Good 16bit computer to start out with?

[Nebulon]

If you do decide to go the PC route, here's a nifty page that might help:

http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm

 

Although I still think that for a classic '16-bit' experience, the Amiga or Atari ST are the way to go.

[Chilly Willy]

If you have a charitable organization in your town like St Vincent DePauls (Catholic version of Salvation Army), they often have donated computer equipment at ridiculously low prices. The last one I visited had Pentium PCs with a 15" monitor for $50. I got a complete Apple IIc+ with extra drive, two monitors (color & B&W), and some games for $10! They had an entire wall of Apple IIgs systems for $5 each.

[Kyle22]

Where is this St. Vincent store located? IIgs's for $5.00, that sounds like a source of cheap 65816 chips and other parts.

[jhd]

If you have a charitable organization in your town like St Vincent DePauls (Catholic version of Salvation Army), they often have donated computer equipment at ridiculously low prices.

 

I wonder if this is a regional thing. St Vincent DePauls is not active in Canada, but last month I was in the (huge) store in Great Falls, Montana, and there was utterly nothing related to computers or video games. (FWIW, the Salvation Army store located just down the street had a few PC/PSX/Xbox games, but no consoles or computer hardware either.)

[ZippyRedPlumber]

I've always wanted to try an Amiga. Even though I'm in the U.S...

[Chilly Willy]

Where is this St. Vincent store located? IIgs's for $5.00, that sounds like a source of cheap 65816 chips and other parts.

http://www.svdpusa.net/find/find.thriftstoredt.php

 

 

I wonder if this is a regional thing. St Vincent DePauls is not active in Canada, but last month I was in the (huge) store in Great Falls, Montana, and there was utterly nothing related to computers or video games. (FWIW, the Salvation Army store located just down the street had a few PC/PSX/Xbox games, but no consoles or computer hardware either.)

It's a US thing as far as I know. Won't help some folks...

 

Goodwill is probably better for old consoles and computers than Salvation Army. I pick up keyboards and shit sometimes at Goodwill. What you'll find will vary wildly from one place to another, so all I can suggest is check and cross your fingers.

[Kyle22]

Where is this St. Vincent store located? IIgs's for $5.00, that sounds like a source of cheap 65816 chips and other parts.

I should have said where is this particular store located?

[Chilly Willy]

I should have said where is this particular store located?

The one in particular I was mentioning was in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. It was also a number of years ago... don't know if they have any left now.

[Kyle22]

Thanks. I guess it was wishful thinking that they might be somewhere close.

We have several SVdP stores in the Pittsburgh area. A few years ago I bought a big Dell laser printer for $10. It was NEW!

Edited October 22, 2014 by Kyle22

[Major Havoc 2049]

Since all you want to do is play some classic games and your budget is really low, I would go the GOG.com and Steam route. Between those two sites, plenty of awesome games from the Amiga/ST/x86 era of gaming. Just use your current PC or find a dirt cheap netbook that is a couple of years old. Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones adventure games, Wing Commander, the Ultima series and plenty more. More classic games than you have time to play and those sites do all the work for you. $50 will get you a POS Amiga 500 or 520ST set-up. A complete boxed copy of The Secret of Monkey Island by itself for the ST or Amiga goes for $30-$50 by itself for the ST or Amiga and I think it requires 1MB, so you can't even play it on a plain-Jane A500 or 520ST. GOG and Steam + sales = dirt cheap and hassle free classic gaming. I think I paid like $9.99 for the whole Ultima collection on sale one time. A complete boxed copy of Ultima V alone for the ST or Amiga is going for like $40-$80 these days.

[RobertB]

Major Havoc 2049 wrote:

 

> $50 will get you a POS Amiga 500 or 520ST set-up. A complete boxed copy of The Secret of Monkey Island by itself for the ST or Amiga goes for $30-$50...

 

Unless you go to a show like this weekend's Amiwest Show in Sacramento, California. With nice-looking A500's and A2000's starting in the $30 range and games at far cheaper prices than eBay, a beginner can't go wrong. Pick up RAM for cheap. Become a member of the Sacramento Amiga Computer Club, and get a further discount off those prices.

 

Going to the show on Saturday and Sunday,

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group

http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

[Seob]

To bad you live in Canada. I would have had a a500 with 1 mb. I have a couple of amiga's lying around. They are pretty easy to come by here in the Netherlands. A Atari on the other hand is not so common over here. Still trying to get one.

I just love the feel of original hardware. The fiddeling to get thing working. But i can get it why people prefer emulation. No hassle, no cable clutter. There is no good or bad in this case.

Just choose what evre makes you happy.

[carlsson]

Regarding thrift stores, of course the supply depends on what people recently donated. How many years are "a number of years ago", are we talking 5, 10, 15 years ago? I'm sure every now and then you might find a fair priced vintage computer, but it is not like you should expect them to generally have a stock of those. I can only speak about the thrift store I visit most frequently, just within the last year they've had a loose (and overpriced at the time I visited) Atari 1040ST, a boxed Amiga 1200 that I grabbed as soon as I saw it, a Victor 286 laptop that at first was so expensive I almost cried out laughing but eventually was discounted in steps so a friend of mine bought it. That is besides all the modern, 21th century PC's, the random modern games console and so on. Still given a reasonable output, I don't count on finding any 16-bit or other vintage computers/consoles when I visit the store bi-weekly.

[Chilly Willy]

Regarding thrift stores, of course the supply depends on what people recently donated. How many years are "a number of years ago", are we talking 5, 10, 15 years ago? I'm sure every now and then you might find a fair priced vintage computer, but it is not like you should expect them to generally have a stock of those. I can only speak about the thrift store I visit most frequently, just within the last year they've had a loose (and overpriced at the time I visited) Atari 1040ST, a boxed Amiga 1200 that I grabbed as soon as I saw it, a Victor 286 laptop that at first was so expensive I almost cried out laughing but eventually was discounted in steps so a friend of mine bought it. That is besides all the modern, 21th century PC's, the random modern games console and so on. Still given a reasonable output, I don't count on finding any 16-bit or other vintage computers/consoles when I visit the store bi-weekly.

About 10 years. Yes, it's not like they keep a "stock" of old computers, it's just what's been donated that hasn't been sold or thrown away yet. The store I visited in Havasu was in the process of throwing out all the 8-bit computers and everything below a Pentium as far as PCs were concerned. So I also got an Apple IIc+ with 5.25" external drive and a 3.5" external drive and a B&W monitor and a color monitor for $10 total. I got a C64 for free. I got an SX-64 "portable" C64 for $5. I really should have picked up a IIgs, but wasn't much interested at the time.

 

The most commonly donated computer will be systems that are almost worthless at the time of donation, but the person still spent a lot on. At the time, that was Pentium systems. They would clean them up, reinstall Windows 95 on them, pair them with a 15" VGA monitor, and sell them for $50. These days, it's probably P3 and K7 systems, along with any kind of CRT monitor.

Edited October 23, 2014 by Chilly Willy

[English Invader]

Not quite 16-bit, but you can get Windows 95/98 era PC games for as little as 50p a time from charity shops. I run them on Linux through Wine and games that were originally designed for 16MB RAM run like lightning on 2GB.