Going on a VIC raid

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carlsson
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Going on a VIC raid

Post by carlsson »

Next week, I'm hoping to go on a VIC/64 raid! I called the person I knew for many years running a small computer store, and asked if he still had some of the stuff left. Lots! Everything piled, so it might be hard to see what he has to offer.

He has even thrown away some stuff, namely some PET 600/700 series, old printers and productivity software for those. I hope those PETs are very common and not worth much money. I told him that there is a reasonable second hand market, so if he has the time, instead of throwing Commodore stuff away, he should consider selling it.

We'll see what he has to offer. I'm mainly looking for VIC cartridges, but if he has other interesting VIC/64 items, I might pick them up too. Ten years ago, he was still asking the 1983 list price for his items, but now he sound more flexible. If I find a Bridge, Turtle Bridge or some other rather (heh) uncommon item, I might be willing to pay the list price. I'm thrilled!
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Post by Boray »

Good luck then! :wink:
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Jeff-20
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Post by Jeff-20 »

We could open an online commodore store!
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Post by Bacon »

If he has a VIC20 for a reasonable price (and you don't want it of course) I might be interested.

Is he in Västerås too?
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Das rubbernecken Sichtseeren keepen das cotton-pickenen Hands in die Pockets muss; relaxen und watschen die Blinkenlichten.
carlsson
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Post by carlsson »

Just outside of the town. I'll see what I can find. If anyone has particular wish lists, you could send them privately to me and state how much you think each item would be worth. He surely have lots of unused VIC-20's, still in their boxes (unopened since 1983), but in the worst case, he might ask 2000 SEK each for them, like he did 10 years ago. Now, I'm not sure even a mint condition, never used VIC is worth that kind of money.
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Jeff-20
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Post by Jeff-20 »

I would love an unopened VIC... too bad I am in the states now. Shipping would be a pain.
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carlsson
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Post by carlsson »

An unopened PAL VIC even. 2000 SEK= $250, but that's speculation. I don't quite know how much the box would weigh and its dimensions, but I estimated a package that is 15x30x50 cm and 2 kg.

To the USA and Canada: 254 SEK ($31), due to it is free of VAT (worth $8.)
To Germany or UK: 260 SEK ($32)

Btw, I took a walk in the cold and sunny weather today. I stopped by the nearby flea market. The most odd item I found was a G7000, but it did not seem to come with any games, and a couple of those consoles are on sale on Tradera every week too, so it is not particulary rare. Other than that, a guy had a small ocean of NES games, and other stands also had small sections of NES, SNES, GBA and a handful of Megadrive games. Nothing really interesting. Of course, there were tons of non-gaming stuff too, but that is even less on topic to mention.
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Post by Bacon »

SEK 2000 would be a bit steep, but I'd sure like to have a brand new VIC20. It'll be interesting to see what you find.
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Jeff-20
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Post by Jeff-20 »

carlsson wrote:An unopened PAL VIC even. 2000 SEK= $250, but that's speculation. I don't quite know how much the box would weigh and its dimensions, but I estimated a package that is 15x30x50 cm and 2 kg.

To the USA and Canada: 254 SEK ($31), due to it is free of VAT (worth $8.)
To Germany or UK: 260 SEK ($32)

Btw, I took a walk in the cold and sunny weather today. I stopped by the nearby flea market. The most odd item I found was a G7000, but it did not seem to come with any games, and a couple of those consoles are on sale on Tradera every week too, so it is not particulary rare. Other than that, a guy had a small ocean of NES games, and other stands also had small sections of NES, SNES, GBA and a handful of Megadrive games. Nothing really interesting. Of course, there were tons of non-gaming stuff too, but that is even less on topic to mention.
OK, too expensive for me.

