kb9snl

Hello all, looking to buy a working Atari 800XL for a reasonable price. A cassette drive or disk drive would be a plus as well, but not required. Thanks!

That sounds familiar, space invaders maybe? This one? Ran across it the other day...a 5200 commercial primarily

Take my advice, do yourself a favor, and heed this friendly warning ... stick to that strategy (only collecting loose carts). Write it down some place where you'll see it every day, repeat it out loud, repeat it often, and never waiver... never give in to temptation. That is of course unless you want your empty guest room to turn into the world's largest walk-in closet. Trust me, I am at this point, unless I end up with a much larger house, then I might go crazy and start box hunting like mad! I do have manuals for the majority of mine though...(about 90 of the 135 carts have them)

TRUTH

I will replace a really terrible condition cartridge if I run across one that is better, but I don't generally go out of my way to do it. I tend to collect loose cartridges though, not going after the boxes or anything like that, so I guess it's really personal preference.

Interesting, I do the same thing, I look for the consoles that are damaged or considered "dead" and bring them back to life. I have done so with 3. My favorite console is a circa '78 sixer (not a heavy, but still nice) that my brother found in the dump, discarded in a side building for recyclables and half buried in mud and partially submerged in water. It took a week to clean it out, and it involved a small ant farm living in the cpu board under the shielding. It's amazing what the electronics in these things can withstand. After the cleanup, it works like a champ, and has for the last 8 years. When I first joined this group back in 2006, I could've sworn I saw someone post what he/she had found discarded in an alley near their house--2 Atari 2600 consoles with controllers! I think they were both 6-switchers. What a find...and what a rescue. And your story is a sure testament to the durability of those boards. Man--"half buried in mud and partially submerged in water..." I can't believe it. And an ANT FARM even! Wow. Now that would make an awesome Atari rescue story. Did you take any pictures of before and after? ...Of the ants, maybe? =D Yeah, I'm on the lookout these days. I'll be sure to let you all know if I find any. Unfortunately I didn't photograph it, I was still 35mm back then (and an extremely poor just married college student, lol!)

Oh, stories like this make my day! Another VCS rescued from oblivion! :!: +1 for you, my friend! -tet Why thank you. Yeah, I nearly dropped the main board, shielding and all, when that parade of ants started up my arm. I was excited to get it going, it was the very first sixer I had ever come across. I still need to get the difficulty switches replaced, they're kind of difficult to move (rusty), just haven't ordered switches yet. I did replace the select/reset switches with ones from a lightening-damaged CX2600A, as the original springs had rusted in half. It is missing the serial number tag, water doesn't help those things. I wanted to add it to the recently started list of light sixers, but unless I can find the number, no luck there. Mine did have the paper taped inside still, and I believe I left it inside. (I hope.) I did that restore back in 2002. I need to do the treatment to it that Difficulty A so excellently accomplished and take photos for you all to look at. I hope to do more of this in the future. I have worked on 5200s as well. I also restore old early tube-type radios, that's a lot of fun. LOL, "Send me your dead and damaged!"

This nearly made me spew coffee on my laptop. Homemade face palm! Hilarious!

Oh my. That is beautiful. I've never seen one. The built in controllers are awesome.

LOL! TLC = Tender Loving Care. If there's one thing that makes the biggest difference in the world, it's that. I wouldn't have spent half the time cleaning my Atari (much less writing one long diary about it) if I didn't love it like I did. What's interesting is I'm actually on the lookout now for other Atari consoles that are being discarded, junked or merely abandoned, just to have the chance to rescue them like I did mine. Funny, eh? Oh and @tetrode: Meant to say that this was my first post in um, years. Yup, I joined long ago when I discovered this Atari community, but then got wrapped up with my kid...lol now I have him playing Atari with me, so I'm back. Woo hoo =D Interesting, I do the same thing, I look for the consoles that are damaged or considered "dead" and bring them back to life. I have done so with 3. My favorite console is a circa '78 sixer (not a heavy, but still nice) that my brother found in the dump, discarded in a side building for recyclables and half buried in mud and partially submerged in water. It took a week to clean it out, and it involved a small ant farm living in the cpu board under the shielding. It's amazing what the electronics in these things can withstand. After the cleanup, it works like a champ, and has for the last 8 years.

