost all yellowed to at least some degree, etc. The original PC is just a marvel of engineering. I've seen some that are rusted on the metal parts, but other than that, they usually look and feel like they were just made. And they don't seem to have some of the common issues of other old computers like RAM or power supplies that go bad. (I've seen one site reference the tantalum caps on the motherboard blowing, but I haven't seen many others talking about that.)

Technically every Atari ROM is copyrighted unless that copyright has been specifically renounced. Copyrights are automatic when a work is created and the copyright period is either life plus 70 years, or 95 years total, depending on whether the copyright is held by an individual author or a corporation. However, in copyright law there is the concept of an "implied license". This is where the grey area exists, because this hasn't ever really been tested in court with regard to old game ROMs. But it's been tested in other areas. Basically an implied license exists when the copyright holder knows about a use of their work but doesn't bother to offer an explicit license and does nothing else about it for some reasonable amount of time. The user of the copyright could argue in court that since no action was taken even after the copyright holder knew about the use, they could reasonably assume to have an implied license. That doesn't mean the copyright owner couldn't still demand the ROMs be taken down at any time, just that they wouldn't be due any damages for the time the ROMs were up. An implied license can be revoked more easily than an explicit license, since nothing's in writing to start with. I'm sure that all of the Atari game copyright holders know about AtariAge, yet no action has ever been taken against the site that I know of, though it sounds like Activision and Imagic have revoked their implied license. As an end user, though, you really have nothing to worry about. I'm not even sure you as a user *could* be breaking any law, implied license or not. There are arguments back and forth on this all over the place online, even among actual lawyers, but I've dealt with these kinds of issues for my job and consequently I've read through copyright law a bunch of times myself. Everything I remember in the law talks about things like making copies, distributing them and profiting from them. I don't remember reading anything about downloading a file for only yourself, or even buying a DVD for yourself that you know to be a copy. The law is specifically concerned with people who copy and distribute. A few years ago when the record labels went against individual "downloaders", what they really got them for was *sharing* those works, because when you download from a P2P service, you automatically start sharing and distributing the stuff you download. AFAIK, nobody was even sued civilly for going to a regular web site hosting a file and downloading something and keeping it for themselves, and I have a feeling that's because people who do that aren't breaking any laws at all, civil or criminal. Of course the record labels didn't publicize that, and repeatedly referred to "downloading" music in all their press releases because that's how they wanted to scare people, but the actual lawsuits were about distribution. And that's something AA would need to worry about, not you, but again AA probably has an implied license on the ROMs they do host.

Apple II's are horribly unreliable in my experience, though. And I am an original Apple II guy. Right now I have a IIc, IIe and IIGS. The IIc is on its second motherboard (I had one or more bad RAM chips so just replaced the whole thing; if more go bad, I'll swap between the two boards), and its keyboard is pretty much toast. Can't type on it anymore, it's become so gritty and stiff. The whole system is also banana yellow, including the monitor (I am not going to retrobrite the monitor). The IIe is practically orange, and its "5" key switch seems to be dead. Every other key works but the 5 on the numpad doesn't register at all. At least it has all its keys, unlike most IIe's I see out there... The IIGS... well, technically I've gone through 2 1/2 complete IIGS's as I've replaced different parts. I've replaced the motherboard three times (ok, one of those *may* have been my fault...), replaced the power supply once, replaced the case once. Even replaced the monitor. Holy crap, I just realized I have a complete IIGS system I could probably sell, though broken... Another computer to add to my *worst* aging list is the Atari 800. I just got one, and the top cover is cracked and super-brittle, and when I opened the front cartridge cover, the top shield immediately fell off the disintegrating foam that was holding it on. So now every time I open that cover, I've got little bits of foam going everywhere. (Yes, I should just remove all of it.) In the same package, though, I got an original IBM PC, which I mentioned earlier in my "best" list, and it's perfect. It looks brand new and everything works like it too. And mine was built in 1984, which is a year before my IIc and 2 years before my IIe and IIGS. I'm sure it was more expensive, but I'm not convinced the quality and longevity just comes down to price. I think IBM just knew what they were doing. They'd been building heavy-duty machines for high duty cycles for a long time, whereas most other computer manufacturers in 1981 (when the PC launched) had only been doing it for a few years.

