TI Related -- Ebay / Heads Up Notice

[+Schmitzi]

11 hours ago, --- Ω --- said:

If someone wanted to sell me a REAL issue of a May 99'er Home Computing (any year) in good condition, I'd pay $5.99, but never for a PDF copy!

 

As you get 33 issues here for $5.99, this is a real bargain 

I am wondering about who scanned this PDFs, means, who did the work.....

 

[+chue]

I always check out archive.org for old magazines:

 

99'er: https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%2299%27er%22

Atari ST: https://archive.org/details/magazine_rack?and[]=atari+st&sin=

 

[Omega-TI]

9 hours ago, Airshack said:

Guy's just trying to make a buck before Christmas. I recently purchased an entire library of several Atari ST magazines in pdf from eBay. Much easier paying a few bucks than tracking them all down and downloading them myself. He's marketing convenience. 

I understand the convenience of it, I can even appreciate that.  I went that way recently on a TRS-80 Emulator for one of my RPi's.  

 

2 hours ago, Schmitzi said:

 

As you get 33 issues here for $5.99, this is a real bargain 

I am wondering about who scanned this PDFs, means, who did the work.....

 

Hopefully the guy selling them.  It would be nice to see if the quality is any better (if he scanned them himself).

 

1 hour ago, chue said:

I always check out archive.org for old magazines:

 

99'er: https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%2299%27er%22

Atari ST: https://archive.org/details/magazine_rack?and[]=atari+st&sin=

 

Nice Post!  

[Omega-TI]

The advertisements in those old magazine are fun in and of themselves.  I saw this sidecar device in one.  I don't remember it, but it's kinda cool.  I'll tell you this though, I like modern day prices on things as opposed to what things cost back then, especially when adjusted for inflation.

 

 

[+sixersfan105]

How much would you pay for sealed copies of the hard to find ROMOX titles Rotor Raiders and Hen Pecked? Both popped up for sale on eBay last night. $2,500 per seems just pretty outrageous, don't you think? I need both titles and am curious what you guys think might be fair. Can't find much sales data other than (presumably) cart-only Rotor Raiders selling for $49.95 on 10/27/17 and cart-only Hen Pecked selling for $24.00 on 1/11/19. 

[mglafond]

21 minutes ago, sixersfan105 said:

How much would you pay for sealed copies of the hard to find ROMOX titles Rotor Raiders and Hen Pecked? Both popped up for sale on eBay last night. $2,500 per seems just pretty outrageous, don't you think? I need both titles and am curious what you guys think might be fair. Can't find much sales data other than (presumably) cart-only Rotor Raiders selling for $49.95 on 10/27/17 and cart-only Hen Pecked selling for $24.00 on 1/11/19. 

Wow... my entire rig isn't worth $2,500!

[+sixersfan105]

1 hour ago, mglafond said:

Wow... my entire rig isn't worth $2,500!

I hear ya. My assumption is that he hasn't a clue what to price them at, so he went with $2,500 and plans on sitting back and seeing what kind of offers he gets. Just my two cents.

[jrhodes]

So, i am the soon to be proud owner of a second TI, this one to be precise:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Texas-Instruments-TI-99-4A-Battleship-Gray-/264521171122?nma=true&si=alDoCeGGIh1nZhCuU%2B1AbreBAJ0%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Getting this one as a backup. I have a spare 32k, (not Jedimatt42 though, one of those slim-design ones without TIPI connector) will slap that in place on it once i give the console a good testing.

Hopefully i have not purchased a lemon, but i doubt it.

Edited December 6, 2019 by jrhodes

[+Ksarul]

On the ROMOX carts, they show up on eBay pretty regularly, usually mixed in with larger lots. If you pay more than $50 each for boxed carts, it is probably too much (although sealed boxes are worth a bit more). There is one definite exception: the ROMOX Topper cartridge. A boxed copy of that one went for $250 a few years ago--and that was reasonable, as it is the only boxed copy that's ever shown up, so far as I know. The loose Topper cart (as a ROMOX title) is probably the hardest ROMOX title to obtain, but even then it shouldn't go over $75 or so.

[+sixersfan105]

4 hours ago, Ksarul said:

On the ROMOX carts, they show up on eBay pretty regularly, usually mixed in with larger lots. If you pay more than $50 each for boxed carts, it is probably too much (although sealed boxes are worth a bit more). There is one definite exception: the ROMOX Topper cartridge. A boxed copy of that one went for $250 a few years ago--and that was reasonable, as it is the only boxed copy that's ever shown up, so far as I know. The loose Topper cart (as a ROMOX title) is probably the hardest ROMOX title to obtain, but even then it shouldn't go over $75 or so.

