Collecting Opinions on Disks Vs. Carts?

[GrandviewCoin]

I've always been listing my A8 Carts on my have/needed lists, but what are the value of true original floppy disks? I have a ton of these, and was wondering if they carry the same weight as the cartidges?

 

Daniel

[classics]

Loose disks are worth very little it seems, but complete disk games with box and packaging are harder to find and have a collector following.

[AtariDude]

Cartridges tend to be sturdy so i prefer to collect them. Diskettes are ok too but I have to make copies of them just in case one of them gets damaged or stops working. That is the drawback to diskettes.

 

However if you keep them in a diskette box (preferably one with a dark cover to keep sunlight out), they could last for a long time. I have some diskettes that A2600 tested for me that are almost 20 years old yet they still can be read from

[+davidcalgary29]

Loose disks are worth very little it seems, but complete disk games with box and packaging are harder to find and have a collector following.

 

This is true most especially so for game series that have a cult following (Ultima), or for games produced by companies known for their elaborate and creative packaging (e.g. Infocom games). I think that the last complete Ultima IV for the A8 that was auctioned off on eBay went for approx. $60, and I've seen them go for much more than that.

[video game addict]

I think part of the collector appeal is in the packaging/artwork. Carts in general, not the old 400/800 however, but most companies/platforms at least, you get more on a cart & especially in the box & docs vs a loose disk. With a disk, you get a little sticker maybe not even with art at all, might just be text. More appeal to collect a boxed disk game than a loose disk. So boxes tend to carry more value. Besides the disks are easy enough to reproduce, if you're not gonna have the related pieces, why both with the original disk you might as well play a copy.

 

Not that I would suggest or recommend a copy to the real thing, but alot of collectors/gamers would not pay much for a loose disk, when it is rather boring, and you aren't getting the box, docs, whatever else might of originally have came pacakged in with it.

 

So carts are cool to collect, always have been, some look cool, most 400/800 titles are crap to look at, the XE line are better still no end labels thou.

 

Disks as long as they are boxed, carry some weight, I bet some disk games are worth far more than most any cart based 8-bit title.

 

Loose disk are gonna be near the bottom collectable wise, just not as attractive, and it is more susceptible to damage over carts, so some people shy away.

[Callipygous]

I highly recommend that everyone stop collecting carts and start collecting cassettes. They are the next big thing! :wink:

[AtariDude]

I highly recommend that those people with 2 sets of the same game cartridge to send one of them to me

 

Ok..ok.. in all seriousness, how many games were written on casette for the Atari 8 bit series? I know that there must have been a few games but I don't remember too many of them (even back in the day).

[eobet]

Loose disks are worth very little it seems, but complete disk games with box and packaging are harder to find and have a collector following.

 

This is true most especially so for game series that have a cult following (Ultima), or for games produced by companies known for their elaborate and creative packaging (e.g. Infocom games). I think that the last complete Ultima IV for the A8 that was auctioned off on eBay went for approx. $60, and I've seen them go for much more than that.

 

Interesting! I'm new to all this (I joined this forum looking for mint TAC-2 joysticks).

 

So, what might this lot be worth?

 

http://www.eobet.com/temp/ultimaiii_a.jpg

http://www.eobet.com/temp/ultimaiii_b.jpg

 

Sadly, I lost the metal Ankh for Ultima IV, so that box isn't complete.

 

Btw, I'm not looking to sell, I'm just curious.

 

Oh, and note that Secrets of Sosaria is the cluebook, which didn't come with the game (I also have The Way of the Avatar for Ultima IV).

 

The trouble with floppies, as I see it, is that they're perishable (don't know the proper English word, sorry). Ie. they don't stay "fresh" forever, unlike a solid state cart does. For example, the multiple floppies of Ultima IV, lying in the box, might have rubbed off on each other, I don't know.

[deathtrappomegranate]

I highly recommend that everyone stop collecting carts and start collecting cassettes. They are the next big thing!  :wink:

 

Yes, all of your cartridges are worthless. Please send them all to me for "recycling".

[video game addict]

 

 

I have a recycling plant near by as well, would be glad to recycle any old 8-bits, carts or otherwise.

