Dave Farquhar

I wrote an article on keyboard maintenance published in the July 1992 issue of Twin Cities 128. That issue is on the Bombjack site. It's for the 128 of course, but the two keyboards were the same from a maintenance standpoint. I agree with the others who say $100 is steep for a 64 and a 1541. A 64 with anything at all wrong with it is worth about $10. Figure $10 for the 1541, and $20 for the disks, and $40 seems fair. I wouldn't go $100 unless a substantial portion of the software is originals.

If worse comes to worse, too, you can remove the keys on a 64 keyboard if the post is in good shape. I think they pop off with a chip puller. So if the rest of the keyboard is OK, you can just replace the missing key. That 64C with a VIC keyboard is interesting looking. Makes it look like a VIC-20 on Slimfast.

That's a tough situation and I really don't envy you. But I have one thought. Your friend pushed his way in. You started the venture with your own knowledge and money, and now he's come in and he's trying to tell you what works and what doesn't? That's not right. What I think you should do is set aside some cash and buy flippable computers on your own, with your own money, and not worry about what he thinks. Sell it yourself, and since you spent your own money, time and effort on it, all the profits from that sale are yours. It's only fair. And if he's smart, he'll learn to listen to you. "Never heard of" the VIC-20 and the TI-99/4a is an admission of ignorance. I'm much more impressed with your business sense than with your friend's. And it sounds like he's pretty lucky to have a friend like you, frankly. Regarding IBMs.... If they're true-blue IBMs and they're old enough, there's interest in those. But you could end up buying multiples to put together working machines from. And they can be big and heavy. There's also interest in other name-brand compatibles. There's a lot less interest in no-name clones, but cheap clones can be parts fodder to get name-brand machines up and running. Do some eBay searches to get an idea of what IBMs and compatibles in various states and condition go for.

It will most likely follow the path of other nostalgia-related collectibles. Those of us who grew up with the stuff (and I'm in my mid-30s, so I'm part of that group) will buy it up as money, time, and space permit. Most of the 8-bit enthusiasts my age are married now and have kids, which ties up a lot of time, money, and space. Eventually, we'll move up in our careers and our kids will go off to college, which will free up a bedroom and/or basement space for a computer collection, so we'll start buying more of it--the stuff we had growing up, and the stuff we never could afford (or find) but always wanted. That increased demand will cause prices to go up.

As far as I'm concerned, any boxed Lucasfilm/Lucasarts title at a thrift store price is a good find.

Check Amazon.com too. Pricing there will vary widely, but if it's a common title, you may very well be able to scoop it up pretty cheaply. I've never sold any Apple II stuff there since I don't have a working Apple to test on, but I've sold Commodore and Atari software there at prices that mere mortals (and not just trial lawyers and Fortune 500 executives) can afford.

They're frequently people who make money by selling old computer gear to businesses who have an old system they can no longer get parts for, and are willing to pay a premium price to get the machine going again when it fails. The problem is, many of these sellers don't know (or necessarily care) what systems tended to end up where, so just because a card out of an IBM PC/AT sold for a few hundred bucks, they figure an Apple card of about the same age must be worth that too. Generally speaking, yes. A few dollars per card is far more typical elsewhere. On eBay, you're paying for the privilege of being able to get exactly what you want and have it overnighted. That's great if you run a factory and it has a system that runs on an IBM PC/AT and there's no upgrade path. For a hobbyist.... You're better off being patient and seeing what shows up at the next swap meet, or at a thrift, or wherever else you like to look. They're there now, to a degree. The people who liquidate estates don't really know what to do with them or how to price them. I saw an estate last year that had a IIe and IIgs, and another one that had an IBM PC or PC/XT (I didn't pay enough attention), and so far this year I've seen a Tandy Color Computer 2 in box, a handful of nice 386 clones (some nice brands like CompuAdd and some no-names) and a fairly nice IBM PCjr. But the prices are usually too high. In some instances, someone could show up 30 minutes before closing and offer 10 bucks and they'd probably walk away with a computer. After the system sits all weekend with no queries, they'll probably get the message that their prices are too high. But there aren't a lot of people who collect this stuff. Certainly not like the people who collect old cameras and old toys and stuff like that. The danger is that they'll just automatically send all old computers to the recycler because they never sell and nobody ever asks about them. They're in kind of a Catch-22. There aren't enough vintage computers at estate sales yet to attract collector interest (In my experience it's maybe 1 in 20 sales that have one), and without the collector interest, estate sale companies may decide they just aren't worth bothering with. At the sale that had the overpriced Apple IIs, I bought a nice Microsoft optical mouse for a dollar. The mouse was priced too low, and those computers were priced too high. Or maybe what's happening is pickers are spending $100 for an overpriced computer at an estate sale, then trying to squeeze $300 out of it by selling the parts on eBay. Hmm....