I'd show up from down here in Southern Indiana if I could! That would rock...I've considered doing the same thing, if anything, just to see what kind of interested I could drum up here in the Hoosier state! I may start a thread somewhere to see who else in IN is a Atari collector/enthusiast.

I like it. Just got mine in the mail today. It doesn't work so well with pac-man games, but it works well with enough games that I will thoroughly enjoy it. As for the fire button issue...an awful lot of the real CX-40s out there have non-springy buttons too, I'm sure mostly because they're worn out. So I didn't mind that as much.

Great, now I'm going to want to go flea market hopping today! Too bad they're all such a long drive away...usually I'll come up with at least one game though...at the very least, I'll find Combat! LOL!

Wow, this is all good info...I've been dealing with springless reset/select switches in my "sixer" for years...I think it's time to finish my restore on it.

1. S.T.U.N. Runner (1989) 2. After Burner 2 (1987) 3. Space Harrier (1985)

Sad, but true...

Got bored playing with Photoshop the other day and started piecing this together for a background for my work PC. It's a widescreen background, 1400x900 resolution. The first one is as the scans were found, the 2nd one is darkened so you can see your icons better on the desktop. Just thought someone else might like to use it besides me!

I remember the first time I played Pitfall II, having borrowed it from a friend...that music started and I was like HOLY CRAP!

I'm betting the graphics would have been very similar to the 5200 version if such a project had been planned by Activision.

I know that in the Southern Indiana area, which is fairly devoid of a really NICE flea market, I've never seen an SMS in the wild. I've seen plenty of 2600/7800, and I bought the only 5200 I ever saw around here. I do think that it's likely that the SMS was #2, still. Closeout sale stores such as Big Lots were selling Atari like mad as late as 1994 in this area, particularly 7800 consoles and 2600jr consoles, and a variety of cartridges, mostly new old stock ones like Yar's Revenge, Asteroids, and all of the red label 2600 carts and most of the 7800 library. There's a good chance, in the midwest anyway, that many, many of the carts for Atari that you find in the wild came from this timeframe...I know most of the people I have gotten these type carts from said that they got them from these closeout stores. In this area, by far, like most of the US, the NES stomped the SMS in general, and I only recall seeing one 7800 ad ever when I was young. One time.

This is excellent. What a great game. Long live the PROSYSTEM!

Just make sure you keep it in front of the public well, like you're planning...who remembers "Bidiots.com"? I think it was launched back in 04, and it died within a couple of years. If you search the atariage news archive, you can read about it. I'd hate for it to turn out like that. This is better, as it has free listings. Bidiots was built more like ebay, listing fees, etc. I'll try it out and see how it works.

I found only one 5200 in the wild, and it didn't have anything with it at all. I had looked and looked for months for one, and ran across this one in a stack behind some stuff at a flea market along with at 2600jr. console. It was a 4-port that was really, really clean. I picked up the 4-port switchbox and a power supply for it on eBay, along with a controller that half worked. I ended up buying one of the "Redemption 5200" units from the AtariAge store (not cheap!) so I could use a Sega Genesis controller with it...it was awesome! I have since sold it to buy even more 2600 cartridges! I only got around $35 out of it on ebay at the time, so that tells me that from time to time you'll find some great deals, as I paid around $50 I think for the controller adapter alone! Good luck!

I'd love to play more, but then I got married,bought a house, and we had a baby....I ended up doing things like selling my NES collection to pay the downpayment on the house....but the Atari 2600 collection remains (mostly) untouched by the eBay selling bug I've gotten....

Dedicated: ------- Atari 2600: Midnight Magic Atari 8-bit: Pac-Man Atari 5200: BallBlazer Atari 7800: Galaga