Cool, thanks for the info. I offered him $75 per. Doubt he will accept but we'll see. 

[Omega-TI]

Now someone should go and offer him $20.00, he might think more highly of your offer.

[+sixersfan105]

Just to close the loop on my ROMOX inquiry, $75 per game got it done, after I had him lift the auto-decline, which was likely put in place by eBay automatically based on his silly asking price. Quite the savings off $2,500 per game!

[+sixersfan105]

Not sure how often these pop up, but just came across a TI-99/4 Engineering Prototype computer on eBay (not mine). Another TI-related item with a $2,500 asking price. Looks pretty beat up but thought there might be some interest on here, as the seller is accepting offers. Cheers.

[+save2600]

22 minutes ago, sixersfan105 said:

Not sure how often these pop up, but just came across a TI-99/4 Engineering Prototype computer on eBay (not mine). Another TI-related item with a $2,500 asking price. Looks pretty beat up but thought there might be some interest on here, as the seller is accepting offers. Cheers.

Only $99.95 shipping!   ?

[fabrice montupet]

I saw this auction. The seller already tried to sell this TI-99/4 prototype and no people was enough crazy to accept to spend 1500 USD for it (https://www.ebay.com/itm/133251808632).

Now he recurs with a new auction of the same prototype with a starting price of ... 2500 USD.  I think that this seller is living on a different planet .

 

 

[+sixersfan105]

30 minutes ago, fabrice montupet said:

I saw this auction. The seller already tried to sell this TI-99/4 prototype and no people was enough crazy to accept to spend 1500 USD for it (https://www.ebay.com/itm/133251808632).

Now he recurs with a new auction of the same prototype with a starting price of ... 2500 USD.  I think that this seller is living on a different planet .

 

 

Bizarre!!! 

[ti99iuc]

1500 USD was only for the Black Friday, now finished ? 

Edited December 6, 2019 by ti99iuc

[Mitkraft]

On 12/4/2019 at 10:11 PM, Airshack said:

Guy's just trying to make a buck before Christmas. I recently purchased an entire library of several Atari ST magazines in pdf from eBay. Much easier paying a few bucks than tracking them all down and downloading them myself. He's marketing convenience. 

You guys are way too lenient.  Selling digital copies of stuff freely available to download is both pirating and straight up scamming.  That auction is BS and should be reported to eBay.  And I really hate the “guys just trying to make a buck” argument because so is the guy who breaks into your car.  There is no way he’s scanned all these himself and they are certainly just stuff he downloaded.  He’s basically trying to profit and sell someone else’s work with little to no effort on his part.

[Opry99er]

3 hours ago, Mitkraft said:

You guys are way too lenient.  Selling digital copies of stuff freely available to download is both pirating and straight up scamming.  That auction is BS and should be reported to eBay.  And I really hate the “guys just trying to make a buck” argument because so is the guy who breaks into your car.  There is no way he’s scanned all these himself and they are certainly just stuff he downloaded.  He’s basically trying to profit and sell someone else’s work with little to no effort on his part.

 

Maybe...  but if there was a big collection of stuff I wanted (say...every episode of Shining Time Station on a thumb drive) and was asking $20 for it... I'd have a tough time saying no.  Yeah, it's all available for free on the web...  but someone took the time and put in the energy to collect it all in one place, then put it onto physical media for me.  Unless something is being actively used under copyright, I say why not?

 

CaDD charges for the CYC.....  and 99.99% of what's in there is just collected stuff from others.  It's the convenience of having it all in one place that has value.

[Omega-TI]

Which is why the TI forum here on AA is so great and valuable.  Not only do we have a lot of stuff here we have something money cannot buy... a great community of people.

[+OLD CS1]

5 hours ago, Mitkraft said:

You guys are way too lenient.  Selling digital copies of stuff freely available to download is both pirating and straight up scamming.  That auction is BS and should be reported to eBay.  And I really hate the “guys just trying to make a buck” argument because so is the guy who breaks into your car.  There is no way he’s scanned all these himself and they are certainly just stuff he downloaded.  He’s basically trying to profit and sell someone else’s work with little to no effort on his part.

This argument gets rehashed every 30 minutes or so in some forum.  The "stuff freely available to download" is most likely pirated, already.  By law, pretty much everything we do in the "retro" communities at this point in time is copyright violation, and there is no legal concept of "abandonware."  With notable exceptions, we generally fly under the radar and even when caught sometimes we get thrown a bone.  For instance, ask yourself why Nintendo, knowing the Commodore 64 port of Super Mario Bros. was in development, waited until it was completed and released to drop the hammer.

