Ohh my! Why did I do this to my atari?

[Keatah]

I have saved over 99% of *ALL* my extremely extensive apple II collection. The entire lot would garner 20k or more based on current ebay prices, probably more.. Very nicely kept and preserved and sealed up. Somehow I managed to keep this part of the collection intact. There are only a few instruction manuals that I can’t find. I even have all my BBS records intact. Yep!

 

Sadly, my collection of heavy sixers and the original boxes and nearly everything atari/intellivision/coleco/O2/astrocade/trs80/ti994a/vectrex and many others were abused and let go years back. I lost interest right after the video-game-crash of 84 and got interested in women. Ohh my Linda Hamilton was HOTTTTTT!! Man-O-man!!

 

Well I even bolted rollerskate wheel trucks to one of the sixers and make a pull-toy for my sister. The rf cable didn't last long. I drilled right through the 'speaker' supports; speakers were never included because atari found it cheaper to put the sound out to the tv! When the sixer was done being utilized as a sis-o-ride I took it apart again, and still worked more on the insides. I started shorting things out and hooking up capacitors and batteries and stuff to try and speed up the games. I killed it soon enough. then made a gas rc boat out of it. Yeh, ain't that a pisser! For some reason I cooked the circuit boards in the oven and stuff. I don't know why though, felt it was the right thing to do.. And throw in many full-size console arcade games and stuff, we got mad (at the games) and ran them over with the pickup. Yeh, got pics of those too!

 

I have since tried to re-build the collection but found it impractical. Too costly, so, I now have a super collection of emulated games, multiple emulators for many MANY machines running on a dedicated computer complete with a 37" monitor and all the appropriate controls. Its a great setup, hundreds and hundreds of roms (yes I owned them all) for over 20 systems.. Does a good job of saving the essence of the games, But you still look at them through a glass, i.e. emulation. But, you don’t have to worry about degradation or losing them. And throw in many full-size console arcade games and stuff, we got mad (at the games) and ran them over with the pickup. Yeh, got pics of those too!

 

I was digging through my stash of junk the the other day and came across a box of parts, they were capacitors and resistors and various other things. I believe I *STILL* have one or two of the chips from my original sixer!! WOW!! The numbers match up! These I will have put in a lucite block along with my hand-picked skylab fragment. Yeh, when I was a kid my gramma took me to the museum and she distracted the guard while I snuck under the tense-a-barrier (like in the theaters) and ripped off a piece. I found that near the chips. Wow!! That’s like 30 years old! Too!

[Shawn]

You have made almost this exact post everytime you have wrote on this forum. I'm wondering why?

[NovaXpress]

At least he re-worded it this time.

[D.Yancey]

It's such a cool story. I think I'll start telling it and say it was me that did all this. Hmmm...how can I embelish it a bit more?

 

 

Maybe I'll even post the pics too. I've got some blurry pics of bigfoot and some others of aliens. They all kinda look like a smashed atari and a melted board and smashed carts. Jeez.

Edited May 2, 2006 by D.Yancey

[NovaXpress]

Somehow the last phrase was cut off of his post . . .

 

"And then I woke up."

[Osbo]

stealing stuff from a museum... nice...

[TuzenTCA]

I'm sorry, but this begs the question..... What the hell is this guy talking about. At first when he put "skylab" I thought he was talking about Skynet, like in The Terminator Flics, and I knew he was full of crap... but oh well he can believe what he wants to.

 

 

--James

[+HatNJ]

gee 6 out of 7 of his posts really is just the same thing and nothing new

[Lucky Man]

I'm sickened by all the Atari abuse and museum theft.

[Godzilla]

does someone need attention or is it just me...

[+remowilliams]

I bet he "shops" at Goodwill too

 

 

 

 

[Keatah]

I basically need attention, little more.. The story I told you all is true. Back then, to a rich kid's parents, a load of videogames was like pocketchange. As for the "museum theft" I think the guard knew and found the whole deal amusing!

[Osbo]

right....

[Keatah]

I just like telling my videogame history to others from time to time..

[MayDay]

I've got some blurry pics of bigfoot and some others of aliens. They all kinda look like a smashed atari and a melted board and smashed carts. Jeez.

 

Do any of them happen to have Ray Kassar and Ronnie Reagan sweetly embracing one another?

