What are the chances of mylar failing during shipping? Receiving unworking unit from AtariAge member

[+warerat]

The problem with this thread is that it opened up in an accusatory tone with passive-aggressive posturing of attempting to strong arm a particular outcome with threats while trying to portray one party as the victim and the other party as the perpetrator.  This should have remained in personal messenger; I simply responded firmly and held my ground because unfortunately what I have learned now is that I am the second person to have this exact same issue with this buyer. 

 

The OP has apologized and I walk away from this transaction.  The buyer is being made 100% whole thanks to others in this community with a high sense of integrity, all while I walk away with a loss but at least the machine will go to good home.  I'll leave it at that.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Next time better sell a C64 to an unknown buyer, so we can have at least some nice C64 vs. Atari flamewar - and more popcorn.

 

("C64's are crap." "Why are you coming here, this is an Atari forum." "Ataris do have much better built quality, except the ones by the Tramiels." etc. etc.)

 

Its been a long time since the last C64 vs. Atari flamewar... 

 

 

P.S.: By the way, not all Atari programs (or games) are started with the Start key, so a defective Start key does not mean you cannot start a single program with that computer... it would be much worse with a defective Help key - imagine the start of WW3 and you cannot get help from your Atari.

 

[donjn]

24 minutes ago, warerat said:

The problem with this thread is that it opened up in an accusatory tone with passive-aggressive posturing of attempting to strong arm a particular outcome with threats while trying to portray one party as the victim and the other party as the perpetrator.  This should have remained in personal messenger; I simply responded firmly and held my ground because unfortunately what I have learned now is that I am the second person to have this exact same issue with this buyer. 

 

The OP has apologized and I walk away from this transaction.  The buyer is being made 100% whole thanks to others in this community with a high sense of integrity, all while I walk away with a loss but at least the machine will go to good home.  I'll leave it at that.

Does a buyer not have the right to let a seller know that an item he purchased does not work? It happened to me with BOTH sellers.

In your case you told me to open it up and then RIGHT after said, I cant take a return because you opened it up! I mean people, you cant make this stuff up.

How is that anything but disingenuous? Imagine being in my shoes, and this happened to you with something you bought. Don't tell me EVERYTHING you purchase you have "solder-like" levels of fixing either. There are lots of items we buy daily that if someone pulled that crap, (open it, then "sorry cant return it, you opened it") they would be out of business. Don't you think I was a little upset at having the rug pulled out from under my feet like that? How can anyone be surprised that a thread like this would be created after someone pulled that stunt?

 

Okay, do this.

Okay now I wont accept a return because you did what I told you to do.

Its like a complete set up.

 

And with the cartridge that didn't work, he was so out of his head (and into trolling), he accuses me of lying and not sending Q-Bert because I wanted to keep it? A non working cartridge for an Atari computer I wont own soon?  How does that make any sense?

 

And then I am the one who says he was sorry...

 

But of course everyone overlooks all of this..

 

I'll leave it at that.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2023 by donjn

[donjn]

17 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Next time better sell a C64 to an unknown buyer, so we can have at least some nice C64 vs. Atari flamewar - and more popcorn.

 

("C64's are crap." "Why are you coming here, this is an Atari forum." "Ataris do have much better built quality, except the ones by the Tramiels." etc. etc.)

 

Its been a long time since the last C64 vs. Atari flamewar... 

 

 

P.S.: By the way, not all Atari programs (or games) are started with the Start key, so a defective Start key does not mean you cannot start a single program with that computer... it would be much worse with a defective Help key - imagine the start of WW3 and you cannot get help from your Atari.

 

Yeah whats funny is I went from Atari 2600 to NES to Commodore 64. Had an Atari 400 briefly.

Heck even as recent as 10 years ago, still a Commodore guy.
Then I realized, I am not a graphic density guy, I like lots of nice colors and great Atari sounds, especially with how limited the Commodore palette is, and that yucky lime green.

 

 

[Dopeyman06]

14 hours ago, donjn said:

Gee, I wonder why I didnt include a non working Q-Bert?....I threw it away, it does not work. Im not gonna send someone non working items...cough...cough.

And you didnt give them to me I paid $20 for Star Raiders and Centipede.

 

Curiosity just hit me. How do you know that Q-Bert didn't work?  If you weren't able to play the other carts cause of the START key not working.

[donjn]

1 hour ago, Dopeyman06 said:

Curiosity just hit me. How do you know that Q-Bert didn't work?  If you weren't able to play the other carts cause of the START key not working.

The other carts got to the splash screen, the title screen.

