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Question for Molten Media...

PostPosted: Mon May 12, 2014 6:37 pm
by Gibsaw
The commodore 64...

Does it really not have a power supply? Or is that just the public position because of trademe's bollocks about electrical testing? :D

Re: Question for Molten Media...

PostPosted: Mon May 12, 2014 11:46 pm
by RonTurner
Hope you don't mind me butting in but what is trade me's electrical bullocks? I know you can't sell 120volt or they will pull the auction

I buy dodgy electrical goods from trademe every week so as far as I know they are all good with it?

Molten media don't throw out PSU's you know only 50% of computers come with the cables in any auction.

I would not trust any thirty year old PSU in any case I would hate to burn down my home

Re: Question for Molten Media...

PostPosted: Tue May 13, 2014 3:00 am
by Gibsaw
Yeah, I'm aware that a lot of machines are arriving with cables already gone, and I agree 30 year old C64 PSU's (which were crap to begin with) definitely have a big question mark over them... however I do vaguely remember a comment from manuka about having to be very careful with falling foul of trademe's somewhat mercurial and capricious attitude to electrical compliance. What you're saying is probably true Gavin, but I haven't had the luxury of being able to talk to manuka face to face about their operation like you probably have. :)

Sooooo... what I'm asking is that if a PSU still exists in their "copper recycling" bin... I would like to evaluate it myself.. and I ask this here, rather than risk causing nonsense for them with the trademe gestapo. :)

Trademe are ridiculously inconsistent, and basically if you trigger their "here be dragons" list of forbidden-juju keywords (one of which is 120v as you've found out.), they panic about the electrical compliance nonsense and pull the auction for fear of liability... and if you've ever had the displeasure of arguing with those clowns, you'll know that they are standard corporate damage control droids, i.e. defeat by exhaustion. They're not interested in logic. They're not interested in evidence. They will not give. The more logical your point, the more tenuous the excuses get, until you finally end up in an infinite loop of corporate dogma. Dealing with them bears more resemblance to a turing test than anything resembling "customer service". :evil:

Personally I think all vintage computers are electrically suspect, and that trademe should regard this as a specialist category (just like building supplies/electrical fittings) and butt out... A simple "qualified personnel" disclaimer would suffice.

Re: Question for Molten Media...

PostPosted: Tue May 13, 2014 9:10 am
by manuka
We're training up a new guy for TradeMe who is a bit younger so doesn't really have much of a background in 8 bit computing so doesn't always know what power supply is supposed to go with what unit. So unless they come in together which doesn't always happen he's not too sure about matching up machines with power supplies. We definitely don't chop power supplies for older machines but in a lot of cases people seem to think that we can use the machine sans the power supply.