It occurred to me a few days ago that perhaps if Atari had bought Commodore when the ship was sinking, it could have possibly helped both companies survive a while longer. Perhaps.... But I think their legal windfalls might have happened too late for them to make a serious run at buying Commodore, because it's really hard to imagine the Tramiels not wanting the opportunity to buy their old company back and make Gould empty his desk into a cardboard box.

I don't have a pic, but I always thought the Commodore Plus/4 was a really slick-looking machine. Black streamlined case, white keys. Ahead of its time. The rest of the machine wasn't as well thought out though. The Commodore B series machines weren't vaporware, but never caught on. You couldn't give them away for most of the 1980s. Very nice looking, but in 1982-83, who wanted a business computer that didn't run CP/M or MS-DOS? I remember Protecto Enterprises advertised the B-128 for years and years in the Commodore magazines. They bundled it with an 8050 dual drive, a monitor and I think a printer. My local Commodore users group bought one of those packages, mostly to get the 8050 drive (they were great for BBSs). After a few years they decided to sell the B-128, and as I recall it took a while for them to find someone to take it off their hands. It's odd how their most popular machines were the most plain looking. The VIC-20, the original breadbox 64, and the Amiga 500 weren't ugly, but there wasn't anything distinctive or innovative about their appearance.

I used an NEC Multisync II (not a 2A) with my Amiga 2000HD way back when. Paid a whole lot more than $14 for it too. That's highway robbery, even today. The Multisync II was a great monitor, and I was really sad when mine finally died. I used the crap out of that thing for many, many years. I kind of wish I'd kept it and had it fixed, but didn't have the room for it at the time. Some of the 14" Mitsubishi monitors also would go down to 15Hz. Some Google work might turn up some good candidates for you. I don't remember the specifics anymore.

Regarding the 128, the only game I ever had a compatibility issue with was Archon II. I'm sure there are incompatibilities, but not many. Well-behaved software should run. The main issue is if software gets crazy with I/O space that's defined as unused in the 64, it didn't always behave quite the same on the 128. And the drive settings... Later Commodore drives (1571, 81, 1541-II) had device switches. Probably the reason Commodore left it out of the original 1541 was the doubt that users would even buy one drive, let alone multiples. The 1541's popularity caught Commodore off guard and they had difficulty keeping up with demand early on.

Oh, man, about a year or so ago I spotted a boxed copy of that (probably the MS-DOS version) and passed. I'm STILL kicking myself over that one. I had a blast playing EWB in college with one of the guys down the hall. It was old even then, but awesome. If I ever spotted the Amiga version in the wild I don't know what I'd do. (Before buying it and racing home and digging out my old A2000 that is.) The best baseball simulation ever on the best computer ever? That'd be NUTS.

I thought the whole reason for the NES coming into being was because Nintendo wanted to license the Colecovision to sell in Japan and Coleco wanted too much money, so Nintendo said they'd develop their own system instead. Then once the Famicom was either reality or very close to it, along came the botched Atari deal that led to Nintendo marketing the NES in the States itself.

How clean are the cartridges? If there's any dirt visible on the contacts without disassembling the cartridge, it's probably too dirty. I had a Kung Fu cart once that wouldn't work no matter what, then I saw one of its pins was covered with black grime. I had to disassemble it to clean it completely (and most of the grime was just on that one pin) but then it worked fine after that.