It does in some categories, but not in game consoles. But there is a "New other (see details)" category for game consoles. That's usually where people put the stuff that's opened, but has "never been used", or has an even shadier history like opened, used for display but "never sold". I hate that category. "Like New" was less shady, but I'll bet sellers lobbied for them to change it. Hopefully the seller gives you some money back. I don't think he'll take it back and I don't think he'd be required to under Ebay rules; at this point since you did buy it and he doesn't know how you've used it, it'd be worth a lot less to him than it was when he sold it to you. But hopefully you can work out a partial refund. I feel like sellers need to be super-careful when advertising stuff like this as "new" because it's the easiest way to get in trouble with the buyer. On the other hand, as a buyer I'm like iceman in that if I see something listed as "new" that's anything other than a picture of a sealed box and a description to match, I just laugh and move on. Once something's been opened, you have no idea what that system's been through in the years since it's been produced. So I think you'll save yourself some grief next time if you either just skip listings like this, or go into it with the expectation that the buyer's either lying or ignorant and bid accordingly. If the price was good enough, I'm sure this could still have been a good deal for a CIB system, but I just wouldn't bid on stuff like this as if it were new. And I would try to get a refund to the point where your bid would have been for just a nice CIB system. btw my TI 99/4A was advertised as "new" also but clearly wasn't. It was missing a bunch of stuff and had scratches all over it; but it was in its original baggy and box so the seller listed it as "new". But it seemed clear just looking at the pics that it had been removed from the box and plastic, so I bid on it as if it was just a boxed 99/4A, and I wasn't disappointed when I got it. I wish there was a way to complain to Ebay about stuff like that *without* demanding a refund or return, just so people don't do it anymore, but I don't think there is.

One of my points is that it's not for anyone on the outside to judge what something's "meant" for. Like I said, the whole point of companies like LRG is to do extremely limited physical releases of games you can at least generally (if not always) buy digitally. So why buy and wait for the extremely rare physical copy when the digital version is easy to come by and you can play it right away? It seems to me like these games are "meant" to be collected, not necessarily played. You don't have to like that or buy into the whole thing, and I don't generally buy into it myself, but I don't really think it's for anyone to judge what someone does with their games, especially when it seems like the whole business model of a company like LRG is based on people buying games to keep them for display on a shelf. I'll bet that most people who buy LRG games also buy the digital copy to actually play. I don't know if you'd consider that better or worse. But to me, I'd think of that person as a real fan of the game, and they actually paid twice for it, so they're doing more to support the developer than someone who only bought the digital release.

I thought I might have to... how big a deal is that really? I probably wouldn't be doing it every day, but the way I use my computers is usually spending a couple weeks with one until I get bored with it, then moving over to another one. Is flashing the firmware on this thing all that difficult? I'm hoping if I only have to do it every once in a while, it'll still be better than buying multiple devices. Also what firmware does it actually come with? The web site just says it's compatible with all these computers including the PC, but doesn't really make clear what it'll do out of the box.

Didn't see a thread about this here, so just posting it for anyone's info: https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/transwarp-gs/ Probably too rich for my blood, but in case anyone else is interested. It is still significantly cheaper than the last few original Transwarp GS cards went for on Ebay. I was saying in another thread a few months ago that I wish somebody would make an updated accelerator card the way they're doing with memory, but I was expecting it to be like a $100-$200 card at this point. If it was even $200, I'd almost definitely preorder.

Yeah I forgot to mention it'll have the Y cable, but the IBM connector I believe was the same connector up until basically USB, so there's no reason to worry about that. It's only the Apple connector that changed (I think the original was 16 pin, later changed to a more standard DE-9 connector). I do seem to recall big warnings on my joystick and in my joystick manual to make sure to have the switch set correctly. I think you can potentially do some damage if the switch is set incorrectly. I have a Suncom combo joystick like this, although I like the design of this one better.

No, I'm worried about people changing parts around with stuff that most people don't have duplicates of. If you're selling a system with a mismatched box, I'm just going to wonder a) what happened to the system that was in that box, b) what happened to the box for that system, and c) why you have two identical systems that you have switched boxes on. It's suspicious. I'm not sure how to make this any clearer, but let me try again. There are two ways you can buy a system: boxed or unboxed. In almost every case, boxed systems cost more, so generally if someone is buying a boxed system, they've got some reason for spending the extra money. In my case, it's because I want to get as close to the way that system would have been originally packaged as possible. Again, I'm often perfectly fine with buying unboxed systems. I just pay less for them. I mean they're going to come in *some* kind of box that I can use to protect and store them; I'm pretty confident in saying that's not why anyone wants the original box. It's not like if you order an unboxed system, the mailman's just going to drop the console itself on your porch, exposed to the elements. So, we've established why I pay more for boxed systems if that's what I've set out to buy. Given that, why would I pay more for a boxed system with a non-matching serial number? There are almost always a lot of other listings out there for systems with matching serial numbers. If there are 10 listings with matching serial numbers and 1 without, I'm not even going to bother with that last one unless it's cheaper than all the others... probably as cheap as an unboxed system. And back to boxes without serial numbers, of course often then there's just no way to tell what's original. That doesn't invalidate the cases when you *can*. If there's a serial number on the box, it should match. If there's not, then I look for other things. Often you can tell when a box is mismatched. Sometimes you can't, and them's the breaks. But sometimes you can, and a serial number is obviously a dead giveaway, so I may as well use it. Personally I do have one system with a mismatched serial number that happened during my ownership, and that was my 3DS that Nintendo replaced under warranty. I actually kept the receipt from that swap so that if I did ever sell it (I probably wouldn't because it's the rare $99 model that was only sold for like a day a couple years ago), the buyer would at least know why the numbers don't match.