Q-Bert was completely blank, no intro, nothing.

 

[Beeblebrox]

4 minutes ago, donjn said:

The other carts got to the splash screen, the title screen.

Q-Bert was completely blank, no intro, nothing.

 

Did you clean it's contacts out of interest? I had two carts in a bundle the other day. Didn't work until I cleaned the carts pcb contacts with a cotton bud (cue tip(?))  and some contact cleaner. Both worked fine after that.

[+bf2k+]

What's really funny is that we are talking about 40 yr old hardware... here's an example.

 

I had a 800 in storage. When I put it in storage, all keys on keyboard worked.  When I took it out of storage in 2021, none of the keys worked.

 

In 2022, I Took the Mitsumi keyboard apart and cleaned it well.  This got 75% of the keys working.

 

I advertised it for sale at a reduced price with a faulty keyboard.

 

It finally sold in 2023... when I prepped it for shipping, I tested the keys again and 100% of them worked!!!!

 

Between 2022 (75% working) and 2023 (100% working) nothing had changed except the humidity and the date/time.

 

The point is... with this old hardware we are talking about, anything is possible... tread softly.

 

[Geister]

On 8/23/2023 at 4:35 PM, CharlieChaplin said:

Next time better sell a C64 to an unknown buyer, so we can have at least some nice C64 vs. Atari flamewar - and more popcorn.

 

("C64's are crap." "Why are you coming here, this is an Atari forum." "Ataris do have much better built quality, except the ones by the Tramiels." etc. etc.)

 

Its been a long time since the last C64 vs. Atari flamewar... 

 

 

P.S.: By the way, not all Atari programs (or games) are started with the Start key, so a defective Start key does not mean you cannot start a single program with that computer... it would be much worse with a defective Help key - imagine the start of WW3 and you cannot get help from your Atari.

 

I've bought somewhere around 12 Ataris in the last several years. 2 1200xls had bad mylars (who'd believe it?) and a 600xl that was DOA when I bought it and I knew it.  I had to replace the CPU, the Pokey chip , and the RAM to get it working again.  I suspect this computer was bricked by a brick (a power brick) which I didn't get with the computer.  I'm not an electronics guy but have experience soldering and desoldering.  I learned a lot from the experience.  

I also watch Adrian Black and it seems like every C64 that comes to him is DOA and it makes for some good content.  I wanted to buy a dead C64 to get more experience and see if I learned anything from watching Adrian's channel.  As it happened I bought a pair of C64s and a pair of 1541s to have something to work on.  To my surprise and disappointment, everything worked (except for a touchy keyboard).  

So, although I might be over estimating the fragility of the C64 over the years, perhaps I should not laugh so much about how superior I think the Atari 8-bits are over the C64s.  Maybe its just a crap shoot.

But I think someone that wants to get into the retro scene should definitely watch Adrian Black to learn how to diagnose issues with older computers and Flash JazzCat for tips on upgrading them.  If you don't mod your retros, you aren't getting the full experience.

[E474]

I recently bought a 1050, seller advertised it as powering up.

 

Got round to testing it today, powered it up, and got the motor-spin, spin-down, motor-spin, spin-down, POST fail.

 

Can't complain as the seller obviously was selling a fair bit of retro kit, and probably had no idea what was legit.

 

[+mytek]

Yeah whenever I buy an Atari either from eBay or from a thrift store such as GoodWill, I never expect it to be 100%, and always assume that I'll need to do something to it. Of course if it does work perfectly I'm ecstatic 

 

As its already been mentioned several times in this thread... knowing how to troubleshoot and solder really is a prerequisite if you don't want to keep emptying out your wallet to pay someone else to do it for you

 

And of course nobody is born with this knowledge, and we should always keep that in mind when someone new arrives on the scene. However they too should exert an equal amount of patience when looking for help in these forums, and at least show enough initiative to search and read what is available here on AtariAge. Because there is a wealth of knowledge here, and most likely a thread exists that talks about whatever it is that they have encountered or need assistance with.

 

BTW, I feel sorry for whoever gets my Atari hand me downs

[+poobah]

19 hours ago, Geister said:

  As it happened I bought a pair of C64s and a pair of 1541s to have something to work on.  To my surprise and disappointment, everything worked (except for a touchy keyboard).  
 

That's impressive. Every 1541 I've ever gotten was broken and in the case of the Newtronics mechs, unrepairable (bad heads)

[_The Doctor__]

bad caps on the newtronics,

[+x=usr(1536)]

21 hours ago, Geister said:

But I think someone that wants to get into the retro scene should definitely watch Adrian Black to learn how to diagnose issues with older computers and Flash JazzCat for tips on upgrading them.

