Just got an Astrocade haul! Thoughts appreciated...

[Blazing Lazers]

Every now and then, I'll decide to take a risk and pull the trigger on an Ebay auction that seems shady or less than legit, but has a chance of payoff. Recently, I pulled the trigger on a "Bally Computer System dollectible" lisiting from a new seller with 0 feedback. The only 3 pics uploaded were blurry, but had what looked like L&M and Wavemakers tapes, and some unidentified ones, on top of an Astrocade system and some loose manuals. Nothing at all as to whether or not any of it worked. The listing stayed up for a month with nobody touching it. Hmmm. Maybe I'm the only one watching it? Maybe it's going unnoticed because it only shows up in searches for "Bally Computer"? Then it gets re-listed. Midway into the re-lisiting, I decide to contact the seller and ask what the cassettes are, and if the system works. Several days later, I get a response, which doesn't say if the system works, and misspells the names of the games, which thwarts my Google searches. Well anyways, I've had extra cash lately, and decided to chance it Monday night just before it would have ended. It all arrived earlier today. Pics are below, and I'll let them speak for themselves. I will say that NONE of the paperwork for the games was in any of the pictures on the listing, nor mentioned by the seller. I also have not yet tested any of it, but am very curious to find out what is on what I'll call the mystery tapes. I may need a working Astrocade to do this though, as my old unit hasn't worked in some time, and I have no idea if this one will. I do have a few questions that I would appreciate any insight on, as I do not belong to the Baaly Alley thread over on Yahoo.

 

Just how rare is this stuff?

What might it be worth?

Has it all been dumped/uploaded/preserved? If it hasn't, I'd like to arrange for that to happen...

Anyone else have any of these same cassettes?

Can the Astrocade be fixed if it doesn't work?

 

Thanks in advance, and the pics are below:

Edited October 6, 2012 by Blazing Lazers

[Seob]

nice find. guess the gamble payed of.

[BassGuitari]

So you bought that lot, eh? I've seen that sitting around for a while now. (I use about six different searches for Astrocade stuff, so very little of it flies under my radar) It's a very nice set, but it was a little spendy for me at the moment, and he couldn't (or wouldn't) confirm that it even worked. I've already got two or three Astrocade-shaped doorstops; I don't need to possibly spend $325 on another one. Those cassettes were very intriguing, though. I know I'd be really interested to know what's on those microcassettes.

 

What's it worth? To you, it's worth $325. I probably wouldn't have gone higher than $200 or $250, and that's if I were guaranteed everything worked. But I might be a bad example.

 

Astrocades seem to be highly suicidal machines, in my experience. I hope yours works out for you!

[y-bot]

You should join the Bally Alley discussion group. Not sure if anyone of those are not archived. I've seen very few Astrocade systems get fixed I'm sorry to say. It's usually custom chips that go bad so you'd have to pull them from another broken unit with a different problem. I'm also interested in the cassettes if you decide to sell.

[+stupus]

The secret of pellucitar and 3 demension flyers and tapes are really cool and the wavemakers one. Certainly they are very rare and they very well may be undumped.

I have some of the flyers you show, not the ones for those 2 games though.

Like BassGuitari said, price may be a bit high, especially if the unit is dead and since it had no box. But its hard to set prices on the tapes...since they never come up for sale, they are worth what your willing to shell out I guess

I have a spare flyer that goes with the best of arcadian tape that looks like you are missing it, if you want to buy it.

As for dumping the games, most tape games cant be emulated, to play on a pc unless someone very knowledgable works on them on a game by game basis and does some conversion to them.

However the data can be preserved for future use.

My understanding is you can just dump them by playing them with the best audio equipment you have available(tape player) into your pc, and recording them at a good rate and saving them as wav files.

Like y-bot says though, I would mention them on bally alley and they can tell you for sure if dumps are needed, nice you want to preserve them.

I would be interested in buying the tapes too, but sounds like you want to keep them

cool stuff!

[Blazing Lazers]

Hey all, thanks for the insights and thoughts! I tested the Astrocade unit itself earlier today, and it did not power on. Nor did it the next few times I tried, either. And yes, I made sure that the air vents on the bottom had plenty of breathing room. So, I guess I have yet another display unit. As for the cassettes, those of you who have expressed interest in them will be happy to check your PM inboxes. I have not been able to test the tapes, as I do not have the audio-interface unit, or a working Astrocade. So, I will attempt to sell the cassettes, preferably to somebody who will be able to see to their being archived. Ebay is possible, but I would definitely not want to go that route. Check the Marketplace later today.

 

As for joining Bally Alley, I wish they would simply have a forum on their site instead of having to make me go through Yahoo groups. I never heard back from the first attempt to join, and have just tried again earlier today. If anyone here is a member and can share my original post over there, I'd appreciate it.