The ZIF connector is sensitive. Too much dirt can do it in, too much oxidation can do it in, or a loose fit can do it in. Or a lesser combination of any of the three can. The easiest, least time consuming fix is a new connector. It costs around $10 and installs in 15 minutes. I think I've fixed five NES consoles that way. A coworker of mine who restores old amps and synths recommended Deoxit, which theoretically should fix a connector if dirt and/or oxidation is the problem. You can get it at Radio Shack but a bottle of it will probably cost more than a new connector does. I haven't tried it. The best way to keep an NES from developing the problem is to keep your carts clean. Disassemble and clean the contacts thoroughly, and then clean them after every few uses.

The Max/Ultimax predated the 64 by a few months but used the same chips, and the 64's memory map was designed to be compatible with it so the Ultimax games could be played on the 64. The original C-64 manual even says they're compatible. That always confused me back then, since nobody I knew had ever seen an Ultimax. The Plus/4 and 16 are a different design from the 64 and Ultimax. Faster CPU (still a 6502 derivative though), and a combo sound/graphics chip like the VIC-20 had. The sound wasn't as good as the C-64's SID, and although it could display 128 colors, which was impressive, it didn't do sprites. And of course they weren't compatible with either the 64 or the VIC. Tramiel ordered the Plus/4 and 16 program because he expected an onslaught of cheap Japanese computers that never happened, and those machines could be sold cheaply and still have a good profit margin. If I remember right, the Plus/4 originally sold for $50 more than the 64 did, but it was cheaper to make. But the problem the Plus/4 was intended to solve never happened, so the machine flopped in the States. It did well in eastern Europe though. Tramiel was basically good at two things: Keeping costs down and making enemies. At Atari he managed to avoid repeating his biggest mistake at Commodore (nothing Commodore ever did under him was backward compatible with anything) but he still didn't know how to market his product, besides making something that looked roughly equivalent on paper and slapping a low price on it that nobody else could afford to match.

Yeah, I remember that $39.99 price point was standard for a long time, at least for computer games. I usually waited for them to get re-released as a "greatest hits" or other budget format for $19.99 before buying. A lot of people complained about that price point. I guess that's why games are cheaper (adjusted for inflation) today. Of course today it's a lot easier to find used copies of games than it was in the 1980s too. That helps. Assuming all the discs are in the case of course (grumble grumble).

I got ripped off today. Suffice it to say, some semiliterate unpleasant woman sold me a Parasite Eve and a Final Fantasy VII that were both missing disc 1, and by the time I realized it, she already had my money and wouldn't give it back. Note to self: Always check all cases before parting with money. Is there any chance that anyone has a stray disc 1 for either of these games floating around that you'd be willing to part with? I don't have much to trade, so let me know how much cash you'd want for either of them. For that matter if you had a stray instruction booklet for either, that might be nice, but it's less important. I can play without a booklet...

I know the rumors say an SCPH-1001 can fetch up to $6,000 (even Wikipedia says so). But any time I've seen one on eBay with an asking price over $100, there's been no interest. With a good sales pitch a 1001 can sell for $50 but they often go for less than that. I don't know the production numbers but they aren't rare. They're still easy to find in the wild, and every time I've looked, I've seen a good dozen of them available on eBay. No guesswork needed--just search on SCPH-1001. If an audiophile is going to spend four figures on a CD player, they're going to buy an audiophile-quality CD player. If they can't afford that, they may very well settle for an early PS1 and be happy with it while they dream of the $6K CD player, but they aren't going to pay an outrageous amount for it. Well, maybe to some people $50 for a PS1 is outrageous. But that's about as outrageous as they'll get in most cases.