Let me get this straight. Sweden had Megadrive (as oppossed to Genesis) and NES (as oppossed to Famicom)? Strange. It seems like something between Japan and USA, which I guess you are geographically. :p
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carlsson
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Post by carlsson »

Jeff-20 wrote:Sweden had Megadrive (as oppossed to Genesis) and NES (as oppossed to Famicom)?
Yes, but it was only called "Nintendo" until they launched Super Nintendo. Actually, the NES acronym I think is something I've picked up from the Internet era. Philips Videopac G7000 equals Magnavox Odyssey 2, by the way.
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Jeff-20
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Post by Jeff-20 »

I've never actually played a Philips Videopac G7000 (Magnavox Odyssey 2). I've stumbled across many of them in the thrift stores, but never got around to buying one. I even bought two of the three "board games" they made for it. I think I was poisoned by the opinions on Digital Press that it was not a very good system. Plus the joysticks look like they would feel funny.
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Post by carlsson »

I played in the radio/TV dept. in a supermarket. It must've been 1983 or so, and although I had not really seen a computer yet, I was not that impressed. Maybe because the game they had put on was Golf, described in one of my magazines like "for those with poor eyesight who like to play golf with a croquet club and a table tennis ball". :D
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Post by carlsson »

Now I'm back from the hunt. I spent 1.5 hours in this guy's basement. He once expanded his house to almost twice the size, and it was required to store all his stuff. Yet he had even more in the garage and as I wrote before, has already thrown away a bunch of PET stuff.

This guy used to be a Commodore reseller, as well as programmer. He was in touch with Datatronic and he had a couple of employees who wrote software for Datatronic. They were paid about 5000 SEK/month back then, which equals the list price of two VIC-20s.

Good points
I found a couple of homemade cartridges. Some have a label, some are completely anonymous. I didn't buy all the homemade ones, only the most interesting ones. I still haven't tested them.

There were a reasonable amount of loose VIC-20's on the shelves. Some were taken apart, some were still assembled. Most seemed to be of the CR variety.

Boray had sent me a detailed wish list, and I managed to pick up at least a few of the items on his list (email sent separately). I considered picking up a VIC for Bacon, but didn't as everything was tightly piled. I might go back there some time in the spring, and could fetch one or a few VICs then.

Anyone wants used DSDD floppies? The man had boxes of them. He had a few wrapped boxes of unused disks too, both 5.25" HD and SSDD (single sided, double density).

Documentation? Manuals? Magazines? He had a small pile of Swedish PET magazines and the early issues of VIC=Nytt and VIC=Rapport.

He was also asking very little money, about as much as I was willing to pay, and it might be negotiable if picking up a lot of stuff.

Negative points
There were very few commercially known VIC-20 cartridges. I found one loose The Sky is Falling, and one each of Datatronic's VIC-Forth and HES' VIC-Forth, both shrink wrapped. I guess those could be a bit sought after, but since I already own Datatronic's one, I didn't pick up another copy. He had the cover/docs to several game cartridges though, but no actual modules.

As I wrote, everything was tightly piled. There might be interesting items behind the visible stuff, but almost impossible to tell without moving away gazillion of disk drives.

Yes, disk drives. IEEE disk drives, like 3040, 8050, 8250, 8050LP and so on. Not a single 1540, 1541 or newer. I am going to post to cbm-hackers list too, as I suppose those IEEE drives might be interesting to some of the people on the list. There were a few IEEE interfaces for VIC-20, one in plastic case and the other on loose card. However, only one interface was fully equipped, the other lacked VIAs (two 6522 on each card) and I know that VIAs are a bit hard to locate as it is.

If you're into PET computers and professional software, you might find a few interesting parts. Mainly disk drives, a few printers and interfaces, in the garage a couple of 3032 / 4032 / 8032-SK, a few 600 / 700 that he had not yet thrown away.

All in all, it was an interesting trip. I didn't quite get what I was looking for, but a bunch of other items. Now I will take my VIC-20 out of the drawer and see what those cartridges contain. Hopefully they're OK so I won't damage my computer.
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carlsson
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Post by carlsson »

Oh yes, I got two of his old business cards, neither no longer valid except for his home address on one card. I also got an exclusive member card to Westerås VIC Klubb, which would have granted me free access to playing games on their VIC-20's twentythree years ago. :D
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Post by Boray »

carlsson wrote: Boray had sent me a detailed wish list, and I managed to pick up at least a few of the items on his list (email sent separately).
Cool! It will be interesting to see what you found!

Maybe there is something strange with my email. I sent myself a test mail 10 minutes ago but haven't got it back yet...
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