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Don't Piss Off the Parts Seller Keeping Atari Machines Alive


bfollowell

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1 hour ago, mytek said:

Sounds like a fitting description of a lot of people I've met over the years, including myself. And judging by what I've seen on this forum, Brad and I are not alone. Basically if you do something to piss someone off they're likely to not want to cooperate with you anymore, or have much to do with you afterwards. Hmm... I think that applies to being married after 20 or more years as well :lolblue:

 

Sorry to say it's his rules if you want what he has, no matter how much that irks people. Don't like it, then seek out an alternative source. No alternative source, then learn the rules ;)  It's really that simple. No amount of wishing will change that.

 

Yeah that's kinda my point. He isn't going to change, he's gonna do what he's gonna do, and you can choose to deal with him or not. The endless threads on his business practices don't accomplish much. I've ordered from him before, and talked with him at length. He's not a bad guy, by any means.

But he really is the soup nazi. You want his soup, you get in line, you hope you don't make him angry. You don't want to deal with the soup nazi, go get a sandwich elsewhere.

Personally, I don't deal with him these days, probably due to the way he's treated a couple of friends of mine who helped him out. I could deal with the 'it's my rules' thing, but he's a little too random, unfair and arbitrary. Many of them are not communicated or spelled out. You can 'piss him off' buy paying his invoice to quickly, or ordering something on his secret 'people who order this make me mad' list. No thanks. I'll send my business elsewhere.

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7 minutes ago, Lord Thag said:

I'll send my business elsewhere.

Excellent, and constructive.

 

Good for the community, and good for the "sentinel".

 

Instead of bowing to one-man-rules and acting like headless chickens, all of those affected could do the exact same and, eventually, send a clear message.

 

Want a behavioral change? Don't send ANY CASH there, whatsoever, until desired change is achieved. Plain and simple.

 

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I think its funny how i keep reading it sounds like the writer had a bad experience. lol

 

No, it sounds like Brad sucks and people put up with the goofy shit and kiss his ass because he has no competition.
Just like, my opinion man.

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Yep same old, same old, Brad is the way he is, and nothing in that regard will change. Taking business elsewhere seems like the solution for those that don't like his ways, but I don't think that exists for much of what he carries. The whole "I'm not going to kiss his ass" aspect makes people sound tough, but doesn't really accomplish anything in this scenario beyond cutting one off entirely from a gold mine source of Atari parts. Good luck with that ;-)

 

And this will go on, and on, and on...

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1 hour ago, AtariBrian said:

I would bet anything that Brad would not treat people this way or act the odd way he does if there was more competition. Even perhaps if his sales dropped significantly.  By him limiting your orders and quantities only makes him more busy. 

Exactly, and what idiot buys palettes of stuff to not sell it?

 

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1 hour ago, Draxxon said:

people put up with the goofy shit and kiss his ass because he has no competition

Ding, ding! Bingo!

 

And the more his ass gets kissed, the more goofy shit we will see (as pallet-supplies continue to dwindle...). It is a vicious cycle that has only ONE way of being broken: do not fall in that trap.

 

Source ALL of your regular / common spares out of eBay or yard-sales... "untested" machines, dead corpses, pre-integrated parts like CPU boards or MoBos, etc. There is still AMPLE supply for these items.

 

DO NOT ever buy everything from one single source. That will keep us in the safe side, on the long run. Sooner or later, those palettes will no longer serve any purpose or value... and will have to be sold for close-to-nothing... ??

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26 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

DO NOT ever buy everything from one single source. That will keep us in the safe side, on the long run. Sooner or later, those palettes will no longer serve any purpose or value... and will have to be sold for close-to-nothing... ??

And what planet do you live on :rolling:  Or maybe you still think this is the early 90's when all the other Atari parts sources were still in business.

 

When it comes to the Atari VLSI chips, good luck finding them elsewhere at a reasonable price, or without having to cannibalize another system. Brad still sells Pokeys for $20, although he does limit you to one per order, and he has all the other chips in stock (PAL and NTSC GTIA and Antic, Sally, PIA6520, ect.). Bruce at B&C is the only other Atari dealer I know of for these kind of parts, and he has no Pokeys what so ever, plus his prices are a little steeper than Brad's. When buying from eBay, you'll definitely pay a lot more.

 

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38 minutes ago, mytek said:

And what planet do you live on :rolling:  Or maybe you still think this is the early 90's when all the other Atari parts sources were still in business.

 

When it comes to the Atari VLSI chips, good luck finding them elsewhere at a reasonable price,

Pfft... anyone here can find and get what I've got... there is no magic (at alljust focus and patience...

 

(just a sample, below)...

 

52173301-0052-4E1B-8A51-3D80B51769DF.thumb.jpeg.e806cd6670eaaa00a3024bb223ae44e2.jpeg

 

 

53E14FEE-958A-48E2-B18B-33B72324F91A.thumb.jpeg.54c8d8c895a2db197860cd8feb0eb95f.jpeg

 

Common parts? Plenty out-there, and in different degrees of use, bundling, etc. One single, good haul and you could be stocked for YEARS... and no ass-kissing to ANYONE...

 

Just saw on eBay an entire "untested" 800XL with ALPS keyboard (and most likely fully socketed) going for close to $50... that is BE's minimum order size... and instead we get a full stash of all kinds of parts, and most likely working... ??

