New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

I thougt the old hard drives were bad enough
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DEC-RL02-RL02-A ... 45e4b0cd1c
@US $1,765.00

Till I found this Atari item
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... 901360608+
Check this day dreamers price out ( his buy now is $5000.00 )

Till I found this Atari item

Gosh what a great bloke this seller is. It's such a 'rare' cartridge that he's done the decent thing and totally dismantled it for us, using unknown precautions to prevent damage, moved the sticker covering the hi address EPROM to one side for a strong flash photograph so we can see that this may be a pre-release item full of delicately programmed 1980's technology. Crikey, why is he asking so little for it. Surely after the reckless abandon he's shown to such a historically significant find, ;o) if it's survived this it would have to be worth $10,000?

This is one of those things that annoys the hell out of me even buying from Trade Me. The seller has a desireable item, but then goes and dismantles it for photos. Price put on it is astrononic because that's what they're worth if you've spent the time to do the 'hard work' for some restorer first. (Never mind all the electronic devices that are photographed on carpet! Sure it's survived the last thirty years in a loft somewhere, but you're doing the best to kill it in the last five minutes you own it. People like this should be given medals to wear so we can avoid them! I'm always more willing to take a punt on a 'condition unknown' item, than a collection of bits somebody has spread out on the floor. How do I know you've put them back together correctly and not tried power on it? One of my pet hates.

But my fovourite at the moment (and I see Terry has shown a bit of interest); http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/vint ... 214766.htm
So, what do we get out of that description? "...or swap for a decent running..." So, this is your collection of non-working junk you've probably tried pulling bits out of one case or the other to make a working system from and now you've given up on it so time to gouge the next sucker ;o) Fingers crossed you get your 2gs out of there quick.

recycled wrote:But my fovourite at the moment (and I see Terry has shown a bit of interest); http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/vint ... 214766.htm
So, what do we get out of that description? "...or swap for a decent running..." So, this is your collection of non-working junk you've probably tried pulling bits out of one case or the other to make a working system from and now you've given up on it so time to gouge the next sucker ;o) Fingers crossed you get your 2gs out of there quick.

I re-read his comments.. He's bought a job lot and I don't think he's tried powering anything up yet. I'm guessing he's already taken what he wanted and this is what's left. As always, the price is a little high for "untested" but the alarm bells aren't ringing just yet.

Gibsaw wrote:

recycled wrote:But my fovourite at the moment (and I see Terry has shown a bit of interest); http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/vint ... 214766.htm

Yes, still after that elusive IIGS. I have all the other bits and pieces just not the mainboard or base it sits on. Not sure about the ones in the lot being discussed here. IIGS have a lot of surface mount stuff and are not that easy to repair. Unless the price was very low I'd be looking for a ROM 3 model that has been tested and actually works. A memory expansion card would be nice too.

Wait, so he has MULTIPLE GS's and wants a IIe? THAT is the alarm bell ringing.

Carcenomy wrote:Wait, so he has MULTIPLE GS's and wants a IIe? THAT is the alarm bell ringing.

I can understand that though. There's a lot of people who regard the IIgs as a footnote to the Apple II series, and generally it's not the IIgs software that people remember or want to run.

Also, this is "wcjungle", who trades all the time and has indicated this was a job lot. He might already have another IIgs.

Gibsaw wrote:I can understand that though. There's a lot of people who regard the IIgs as a footnote to the Apple II series, and generally it's not the IIgs software that people remember or want to run.

Yes, this is why I'm lukewarm on this model. I'm not enthusiastic about It but it seems a shame not to have one when I've got everything else except the mainboard and bottom base.

The best scenario for me would be to find a scuffed up (not rusty) but working ROM 3 "mainboard box" which someone will let go for a song. I've got the top cover, RGB screen, cables, manuals, mouse, keyboard, software, external drive...even the PSU.

Hi all,

I ended up with a lot of this gear. I was pleasantly surprised. I don't think the seller really wanted the cash, he really just wanted a working machine. I ended up with all the 5.25 drives, the Europlus, and the Redstone. In summary, the Europlus is mostly a runner, but has bad RAM. Very easy to sort out, but I haven't started on that yet. It's in outstanding physical condition though, better than either of my current Europluses, so I'm very happy with it.The Redstone is in pretty good condition - as good as it was when I sold it in 1992. It was the last Apple // compatible I sold; one of the ways I paid my way through University was by buying up faulty or unwanted Apple machines and repairing/onselling them. This machine I built out of non-matching parts, so it has 'features' like the steel bottom doesn't match the plastic upper. When it arrived, I was very pleased to find that it was a perfect runner, the only fault being that the S key had been broken off; the key cap is still there, amazingly. Anyone have any spare Alps (Apple 2 and generic clone) keyswitches they'd like to sell? However, this machine wasn't a runner either, because both Disk ][ cards with the lot were faulty, both with the same fault - machines start with a checkerboard pattern on screen with them inserted, and don't get any further. I suspect they've both been plugged into a bad machine, or somehow both been blown up in the same way. I haven't bothered fixing them, I have a huge box of the things, and never seen a faulty one until now. So now the Redstone has been upgraded to 128k, has a working disk card, and is generally a very functional //e apart from that key.

The main problem though was that all the drives had filthy heads - really really scungy. The seller has a number of disks from back in the day, and some or all of them must have oxide binder problems. Because I sent him a good working //e, I was paranoid he'll put the disks in that and kill it too, but I mentioned that to him, and he follows. Will see how it goes.

Anyway, the upshot is that the seller seems a pretty straight-up guy, though not all that technically minded; he described things as honestly as he could to me. I just hope he likes my old //e!

Mike

It's good to know what happened to the gear. As disks get old and degraded I'm sure we'll see a lot more clogged drives.

Yeah tell me about it.

This sort of information makes the idea of the two IIgs's and the matching AppleColor a bit more appealing. Still unjustifiable - I had fun with the IIgs in primary school, sure, but I have 0 software for one and the idea of finding images then getting them onto real media is daunting... not to mention the actual purchase price and potential for not workiness

falco wrote:Anyway, the upshot is that the seller seems a pretty straight-up guy

Well it's good that someone got to meet wcjungle.. Goddamn, he's a pain in the arse to bid against..

Bloody hell... a disk notcher is worth that much?? That's unbelievable! I think I'll find all mine and put them in a 24-hour guarded safe deposit box.

One thing I will say is that it's really easy to get Apple disk images onto disks, provided you have a working machine with a serial port (which all GSes have). ADTPro has its annoying foibles, but provided you use it in a certain way, it's very reliable and effective at making disks. Trouble is, as far as I can tell, a couple of its features just don't work, so it's easy to be misled into thinking you have a bad serial config or faulty cable when the problem is actually with the software. Avoid those features and it's flawless!

http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/

Mike

It's NOT worth that much... every time I come across wcjungle, he bids far more than the item is worth, and sometimes I just get to a point where I'm like "no... it's mine.. you're not having it"..

... which of course is extremely silly and hilariously hypocritical, but there ya go. I try to come to my senses before I get too far past what something is worth.

Gibsaw wrote:...sometimes I just get to a point where I'm like "no... it's mine.. you're not having it".. ... which of course is extremely silly and hilariously hypocritical....

Yes, which of course is part of the psychology of auctions.

Fortunately this time I didn't enter an "ego-autobid" like $100. I was bidding $1 at a time, and he's now outbid me at $57 and at that price, he can have it.

I'll get one off flea-bay for less.