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What's the latest Atari related thing(s) you've bought on ebay?


Ross PK

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2 hours ago, mytek said:

 

Buy it Now: $650+14.95 shipping

 

compared to: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mapping-The-Atari-Computer-Ian-Chadwick/233770637284?hash=item366dd0d7e4:g:cswAAOSwwoRfpH-e

 

 

Buy it Now: $34.95 + 5.95 shipping

 

Which one would you rather own and be proud to say at what price you got it for. Total F'ing joke what people think stuff is worth, and don't give me any of that "it's whatever the market will bear" BS. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, this is pure unadulterated GREED.

 

Anyway the 2nd eBay listing I posted looks to be a good deal for a book in excellent condition if anyone is looking to buy ?.

 

 

Well, there is a lot of truth to the "what the market will bear" argument, at least in some cases, but I'm fairly certain the market won't bear this. And it isn't just greed. It's utter ignorance and stupidity more than anything else. How could someone possibly think they'll sell it for that price?! I mean, I don't think anyone would be dumb enough to pay the $100 starting bid for it, let alone the Buy It Now price. What good does it do someone to price things so ridiculously high that they never even come close to getting a bite, let alone selling it? Insanity.

 

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9 minutes ago, bfollowell said:

Well, there is a lot of truth to the "what the market will bear" argument, at least in some cases, but I'm fairly certain the market won't bear this. And it isn't just greed. It's utter ignorance and stupidity more than anything else. How could someone possibly think they'll sell it for that price?! I mean, I don't think anyone would be dumb enough to pay the $100 starting bid for it, let alone the Buy It Now price. What good does it do someone to price things so ridiculously high that they never even come close to getting a bite, let alone selling it? Insanity.

I guess what really gets me riled up, is the what if possibility that someone with more money then they know what to do with ends up buying it for that absurd price, then other sellers seeing that, raise their prices to the point where only the rich can afford to buy this stuff. So really it's not the seller that is stupid, but the buyer that pays the absurd price.

 

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Yes its all a pain, do you blame the seller for wanting as much as possible or do you blame the buyer for being daft enough to pay it, then there's the buy it now freaks with just stupid prices and then a dafty pays the price so all their stuff gets lifted up in price. Will they sell it at that price, probably not so they become the dafty.

 

Its a weird old dance we do...Mind you I have one of the other niggles of Ebay, someone brought a camera and now has just not paid, I expect they are hoping I'm still going to send it to the Philippines anyway...Er, soft in the head..

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While I'm generally all for free market, absurd stuff like this book just rubs me the wrong way. It takes 10 seconds to check prior sold auctions, so this is deliberate, and makes others put up crazy prices as well.

 

I have two of these btw, and bought the last one just a couple of weeks ago for under $9.50 on ebay...

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It just goes to show that you need to do a little research before any significant purchase.

 

What makes me shake my head is someone selling a homebrew for inflated prices that's still being sold by the developer.  All the buyer has to do much of the time is Google the name of the homebrew game, and they'll find a link to the developer's sale site.

Edited by ls650
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3 hours ago, bfollowell said:

 What good does it do someone to price things so ridiculously high that they never even come close to getting a bite, let alone selling it? Insanity.

 

Darling, see I AM trying to sell all those valuable computer books you don't like taking up space in the attic, but with the current economy no one is willing to buy even at one sixth of the real value..... My "Atari" search for local EBay has been showing a 280 EUR 800XE and 42 EUR Don Inman Assembler book and similar (over)priced Atari gear for years. One would assume that it makes sense to drop prices if something doesn't sell but some people don't seem to interested in actually selling stuff. 

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4 minutes ago, blacka013 said:

What I find hilarious is when an item has failed to sell, the seller withdraws it for a few weeks and then re-advertises it at a higher price. If it didn't sell at the lower price, why hike the price expecting it to sell.

 

Yes, I see this all the time. It's a very bizarre practice. 

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1 hour ago, cwilbar said:

eh ?

 

I thought the Atari and the wico's worked by pulsing the appropriate joystick pins based on speed of rotation and direction.  If the Atari does not work that way, what way does it work ?

 

All joysticks for the Atari 8-bit are digital and just close contacts for the selected direction, the only pulsing involved is the trigger on those that have an auto-fire option.

 

The Atari 5200 joysticks are analog and use 2 potentiometers to give variable signals for up/down and left/right.

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2 hours ago, cwilbar said:

eh ?

 

I thought the Atari and the wico's worked by pulsing the appropriate joystick pins based on speed of rotation and direction.  If the Atari does not work that way, what way does it work ?

I believe they had two modes that were switchable. One that worked by pulsing the directional inputs, and the other that used Quadrature Encoding which is the same principle as used in a mouse, including the ST mouse. The pulsing mode allowed the trackball to work with any joystick program, whereas the Quadrature Encoding mode required a program to support it (e.g., missile command). The encoding mode is far better in operation than the pulse mode.