 

That is a good (and constructive) advice we can share with our community, instead of subliminally suggesting that it is "ok" for us to act like pussies and kiss someone else's ass...

 

Enjoy planet Atari!

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This subject has been, in various forms and places, talked to death...

 

Just going to throw my 2 cents in here.

 

I've dealt with, and bought Atari items from Brad and Best Electronics

for 30+ years.

 

Not one bad experience *ever*.

 

'Nuff said...  :)

 

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5 minutes ago, gilsaluki said:

most of us don't have unlimited room for those bundles out there

A chipset-stash fits in a USPS small-box, and the rest you wish to preserve in a medium size-boxed... and the rest you sell, and recover most of your expenses... so you end up close to zero (0) expenses.

 

There is no such need for "unlimited room" at all... as I don't have it either.

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8 minutes ago, DarkLord said:

This subject has been, in various forms and places, talked to death...

 

Just going to throw my 2 cents in here.

 

I've dealt with, and bought Atari items from Brad and Best Electronics

for 30+ years.

 

Not one bad experience *ever*.

 

'Nuff said...  :)

 

Agreed.

 

And as Mork would say as part of his sign off... "nano-nano" :)

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So thoughts on anyone in regards to this hobby be it here, eBay, things I find shopping around:

 

If they sell a product, I give them money, and I get the product, I am happy.

 

Now if I give someone money and don't get the thing I was buying, THEN we have problems.

 

No, Brad's great. 

 

Ordered some parts a few months back for a Jaguar CD that I bought for parts a long time ago.   He had the parts I needed I make it complete.  He is a lot like me, no nonsense so can relate.   I asked for some parts, asked for recommendations which he gave, and I think the call lasted all of five minutes.

 

Two days later I had what I ordered, complete in a box wrapped in Atari label tape. 

 

Seriously, what's not to like?

 

Another time it was Portfolio parts.  I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I've ordered from him, but he seemed to remember me.   And they were all good short calls.

 

That printed ordering catalog BTW is pretty cool.   Fun to sit back and flip through.

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5 hours ago, gilsaluki said:

I swear I have never kissed Brad's ass.  Not once.

If you ever had to come up with $50 in parts, when you actually needed less (and sooner), sorry to say it bit... you already did.

 

And every single time that it happened, mind you... just as I (and many others) did.

 

The rest is day-dreaming.

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27 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

If you ever had to come up with $50 in parts, when you actually needed less (and sooner), sorry to say it bit... you already did.

 

I'm not really sure why you would do that, since his minimum order is $20, not $50, or at least it was when I last ordered from him a couple of months back. If it's changed to $50, that's been a fairly recent development.

 

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6 minutes ago, bfollowell said:

I'm not really sure why you would do that, since his minimum order is $20, not $50, or at least it was when I last ordered from him a couple of months back. If it's changed to $50, that's been a fairly recent development.

 

$50 if you use PayPal.  Right now, however, he is not taking PayPal.  I can certainly support and understand that. 

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We don't all just buy Atari stuff off Ebay in order to hoard parts. If anything, outside the US it's not economical or even possible to do so.

 

So saying "boycott a certain seller due to the fact he doesn't kiss one's ass" is hardly realistic considering vintage machines, and literally a moot point. Personally, I don't understand why anyone hasn't developed an FPGA based A8 motherboard as a drop in replacement for the XL range, re implementing the custom chipset exactly in FPGA - This is how you keep a platform alive, as custom chip supply won't last forever, and you're still using logic tables on a hardware level so it's not emulation.

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29 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

We don't all just buy Atari stuff off Ebay in order to hoard parts. If anything, outside the US it's not economical or even possible to do so.

 

So saying "boycott a certain seller due to the fact he doesn't kiss one's ass" is hardly realistic considering vintage machines, and literally a moot point. Personally, I don't understand why anyone hasn't developed an FPGA based A8 motherboard as a drop in replacement for the XL range, re implementing the custom chipset exactly in FPGA - This is how you keep a platform alive, as custom chip supply won't last forever, and you're still using logic tables on a hardware level so it's not emulation.

Well, we have POKEYmax and Sofia, so we're getting there...

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28 minutes ago, adam242 said:

Well, we have POKEYmax and Sofia, so we're getting there...

Eclaire is damn close to a 100% perfect FPGA recreation of the entire A8.  Switchable PAL/NTSC, multiple memory configurations, up to 32X CPU acceleration, etc.  We don't have to worry - between originals, hardware, and software emulators, we'll never run out of ways to keep enjoying this hardware.  Also, in a short 20 to 30 years when we are all gone, nobody remaining will give two shits about this junk, so we only really have to worry about the next quarter century.  Eat, drink, and be merry as they say!

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The affordably of FPGA is awesome now and the potential of the technology is even more exciting, even the venerable Sally could be re-implemented in FPGA and possibly even run at a higher clock speed with actual compatibility and no reset issues - That would be nice.

 

 

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30 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

The affordably of FPGA is awesome now and the potential of the technology is even more exciting, even the venerable Sally could be re-implemented in FPGA and possibly even run at a higher clock speed with actual compatibility and no reset issues - That would be nice.

If you haven't already, you really should check out the Eclaire because it's already doing that.

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