 

In my experience, eBay does not have a very good track record of taking down auctions like this when reported by users.  Exceptions are for eBay's own trusted users, generally ones who are active in forums and have a history of involvement with legitimate take-downs.  Users who actually own copyrights for an item (software, literature, etc.) which has been copied without authorization will also have better results.  Even so, as is well documented at AtariAge and other forums, real scammers are a cancer and just when you think it is gone it pops up elsewhere.  In the case of eBay cancer they will hold multiple accounts simultaneously or simply create new accounts to peddle their wares, both of which I believe are violations of eBay policies.

 

But the question raised is: what exactly is a scammer, and is something like this a scam in a strictly legal sense?  Are shareware collections on optical or magnetic media scams because the contents are shareware or otherwise freely available?  If not, does providing the collection as a digital download make it a scam?  Does the person or persons bringing scattered parts together not deserve some compensation for the time involved?  Given the scenario of a potential buyer who is not savvy or does not want to ask Google where to find issues of "99er Magazine," does the individual satisfying the want not earn some desired compensation?  The majority of the work I do is based upon my intuition, knowledge, and experiences, but more of the day-to-day stuff is research-driven -- research which any user could do themselves but are willing to pay me to do it.  Have I scammed them?

 

Even in the sense of research (read that as, Google,) or the Wayback Machine: these are not free resources.  Anyone who uses Google provides something of value in exchange, and the Wayback Machine is supported by monetary contributions.  Ethical and moral arguments notwithstanding, from a strictly legal perspective have they scammed anyone?

 

Then comes the time when I have to, again, rely upon my own experiences.  While I may feel amoral for doing so, if someone insists on paying me for a collection of something which they could put together themselves, what if their morals hold so such objection?  While some may feel it is unethical for me to withhold knowledge which I have built over years of my own work, my ethics hold this information as valuable and deserving of compensation.  I could change the oil in my car but I choose to pay someone to do so, and they are ready to accept my money.

 

So long as the person selling a collection of PDFs does not present the sale such that the buyer expects a box full of magazines, and the publisher of the magazine, which I am absolutely certain has its brands and trademarks monitored, has no objections, then the problem is nothing more than the subjective observation of an outsider.  The same applies to producers of any good.  A healthy free market regulates itself by way of producers, sellers, consumers, etc., and, as no system is perfect, will always contain an area of illness.

 

Given I am an outside observer and I hold no authority over a transaction, I am in some cases inclined to report to eBay.  I understand eBay maintains a list of brands which have filed complaints and can quickly identify if a particular item would fall afoul.  But as I also like to make sure I am part of the signal versus the noise, I could thus be inclined to do my own research to determine if a particular brand is still owned and protected, then contact the rights holders.

 

Then, is the guy really making money off these sales after eBay and PayPal fees and time involved in gathering, listing, and responding to sellers?  Who pays the hosting if he is not using something like DropBox or OneDrive to host the files?  How do we know how much time and effort were expended on his part, and who, if not the buyer, has any legitimate claim on a value for that time?  If all legal questions and obligations are satisfied, which also makes the comparison of stealing from a car non sequitur, and he is making a buck off the deal, who in a free market has the to say how much money he should make and for how long?

 

tl;dr If it satisfies your morals and ethics, report the buyer to eBay or contact the rights holders, but do not be disillusioned if the auction remains in place nor that people are buying.  If the people buying are being scammed this will be a lesson to them.  Until proven otherwise, we are not part of the transaction and are operating upon personal prejudices, and whether or not the guy is stealing depends upon assumptions.  Everyone who sells puts a value upon their own work, irrespective of the end product and its source materials, as does everyone who buys.

[atrax27407]

Example - TL866CS/A eprommers still appear on eBay. They are all counterfeit items. Legal, new devices have not been manufactured since 02/18 yet the auctions for "new" devices persist.

[+Lee Stewart]

4 hours ago, Opry99er said:

CaDD charges for the CYC.....  and 99.99% of what's in there is just collected stuff from others.  It's the convenience of having it all in one place that has value.

 

Actually, Mike Wright has personally edited much of what is in the CYC, even to creating text PDFs by typing from graphics scans.

 

...lee

[+Ksarul]

To add to Lee's comment, based on conversations with Mike many years ago, EVERY document on the CYC was typed in and formatted by Mike--to ensure that the highest possible quality was maintained throughout. The CYC is an accumulation of thousands of hours of work--and he had permission to include each of those documents in it, so it isn't a pirated accumulation either. That said, it is more than worth the price of PC99 to get the CYC. I consider it a real bargain, as it saves me the trouble of making my own digital copies of things for personal use. 

Edited December 7, 2019 by Ksarul

[Mehridian Sanders]

Value is perception based.

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