 

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3 hours ago, mytek said:

I believe they had two modes that were switchable. One that worked by pulsing the directional inputs, and the other that used Quadrature Encoding which is the same principle as used in a mouse, including the ST mouse. The pulsing mode allowed the trackball to work with any joystick program, whereas the Quadrature Encoding mode required a program to support it (e.g., missile command). The encoding mode is far better in operation than the pulse mode.

 

Thanks for this.  Still learning about old Atari gear ?

 

I found the following conversion info for CX22 and Wico trackballs to support quadrature encoding.  I have one Wico trackball where someone added a DB9 port on it.... wonder if it is for this.... I'll have to check.

Either that or someone added a port to plug in their joystick so they could have both controllers connected and use whichever one they wanted.....  which is what I presumed was the case until learning that some Atari stuff supports quadrature encoding.  Diamond GOS supports this with the Atari ST mouse driver apparently.

 

 

 

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Anyone want this...

 

Be warned, this is cruelty to an 800

 

And then look at the price..

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-ATARI-800-Computer-410Tape-Recorder-Power-Supply-Joystick-A-Game/254753907069?hash=item3b5084217d:g:w3YAAOSwAQpfjhJg

 

Says he will clean it up and test it but why oh why show it in that condition, it looks like it will most likely be rotted through, what was he thinking?

Edited by Mclaneinc
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I just got this one:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-ATARI-800-Computer-Untested-/193748941536?hash=item2d1c563ae0%3Ag%3AWVQAAOSwzPlfrol7&nma=true&si=AsxeiHqo1KdqTwj4mukTgl49uYU%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

It's 'untested' but looks nice, hopefully it's ok.  There's also a Monkey Wrench cart with it.

 

 

BTW:  Any advice on things to check before powering it up?

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4 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said:

Apart from popping the hood and looking to see it has all the cards in the slots, that's about it, if the red light comes on you sound like you will be in business..

Thanks, I know the Atari's are fairly sturdy beasts compared to some of the old 8-bits - just wanted to check if there was anything I may have missed in my research :)

 

 

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53 minutes ago, Preppie said:

I just got this one:

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-ATARI-800-Computer-Untested-/193748941536?hash=item2d1c563ae0%3Ag%3AWVQAAOSwzPlfrol7&nma=true&si=AsxeiHqo1KdqTwj4mukTgl49uYU%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

It's 'untested' but looks nice, hopefully it's ok.  There's also a Monkey Wrench cart with it.

 

 

BTW:  Any advice on things to check before powering it up?

Looks great, and the Monkey Wrench seems to be quite rare (a bit less useful than I hoped, but still fond memories here, as I cut my 6502 assembly teeth on it). If it has a faulty Mitsumi keyboard, new Mylars should be available soon at Retronics.eu There's a thread about it around here.

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7 hours ago, AtariGeezer said:

Prices of 800's are going up, time to think about selling some spares.

Only thing is that I charge $60-$75 for double boxed shipping in the U.S. with bubble wrap and packing peanuts...

US machines still often go below 100$ which might make a US buy with @tf_hh SCCC (new version in development) a cheaper option. For US to Europe shipping be sure to let the seller sell the transformer separately to avoid it smashing up the case. 

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1 hour ago, slx said:

US machines still often go below 100$ which might make a US buy with @tf_hh SCCC (new version in development) a cheaper option. For US to Europe shipping be sure to let the seller sell the transformer separately to avoid it smashing up the case. 

And I've seen them sell for as much as $200 for the 800 only in the US in the past 2 months...

 

What is tf_hh SCCC's project?

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34 minutes ago, AtariGeezer said:

And I've seen them sell for as much as $200 for the 800 only in the US in the past 2 months...

 

What is tf_hh SCCC's project?

It's a replacement card for the 400/800 that lets you use the machines with NTSC or PAL.

 

I was considering getting this bundle https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/atari-800-bundle-retro-vintage/392985204538  but it's a US machine and would need mods to use it on PAL tvs, but from his description it sounds like the POKEY chip is faulty.  It was also a higher price, he's knocked it down to £235+p&p now.

 

There's a Mapping the Atari book with the bundle, so you could sell that for $600 and recover your money :D

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Preppie said:

It's a replacement card for the 400/800 that lets you use the machines with NTSC or PAL.

To convert with the current version you need a PAL GTIA and ANTIC and change the main system quartz on the motherboard but iirc the V2 is going to be able to switch between PAL and NTSC. It also contains UAV (for a separate composite/S-video output) and allows use of non-Sally and Sally CPUs. I found it easy to install when I used it to convert a 400 to PAL. 

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