This is good advice, but I'd add one caveat to it: practice first.

 

What I mean by this is that picking up a bag of junk electronics from eBay or the like that can be soldered, desoldered, and generally abused before diving in to the broken machine that actually needs repair is a good idea.  Not saying this to discourage anyone from doing their own work by any means, but (and I speak from experience on this) it's really easy to make things much worse in the process of attempting to make them better if you're unfamiliar with how to undertake diagnosis and repair, or haven't been at it for some time.

[flashjazzcat]

23 hours ago, Geister said:

But I think someone that wants to get into the retro scene should definitely watch Adrian Black to learn how to diagnose issues with older computers and Flash JazzCat for tips on upgrading them.

Note that I have a lot of repair videos as well (and nearly half of my workload comprises dead or faulty Ataris), although videos of what I consider to be interesting repairs seem to perform poorly compared to videos about whizz-bang hardware upgrades. This naturally has the effect of making me less inclined to publish repair videos as time goes on.

[Geister]

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Note that I have a lot of repair videos as well (and nearly half of my workload comprises dead or faulty Ataris), although videos of what I consider to be interesting repairs seem to perform poorly compared to videos about whizz-bang hardware upgrades. This naturally has the effect of making me less inclined to publish repair videos as time goes on.

That would be a loss.  I watch all your videos.  Maybe you just need more broken commodores like Adrian?  

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Note that I have a lot of repair videos as well (and nearly half of my workload comprises dead or faulty Ataris), although videos of what I consider to be interesting repairs seem to perform poorly compared to videos about whizz-bang hardware upgrades. This naturally has the effect of making me less inclined to publish repair videos as time goes on.

I think you would get more views if you start doing the stupidest face possible in your thumbnails.  Seems to be a thing now and holy shit is it annoying.

[+scorpio_ny]

2 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Note that I have a lot of repair videos as well (and nearly half of my workload comprises dead or faulty Ataris), although videos of what I consider to be interesting repairs seem to perform poorly compared to videos about whizz-bang hardware upgrades. This naturally has the effect of making me less inclined to publish repair videos as time goes on.

I am not sure what metric you use to gauge performance, but I have watched your most of your videos (and many I have watched many times over during the course of a repair). Your videos are very entertaining as well as informative. More importantly, they perform a service as an important repository of information to the Atari community. Many repair posts on Atari Age refer to your videos as a a possible source of information to a resolution of an issue. It would be a major loss to our community if you decide stop.
 

I am very grateful that you take the time document and share your knowledge.

[deffroe]

5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

This is good advice, but I'd add one caveat to it: practice first.

 

What I mean by this is that picking up a bag of junk electronics from eBay or the like that can be soldered, desoldered, and generally abused before diving in to the broken machine that actually needs repair is a good idea.  Not saying this to discourage anyone from doing their own work by any means, but (and I speak from experience on this) it's really easy to make things much worse in the process of attempting to make them better if you're unfamiliar with how to undertake diagnosis and repair, or haven't been at it for some time.

One other bit of advise to do, that failed to do initially(and paid the price), is decent quality 60/40 leaded solder.  Just before covid I picked 3x C64 breadboxes dirt cheap, so got to 'work at home' practising desoldering/soldering components using lead free solder with no issues.  Saw advise on here to use 60/40 but said to myself, naaarrr I know what I'm doing

[+x=usr(1536)]

4 hours ago, Stephen said:

I think you would get more views if you start doing the stupidest face possible in your thumbnails.  Seems to be a thing now and holy shit is it annoying.

That and bringing back the PCBWay thumbs-up still image 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I know this thread is specifically talking about an Atari 8-bit, but I just wanted to state that these things do and can fail at the drop of a hat. A perfect example of this, is a 2600 I was just working on the other day. Pretty dirty system overall but I cleaned it up a bit and got everything serviced and it was working great! I think I even got my highest score on a game I was playing on it at the time during my testing afterwards. Well, I went to put it and a few other back together, and part of that is testing them again and wouldn't you know it?! Suddenly there is no fire button registration anymore from player 1? Pulled the TIA and it tested good, starting checking for shorts or any broken traces. Nothing... and then on a whim I decided to check the actual controller port. 

 

Couldn't find anything wrong, but sure enough no conductivity from pin 6 to a capacitor it goes to? Odd, it looks fine and connected etc. But I decided to hit it with a bit of solder and heat anyway. 