I think the appeal is that the clones are new production, rather than old, and in many people's eyes, old and used = bad and new = good. It's not true, but that's the theme of the marketing messages that hammer everyone every day on billboards and TV. The other, slightly more valid point is the reliability of the original. A lot of people remember the console blinking when you turn it on, and trying various combinations of blowing into the cartridges and holding your mouth different as you insert the cartridge. And you'd better believe the salespeople mention that when people ask about the new clones. Of course you can buy a new 72-pin connector and fix that blinking problem for good, but the general public doesn't know that. And I know from opening up and studying the original NES that it's really a good quality unit (and I was NOT a Nintendo fan in the 1980s, so that coming from me is a real compliment). The general public doesn't know that an original NES with a new cartridge connector is better built and likely to last longer than the new clones (even though it's 20 years old already), which are usually cheaply built. I prefer the originals, and I'm pretty sure I could convince someone to buy a rebuilt original over a new clone nearly every time. But I can see why people buy the new clones. I think someone with a large inventory vintage carts and new clones, particularly the FC Twin that plays both NES and SNES carts, could make a lot of money selling inventory out of a mall kiosk in November and December.

My wife was the one who got me into going to yard sales. She looks for stuff for me too. That's where my copy of Baseball Stars for NES came from.

Nice. Today I scored an original Playstation with three games but no power cable (argh), a joystick for a Sega Saturn, Rampage for NES, Super Mario World for SNES, a Gameboy Color with Donkey Kong Land, a video cable for PS1/PS2 and a video cable for SNES/N64/Gamecube (I always grab loose cables when I see them). And I scored a CD, punrockacademyfightsong by Down By Law, that has a hilarious punk rock cover of "500 Miles," the hit by the Proclaimers. I passed on a few loose Genesis carts (all either sports titles or super common) and some badly scratched Dreamcast discs. Sometimes I wonder what it is that people do with their discs to scratch them up so badly? Drag them behind their car? I had a good Saturday too, though not quite as good as yours. I've seen PS2s priced at $10 at yard sales before, but someone has always beat me to them.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I have a quick question, since I know a lot more about cart-based consoles than Playstations. I got a pretty good deal on a PS2 this week. I went ahead and bought it, figuring I could help finance its purchase by selling my two original Playstations. I know they aren't worth much, but I also figure they aren't going to go up in value either. I expect they could probably bring me half the cost of the PS2. All of my Playstation games play fine on the PS2. I know there are a handful of titles that won't run, but I don't have any of them. Is it safe for me to go ahead and dump my original Playstations, and if and when I ever get some of the titles that don't work (is there a list somewhere?), I'll just hold them until I find a working PS1 at a price I can't refuse? Thanks, Dave

Some collectors (and it doesn't matter what it is you collect, whether it's video games, records, or something more traditional like stamps and coins) have balanced lives and others don't. There's a guy who lives near me who hoards records. I don't know if he just collects, or if he sells, or both. Notice I didn't say he buys records. I've seen the guy rob places blind. But since no employee caught him in the act, he gets away with it. He'll sneak some out one way or another and buy a handful of records to cover it. Aside from that, he'll engage in other types of surly behavior. He'll cut ahead of you in line, elbow you if he thinks you're too close, and he's always looking at whatever you're looking at (whether it's records or something else) and try to get in on the action just in case you know something he doesn't and he might be missing something. And if he doesn't like you, he'll stalk you to try to scare you away before you get him. (And of course pretty much the whole world is conspiring to get him.) Basically he's your classic anti-social person. Calling him a recluse would be an understatement. Keep in mind I took exactly one psychology class in college, and like everyone who took one psychology class, I know a whole lot less than I think I do, but some insecure people hoard in order to give themselves a better sense of security. There's a fine line between collecting and hoarding (if there's any line at all). So collecting can attract some unbalanced people. All that said, I've run into some very classy people who call themselves collectors. Whatever it is they collect. So not every collector has things out of whack. I'll daresay the best collectors do have things in whack because nobody builds a world-class collection without help from friends--nobody knows everything, and nobody finds everything. My wife has no interest whatsoever in video games but she finds them, and my phone rings when they do. Neither of us can be everywhere but we can cover twice as much ground. Of course when I find things she likes I return the favor.