Old 1050 Happy upgrade costs?

[bfollowell]

I purchased a 1050 with a Happy enhancement from someone on eBay a couple of years ago. I was going through, cleaning out my wreck of a desk, and I found the padded envelope he'd included that held the original chips that had been replaced as part of the upgrade. Along with those, I found these two old receipts. I scanned them and removed the personal information before posting.

 

 

 

 

 

I think it's pretty neat to find old details like this, but I'm also surprised at the price! I don't recall what the Happy upgrade cost back in the day. From the note on the yellow receipt, it looks like the original owner was charged $158.57 to install the upgrade. Assuming that didn't include the purchase of the upgrade itself, that would've been a high price to pay for a Happy drive! I'm assuming about $125-$150 for the drive in 1986, plus probably $100 for the upgrade, plus $160 to install it. Man, that's about $400 for a Happy 1050! What all was involved in the Happy upgrade? Was it pretty much just install those to new chips, or was there a board replacement as well? $160 to install seems pretty high, especially considering those are 1986 prices.

 

It looks like they may have done some ST work back in the day as well. The white receipt says TOS ROM on the top line, but is crossed out.

 

I checked online and there's a Lloyd's Business Machines listed for the 324 West Center St. location, so it looks like they may still be in business.

 

Anyway, kind of a neat look back in history.

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by bfollowell

[+slx]

Could it be that the yellow slip is the order and the white slip the receipt? As it reads "Happy Enhancement" I think those 150$ are for the Happy and installation.

[+x=usr(1536)]

57 minutes ago, slx said:

Could it be that the yellow slip is the order and the white slip the receipt? As it reads "Happy Enhancement" I think those 150$ are for the Happy and installation.

That would make sense - the white slip references "Repair 8927," which matches the serial number of the yellow slip.  My guess is that the white slip was the top copy sales receipt given to the customer with the yellow slip being the work order used internally by the shop.

[ratwell]

You can browse the Happy Computer Inc. ads in Antic Magazine:

https://www.atarimagazines.com/antic/

I've seen ads for the Happy Enhancement 1050 priced at $249 USD.

 

I bought one in July 1985 for $199 after the first price drop and then a second one in Dec 1985 for $149 after the second drop.

 

You might enjoy this recent discussion:

 

 

[Kylev]

All,

Right before Antic went out of business, Charles Cherry (then a member of the ABACUS user group and an employee at ANTIC) was able to get a set of these upgrades (with the controller options) for $99 per set. A number of us members of the group purchased these and we had an installation party at Charles' house.

I don't think I ever saw a lower price for this upgrade.