hoserama99

I'm attempting to run it on a 16K Atari 400, which I understand to be supported according to the manual I dug up. I would be delighted to be misinformed on this though! I do have a 48K Atari 800 on the way to me (that of the incorrect AC adapter), and I intend to test on it as well. Edited to add: I'm continually impressed with the amount and quality of the feedback I've gotten from everyone here on the forums. Y'all have been very helpful for all my various dumb problems!

I think it has already been buried, judging from the original condition. I suppose if it was Imagic's Dracula instead of Demon Attack, the odds of life after death would be greater!

I'm wide-open to suggestions to remove just the corrosion -- which is something I don't want to put back! I can post a picture of the cart in its current condition tomorrow.

Soldered. They are now pretty clean. The corrosion is still quite present on the connector, so I'm only going to deal with the chip once the corrosion is gone, assuming it's still non-functional. The point about Brasso is well taken, which is why I mentioned it was my last resort. The cart is non-functional now. Assuming I can't get it functional after trying everything else, I'm not averse to causing more damage.

I saw that video (big fan of 8-Bit Guy!) and will likely give it a try. We don't have any in the house at the moment, so it's on the shopping list for our next trip to the store. I did try deoxit, but it didn't make any visible headway on corrosion on the cart contacts. I've also read that some people use sandpaper with a grit of #2000, so I may try that too. I've heard to *not* use Brasso or similar, so I'm saving that for a last resort.

As fate would have it, I have both my 2600 and EM1 set up. The starfield appears to twinkle and spasm in the same way in both, at least in attract mode. My display setup is lame though: RF -> VCR -> composite -> LCD, so neither had a particularly clean signal. It's quite possible the effect could be more subtle (or obvious!) than I could see.

I think you may be right. Some extensive googling shows that the cart may in fact have 2 screws under the label. My label is complete but very trashed, so I'm not too concerned about putting two screw-holes in it at this point. Edit: here's the scene of the crime before I went further. A thorough cleaning didn't resurrect it, but the slot contacts are still pretty crusty. I may need something more abrasive than alcohol and q-tips to make progress. Thanks all.

They look water damaged and have a quite a bit of dirt and mud on them. I've been able to resurrect 7 other carts in the same lot, so I'm hoping if I can get access to the PCB, this one will follow suit.

I came into possession of a very dirty Demon Attack cart for the A8 series recently. I've made some attempts to clean it but so far haven't revived it. My next step is to open the cart and clean it a bit more directly and check the pins. It's not immediately obvious to me how to open it, aside from a liberal application of force. If anyone has popped one of these open before, I'd be grateful for any tips. Given that the cart isn't working, I'm not averse to just forcing it open no matter the consequence, but I want to save that as a last resort.

I assume there are no ROM chips on the mystery card? I can't quite make it out. The only suggestion I have would be to plug mystery card into, say, slot 1, boot up the II+ and check $C100 through $C1FF to see if code is mapped in from a ROM on the card.

I'm impressed with what this discussion has sparked, and have enjoyed reading the feedback, positive and negative. I'm glad the subject hasn't been too polarizing. Here's the only pic I have of the incorrect supply. It's 11.5V DC, 1.95 amp. I'll give a final update when the A800 arrives and I've got it confirmed working.

Thanks! I wasn't aware of them. I'll give it a week or so on here then see about posting there.

New bass approach in old song? Sounds fishy.

I should add that I have the original boxes for one of the iMacs (the Intel one, I think), the DTK (such as it is), the Cinema Display and the iBook. Caveat: they're probably super-dusty and may not actually exist when I go to look for them.

All gone, thanks everyone.

Looking at the picture of the incorrect adapter, negative was on the "outside" ring and positive was on the "inside" - if you'll pardon my ignorant terminology. I believe this means -ve was connected to ground, so hopefully not a complete disaster. I'll definitely take some care powering it up the first time though.

Yeah, I actually asked the guy to toss the PSU and ship just the computer to try and be safe. I don't know if I would have considered any of this before this thread so it's been very helpful advice.

Those are all great points. If I'm being honest with myself, I think there's a chance I also would have attempted to power it on with the adapter that was offered, without first verifying it. I'll definitely ask for extra bubble wrap and hope for the best. I've never owned an 800 so I'm not fully aware of how heavy or fragile it is. I've got a 400 that seems pretty solid and kinda light, so I assumed the 800 was similar.

Thanks guys - I appreciate the risk analysis! I actually advised the seller to plug it in and see if it powered up. It's only when he told me the result that I looked closer at the picture of the power adapter and realized it was completely wrong for the A800.

I would actually say MAME. I'll grant you the cryptic interface, but I can fire up any arbitrary floppy like so: mame64 apple2ee -flop1 <path_to.woz> I did this a lot when I was creating woz files from my originals last year. I honestly don't know how the software lists figure into it - I never bumped into issues with them. Anyway, with regards to emulation accuracy, I tested my woz dumps in Virtual ][, OpenEmulator and MAME, and compared all to my real //e as I did each dump. MAME was consistently the most accurate.

Hi all, I'm not an electronics expert by any stretch so I'm hoping for some guidance. If someone plugged a 12V *DC* adapter into a beige Atari 800, what are the odds of lasting damage to the computer? I'm talking to a seller who said they plugged it in, saw the red light briefly turn on then nothing. Going on just that little bit of info, I'm trying to figure out if it's worth my while to take a gamble that the computer is still OK.

I thought it over some more, and decided to cancel the serial retractor's bid and blocked him as a buyer. It feels like the right thing to do, but I am wondering if I should have just left him at blocked and not interfered any further than that.

OK, this is the guy: ibmps28530 Looks like he's changed his profile name twice before, and I wouldn't be surprised if it changes again in the future.

Damn, that's the guy. 74 retractions! Bold. Edit to ask: would it be OK if I outed his eBay profile name here? (I'm dumb and didn't realize that the link above didn't show his name.)

Hi all, I've finally cleared a mental hurdle and have started to sell my Apple 2 collection on eBay. My main usage with eBay up until now has been buying, not selling, so there's a lot I don't know. I've decided to start out easy and only list some EA folio games that I've got dupes of, both in case things go south and also to limit the chaos of figuring the logistics on the fly! As such, I have questions! 1) I've marked the games as having the option of both media mail shipping and USPS Priority. I'm already stressing about how I'm going to actually package these things up as I don't exactly know yet how to manage "arbitrary" box sizes, and I don't want to stick EA folio games into a large envelope. I suppose the way to go is to package the games in an envelope with some cardboard fittings around them. Do most people stick with prepaid priority mail boxes, or just rig up any old package they can which is suitably protective? 2) Not more than a few hours into one of my auctions, 2 people bid on Hard Hat Mack. The second bidder bid $201 then cancelled it, then re-bid and is now *not* the winning bidder. Doing so likely exposed the high bid of the first bidder, which makes me a bit queasy. Are these shorts of shenanigans common? Is there anything I can or should do? 3) Many of the games I listed have no comparable listings in recent memory, so I didn't know how to price them. I crossed my fingers and just put a starting bid of $0.01 on them. I envision something like EA's Movie Maker going for $0.01 + shipping, which is fine by me but I'm not sure if I'm doing something stupid here. I don't have any Buy-it-now on any of them because I don't have a clue what's reasonable. 4) How likely am I to have to deal with winning bidders who don't pay? 5) It looks like I'm limited to 100 listings and $5000/month right now. I suppose that's not a problem in practice but I wonder what happens if a game or two goes absolutely nuts and I bump into the cash value limit. Does eBay kill the auction or...? Any other unsolicited advice is welcome.