 

Yeap...that took care of it. So my point is that something that was working fine and working well, in just a matter of a few days developed a cold solder joint just sitting on a table. It was a simple fix, but is an excellent example of how something can test fine and get sent out or whatever and then not work for some reason. It is frustrating when things like this happen no doubt, but as everyone else has stated, it is part and parcel for this hobby and working and playing on game consoles that were never thought of or much less designed to still be working 40 years later.

 

[flashjazzcat]

22 hours ago, Geister said:

Maybe you just need more broken commodores like Adrian?  

I'd be delighted to receive some, although - again - when I featured a Commodore Amiga repair on the channel a few months back, it didn't gain much traction (which is perhaps not surprising for a channel focused heavily on Ataris).

21 hours ago, Stephen said:

I think you would get more views if you start doing the stupidest face possible in your thumbnails.  Seems to be a thing now and holy shit is it annoying.

Yes, that grinds my gears as well, and I was hopeful that banishing my visage from the channel entirely would do nothing but good.  I remember one video thumbnail a year or so back which YT recommended to me (and I forget which channel, but it was ostensibly devoted to 8-bit computers) which depicted a fairly attractive female in a sheer loose-fitting top. Naturally, being a man, I subconsciously clicked on it before even investing any thought in the matter, and of course the actual content was just some old bald guy with a huge beard rambling at the camera.

 

Deborah has previously suggested staged interruptions during filming while she comes into the office asking for my opinion on various outfits she's trying on, but this would severly compromise what's left of my principles, and I'm sure viewers would quickly get wise to such cynical tactics.

20 hours ago, scorpio_ny said:

I am not sure what metric you use to gauge performance, but I have watched your most of your videos (and many I have watched many times over during the course of a repair). Your videos are very entertaining as well as informative. More importantly, they perform a service as an important repository of information to the Atari community. Many repair posts on Atari Age refer to your videos as a a possible source of information to a resolution of an issue. It would be a major loss to our community if you decide stop.
 

I am very grateful that you take the time document and share your knowledge.

I really do appreciate that - as I do all the other encouraging comments - and such feedback is useful when it comes to concocting content for the channel. I'll try not to be too heavily influenced by fluctuating viewing figures. As for metrics: there's been a fairly consistent pattern of 1-2K views per 'Upgraded machine' video followed by 500-750 views per 'Repaired machine' video, and I don't know what negative effect this has as far as the YouTube algorithm is concerned, but as I'm largely catering to twenty-five or so Patrons now, YouTube metrics and Google ads are something of an irrelevance to all but the video sponsor. Google ad revenue covers the cost of Google Plus here, which is nice, and about as much as I can expect.

19 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

That and bringing back the PCBWay thumbs-up still image 

Absolutely. It seemed to me that my integration segments were - if not unique - unusual in the sense they elicited feedback from the viewers (and - one can therefore assume - were watched by some of them), but it's difficult to maintain that level of variety. Nevertheless, I think the sponsor prefers to see the original approach rather than the 'straight' integrations from the past couple of videos, and I'm certain the viewers do, so you can expect more of that going forward.

Edited August 27, 2023 by flashjazzcat

[E474]

I've gotten into the habit of videoing the "unboxing/unpacking" of anything I order online, because it only really requires me to use the camera on my phone, and although it's a bit fiddly to open packages with one hand, it has actually come in handy when a mistake has been made. One vendor shipped precisely half of what had been ordered, and I sent photos of the situation, but also mentioned I'd videoed the unboxing, and the rest of the order was in the post the next day.

 

Is it practical to just video a complete repair, and then edit out the bits that don't add much to the process, a la "25 minutes later intermission photos" in the videos?

 

A week or so ago a video popped up in my Youtube feed on repairing a PC Graphics card, which I've linked to below as it's kind of interesting to see what repairs are involved in a modern system. Apparently shipping a pre-built PC with a massive cooling fan on a graphics card can cause damage to the card's PCB if there's any shocks during transit, but the fix is obviously a bit more involved than just 60/40 solder and an iron.

 

Incidentally, am also enjoying the @flashjazzcat Youtube channel, though non of the "viewers of this channel also watch videos" are anything to do with me, apart from the Austin Powers Radar Jokes clip, which is a timeless classic.

 

 

[+mytek]

24 minutes ago, E474 said:

Is it practical to just video a complete repair, and then edit out the bits that don't add much to the process, a la "25 minutes later intermission photos" in the videos?

I guess if you are a Super Tech and very familiar with the machine it could be done in real time, but yes for most of us it would be good to edit out the boring parts

[Geister]

In my case, that would be as soon as I open my mouth.

 

Me talking about computers has put my wife to sleep since the 1970s.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Geister