Yes, definitely. What I'm actually saying is I'd probably rather have *no* box than a mismatched one. Because the mismatched one would make me wonder if anything included in the package was original or if it was just a bunch of random parts someone had lying around. I buy unboxed systems sometimes because I don't care about anything but playing the games. If I *am* buying a boxed system, it's because I care about collecting it. To me, a box with a mismatched serial is like an unboxed system, but more suspicious. First, you're acting like it's all or nothing. It's not. A box is a lot more important than a baggie. But to answer your actual question, I don't know. That's the thing with stuff without a serial on the box. But we're talking about stuff that does have a serial on the box. It's a lot easier to fake if there's no serial. But if there is one, I want them to match.

For me, matching numbers is important. The reason is that there are different packages that come with different components, and you could end up with a totally mixed and matched system without even knowing it. Some people might not even think that matters, but if I *am* buying a boxed system, usually it's because I'm wanting to buy that specific package and I'm expecting everything to be original. I also have to wonder where that second box came from. Typically people *don't* just have empty boxes for the same system lying around, so it usually means that at some point, somehow, two different systems were mixed up. I'm not saying I'd never buy something with a box that doesn't match, but I'd probably think of it not as a CIB, original system but more like a hodgepodge of random stuff. In other words, the box wouldn't really add any value for me at that point and might even detract from it because I don't really know where all that stuff is coming from. It could be original, or it could be a replacement or something added later to match what's on the box.

Depends on the game IMO. If a game relies on your thumb muscles physically tiring out to beat you, I feel like that's not a very good game. Or put another way, if a game requires you to be firing constantly to achieve the game's objectives, then I feel like it *should* have autofire and should use other elements to make the game fun. I can't think of any examples offhand from the 2600, but a bit later, you see a lot of arcade and console rail shooters, vertical and horizontal scrolling shooters that had autofire and many of them were fun as hell. They were more about the strategy of prioritizing where you were firing and moving around while avoiding enemy fire. And without autofire, they'd have been ludicrously difficult, almost physically impossible.

It's almost definitely a 9 pin connector as on the later Apple II's (IIc, IIc Plus, IIGS), as all of the combo IBM/Apple joysticks that I've personally seen are. Combo joysticks like this generally came out late in the Apple II's lifespan (and far enough into the PC's that it was a viable gaming machine on par with the Apple II), so they generally have the 9 pin plug. The fact that it advertises PC AT support on the box means it's from 1984 at the earliest. (Edit... aaand now I see the 1993 copyright date. Well, that pretty much confirms to me that it'll be the 9 pin plug.)

I think I'm trying to make myself feel a little better about this. I just ordered a floppy emulator from Lotharek, because I need one for my IBM 5150 and I figure I can use it with other computers as well. But I had read a while ago and completely forgotten that you can supposedly buy a cheap Gotek, flash the firmware and end up with something at least similar for a lot less money. I saw a video on it just after placing my order and I literally slapped my forehead remembering the research I'd done months ago. I don't think there's really a way to cancel my order, but I guess I'm probably looking for some reassurance that I wouldn't want to anyway. Are there any limitations to one of those cheap emulators with a flashed firmware vs. an actual HXC from Lotharek? Conversely, any advantages to having an actual HXC vs. a flashed Gotek? I got the rev. C if that matters, the one in the small external case so I can move it between computers. (I don't know how easy that actually is anyway; I don't really know how the HXC works.)

Yes, if the seller has set it up to allow delivery to the US (or wherever) - then the listing will show up on US Ebay. There's no need to browse foreign Ebay, because anything you see there that's *not* on US Ebay is not available for shipping here. This listing says it's not available for shipping to the US. I suppose you could email and ask to make sure, if they understand English.