 

-JD

[super_dos_man]

I just like telling my videogame history to others from time to time..

 

it's seems that "time to time means like every day to you)

[Shawn]

I just like telling my videogame history to others from time to time..

 

 

I'm calling bullshit on this one. Lets see some pics of your $20k worth of IIe stuff and then I might start to take you about 10 percent serious.

[AtariTexas]

gee 6 out of 7 of his posts really is just the same thing and nothing new

 

i post lost me

[Crazy Climber]

I cant believe I wasted time reading this story, I dont get it

Edited May 3, 2006 by Crazy Climber

[Bruce Tomlin]

You have made almost this exact post everytime you have wrote on this forum. I'm wondering why?

Yeah, I wonder too...

 

[Lord Thag]

At least the museum 'skylab' story was a nice touch. When was the last time you heard that old space station brought up? I forgot all about that thing.

 

I'm sure he stores his skylab fragment on the shelf next to his assortment of sasquatch butt hairs.

[Zwackery]

At least the museum 'skylab' story was a nice touch. When was the last time you heard that old space station brought up? I forgot all about that thing.

 

I'm sure he stores his skylab fragment on the shelf next to his assortment of sasquatch butt hairs.

I worked at Johnson Space Center in Houston on a NASA history project in the summer of '98, and at JSC is the 3rd Skylab (built but never flown - the 2nd is at the Air and Space Museum in DC). The first, and only launched, Skylab suffered an early reentry into Earth's atmosphere on 11 July 1979 (it was quite a notable media event at the time) and was destroyed. Although being struck by a falling piece of Skylab became a pop culture joke in the US for awhile, most of the recovered debris fell in Western Australia.

 

Too bad about stealing from a museum.

 

"Say, can you introduce me to the Sasquatch? I like his style." - Homer Simpson

[Atari-Jess]

 

YOU EXPECT ME TO ORGASM TO THIS?!

[jbanes]

I worked at Johnson Space Center in Houston on a NASA history project in the summer of '98, and at JSC is the 3rd Skylab (built but never flown - the 2nd is at the Air and Space Museum in DC). The first, and only launched, Skylab suffered an early reentry into Earth's atmosphere on 11 July 1979 (it was quite a notable media event at the time) and was destroyed.

 

Just so that others realize, Skylab's reentry was not entirely accidental. Skylab was parked in an orbit intended to last 8 years (long enough for the Space Shuttle to be completed), but extra heating from unexpected solar activity caused the atmosphere to expand thus incresing the drag on Skylab. NASA was aware of this and began planning a mission to boost Skylab back into a stable orbit. Unfortunately, there was a common concensus in NASA and the government that Skylab was junk. It had been beat up pretty badly during launch and was being held together with a lot of ad-hoc repairs. As a result, the funding was never given for a rescue mission, and Skylab was allowed to deorbit.

 

Too bad about stealing from a museum.

 

I wouldn't put too much stock in what he says. He'd have an incredibly hard time finding an external piece of Skylab that could be easily detached by a child. If the parts were that loose, the first craft never would have made it into orbit! Even if we assume that such parts did exist at one time, steps are usually taken by museums to either remove such parts or protect them behind glass. Next thing you know, he'll be claimng that he stole a piece of the Apollo Modules too. (Anyone see anything loose on it?)

 

As a side note, SciFi fans may be interested to know that Skylab is the source of the floor grills often seen in television shows like Star Trek: TNG. Skylab was so large that it required a Saturn V to boost it. Unfortuantely, all the Saturn V's were allocated to other projects. So the engineers came up with a design that involved making part of the space station out of the fuel tanks for a S-IVB stage of a Saturn II rocket. The space station would actually be filled with fuel during launch, thus acting as part of the rocket. Once in orbit, the remaining fuel would be vented.

 

This plan required that the internal sections of the craft be porous so that the fuel could easily pass through to the engines. As a result, the floors were designed as a metal grills rather than solid plates. However, the cancellation of the Apollo program resulted in a spare Saturn V becoming available. This was used to boost Skylab in a dry configuration, and the flooring became nothing more than a curiosity. There's a picture here where you can clearly see Skylab's unique flooring.

[Foxsolo2000]

does someone need attention or is it just me...

 

Its just you