Turning a sow's ear into a silk purse

[ACML]

When watching for Atari 8-bits on Ebay its important to identify the serviceability of a unit. That being, can it be made reliable and as a bonus still be in acceptable cosmetic condition. I see lots of abused Ataris on Ebay and I am sometimes amazed at the prices some of these tortured souls fetch. Once in a while, when you've been persistently monitoring Ebay, you find a jewel in the rough. It may look dirty, abused and have noted serious issues (i.e. keyboard doesn't work). This will scare away most perspective buyers, but those of us who know what we're looking at see it as an opportunity. I recently bought an 800 on Ebay cheaply, tore it down, fixed what was inoperative, cleaned the case, reassembled it and voila, that ugly duckling or sow's ear is transformed into a Code 1 (USAF slang for no write-ups, ready for service) silk purse that looks like it came off the Sunnyvale assembly line yesterday. All for under $50.

 

Yes, its important to sort out the sow's ears from the silk purses, but sometimes it pays to know when a sow's ear can be turned into a silk purse.

Edited March 29, 2015 by ACML

[kiwilove]

Even a completely dead Atari 400 and 800 will have a useful purpose. Such as showing today's youngsters how small and compact home computers were back in the 80's.

 

I would be interested acquiring said computers for next to nothing - as long as their appearance is pristine. Also fully working computers too - but at a low price. But these would have to be PAL versions - so need to be sourced from the UK?

 

I would donate these to the local museum - who have been kind to put Laser Hawk on public display - and so they might include this hardware in one of their future displays? maybe...

They are running the game via emulation - but they may possibly opt to be more authentic at some time in the future? maybe... Anyway if they have the hardware on hand - dead and alive - they'll have no excuse for not using them.

 

I am in no rush to get hold of the above... so if they turn up eventually - at a low cost - that'll be fine. The working computers need to be able to run continuously 8 hours a day - for years... Now you will understand why emulation is probably better - to run the game - because you can replace the PC easily with another.

 

Harvey