rpmxxipt

I think Goo Gone sucks - I have a bottle sitting unused somewhere. I've NEVER had an issue using aerosol glass cleaner to clean water-soluble crud off of cartridges. Alcohol will NOT do the same job, although it's a nice cheap solution (no pun intended) for cleaning contacts. Alcohol or Goo Gone will NOT cut a quality permanent marker in the least - but I qualify this by saying that most markers in the hands of kids in the 1980's were NOT quality permanent markers. I'm still swearing by my tried and true - For food/fingerprints = water-based cleaner For grease/crayon/labels = naptha For Marker = I'm still working on it. I think there's an answer somewhere, even if it's Methyl Ethyl Ketone (which dissolves marker INSTANTLY) followed within seconds with an alcohol wash to avoid plastic burn. I need more authentic autographed carts to conduct my "experiments" upon.. moo hoo hoo hah hah hah!

Oh, and two more things: Naptha works great to dissolve the adhesive on packing tape, when your local idiots tape everything closed by wrapping it 10 times around. If you work it carefully, using (about 20) saturated Q-tips at the point of contact, you can generally get all tape off and be able to wipe the residue off with a clean rag. Don't even bother trying to remove 20-year-old masking tape. Ain't ever gonna happen. And old Avery labels are the absolute worst on a porous surface.

You need to identify your stain! Alcohol is neither good nor bad. Most cartridge crud is from little cruddy fingers handling the carts. A water-based cleaner really works best. I prefer to use an aerosol can of window cleaner (you can get these at any dollar store) on NES carts to clean most of the light spots of Yoo-Hoo or whatever crud is on those labels. I use Naptha to clean grease marker off cart labels or plastic, as well as to dissove the adhesive of price stickers on labels. I agree, laminated NES cart labels seem pretty impervious to crud. However, if you're using a solvent, this CAN get "under" the edge of the label and discolor it for quite some time (until it evaporates). Some observations: If some drone at your local thrift used a black grease marker to write on an Atari Silver label, or stuck the price tag on a Silver label, you are SOL. These silver labels just get murdered using any kind of solvent, however gentle. I've found that black ColecoVision labels as well are EXTREMELY difficult to get a sticker off of without messing it up. Everything will seem to be proceeding fine, until you notice you're lightening the label for no apparent reason. Also: NES cart plastic seems very soft and reactive. I've used solvents to try to dissolve 20-year old permanent marker "autographs" and ended up "burning" the plastic. The only nice thing about alcohol is that it doesn't leave a grease film like goo gone.. plus it smells "technological" afterwards. It's non-reactive and probably fine for cleaning the dust off of something.

I wonder how they got the tiny CD in there?

You know, Povlok brings up a good point.. There's nothing keeping you or me or anyone else who sometimes gets frustrated by "side deals" to alert the seller to the value of an item as soon as it is listed. Maybe our hobby needs a "truth squad" if we're really that upset about side deals (and I've stopped being upset by them, so I'm not included). It's a free country.

After the flood waters subsided and some computer swapping, I now have my scanner working and I'm ready to go-go-go with ST archiving. I'm guessing I have at LEAST 200+ unique (shrink wrapped) boxed ST titles with all documentation sitting on my shelves, some fairly obscure. I'm also guessing I'll never have any time in the world to PLAY a single one of these games, but I made the offer previously to scan the materials. This might be a nice rationalization to suck some beers down after work and try to get some things scanned in the meantime. PM me if you have space for this material, and in what format you'd prefer. I'm thinking much of this would be better archived in .PDF format, but I don't have a copy of Acrobat. So much disk-based software passes through my hands that isn't documented anywhere on the net that I'd like to at LEAST record it for posterity. It seems to be just an issue of space. What should I do?

All kidding in the politics boards aside, I'm going to try to get quite a number of items listed this weekend.. primarily NON-atari (I can't let go of that stuff!) but decent nonetheless. So far I've got 5 Apple II games up on eBay, I plan to have about 13 tested boxed Amiga games listed by tomorrow night (Saturday) and who knows what else by Sunday. But please give them a look if you're a properly "diversified" collector! So far, 2 Wizardry games, KQ1, an obscure A-H RPG/strategy game called "Fortress of the Witch King", and F-15 Strike Eagle. Please look here Thanks!

Yeh, it took about 4 weeks each of the two times I bought a guide from DP (using paypal on an eBay BIN), but those anxious moments looking into my mailbox were quickly forgotten. I think it was well worth the $20.00. I can't wait for the next edition. Some things take time. Like fine cheddar. Or properly aged chubs.

I agree with VGA.. that cracks me up. Too much funny stuff lately!

Slade - PM sent.

That's hilarious.

Well, I downloaded the alternate hiscore.dat file they listed at mame.net and put it in my main Mame32 directory and that did the trick for me! Thanks for the tip! Amazing how long you can play something like this and not know something so simple! I've never tried Guzzler, I'll have to check it out. My three obsessions right now are beating 10-yard Fight (seems to be all luck at the last level), getting through all 5 difficulty levels of each stage in Circus Charlie (level select) sequentially, and Bank Panic like I said. My wife thinks I'm nuts, but my 4-year old kid thinks it's pretty cool.

Yeah, I noticed that too! Just for goofs I've been trying to see if I can't beat the world record for Bank Panic and I wouldn't mind having the high scores saved. BTW, I'm nowhere close - my best so far is somewhere in the 700,000 range. Whoever had 1,200,000 points was either a machine or had a spotter, I think!

Damn.. I bet he has a purty mouth too.

Misc stuff FA on eBay as of this Friday night, stay tuned for more. Thanks for looking!

What say you, CPU? I know you were puzzled by the cart you purchased. Is it time to reveal all? Enquiring minds want to know!

Bump.. I dropped the price on the boxed Activision Bridge game five bucks.

Well, no beer for me. Ah well!

Need some beer money! Picnic BIN - SOLD! - Miller time! Bridge BIN Thanks for looking!

[Edit] Is there a reason why Atari would use that particularly corny packaging photo to sell those systems in Japan? It seems like a cruel joke in retrospect. At first glance, I thought they had their OWN version of the mouth-agape, highly excitable video game family, but they just borrowed one from US.

You all can just be sure to "talk to the puppet" from now on!

Don't talk about my Ms. Pac-man puppet that way!

rpmxixipt.. with an I..

I could see that happening. Maybe!

I don't even want to know. LOL.. some of us get more "interactive" with our classic gaming than others!