 

 

I think one other thing about disks & tapes, the PAL to NTSC differences might cause problems, this I'm not sure of. I recall that being an issue sometimes with C64 stuff, and some games won't work, even thou the carts might not have issues, the speed differences sometimes effect the other media that has to load.

[deathtrappomegranate]

From my experience, virtually all disk software is transposable between NTSC and PAL systems without any big problems. Some games use artefacting to produce colour effects, and some games designed for PAL systems display in monochrome on NTSC, and vice versa. Sometimes the colours just look weird.

 

I've not known the speed issue to be a big problem. I really only collect carts, but I've gathered lots of disks and cassettes along the way. Mostly, they've been fine. However, disks and cassettes are more "perishable", because they are magnetic media. I currently have almost 700 carts - and they all work. About 5% of disks and cassettes don't (well, the ones that I have, anyway).

 

Personally, I find that carts just feel cool to have. They load very quickly, they're robust, and they feel less like "software" and more like "games". But that's just me.

[Velcro_SP]

On the subject of cassettes, I have three right here I recently bought off a British chap on eBay: Rockford, Attack of the Mutant Camels, and Twilight World. With the possible exception of Rockford, which is like Boulderdash, these titles are (I think) unfamiliar to North American 8bitters. They are in transparent music cassette-type cases and the cover unfolds to be a little instruction sheet. Very slick in appearance, very neat, and I would say very collectable.

 

I went without a disk-drive for the longest time, and have memories of using cassettes routinely. Canyon Climber was one I bought on cassette, and then I remember ordering Attack on the Deathstar from David Plotkin and Maria Montes because I didn't want to type it all in. Plotkin and Montes also sent a Pacman-style game that I couldn't get to load for some reason. I think this was called Attack of the Munchkins? I would be interested in getting a copy of this if anyone has spotted it anywhere.

 

As for the collectability of cartridges versus diskettes... that's a tough one. Serious collectors probably collect both, but focus on the packaging. Non-serious collectors probably like a nice stack of carts. On eBay I think you will find a large market for carts at medium prices but also a more selective market at high prices for certain disk-based programs with all the packaging such as the mythical Ultima IV complete with ankh.

[Trooper]

I've been actively collecting cassettes for a couple of years now. I think it's great fun and quite cheap most of the time since people don't feel that they are as collictable as the carts or indeed the disks.

 

Since I never had the money to buy a diskdrive back in the day I only ever owned games on cassette so it's also a big nostalgiatrip for me =)

 

Cheers!

 

Troop

[Callipygous]

Q. Were disk drives and diskettes that expensive in Europe that the cassette format persisted for so long? In the states, cassettes were common 1980-1982 but declined rapidly after that.

[Trooper]

Q. Were disk drives and diskettes that expensive in Europe that the cassette format persisted for so long? In the states, cassettes were common 1980-1982 but declined rapidly after that.

 

Well I don't know about the rest of europe but when I bought my Atari 130XE in......hmmm 86 I think it cost me about $150 and was sold with an XC12 cassette player. The 1050 DD cost about $250 and there were almost no software available on diskettes where I lived.

 

So because of the extreme pricepoint I simply couldn't afford the DD and stuck to my trusty old XC12

 

Cheers!

 

Troop

[deathtrappomegranate]

Q. Were disk drives and diskettes that expensive in Europe that the cassette format persisted for so long?

 

Yes!

 

And so were cartridges, until Atari was in serious decline.

 

Also, the main players in the "home computer" market at that time (in the UK) were the Sinclair Spectrum, C64, BBC, etc, and most of those machines relied upon cassettes. Disk drives were very expensive for any platform back then.

 

I'm sure that there are many obscure cassette titles out there that few people are aware of.

[eobet]

So are disk based games the rarest to find for Atari 8-bits?

 

I've always had a floppy drive for my Atari, and I remember boasting that fact to my friends with C64s who "merely" had casette drivers and had to wait for hours to play a game. It wasn't until years later I learned that there was cassettes for Atari too.

 

I believe I have around 20 still boxed floppy games.

[Great Hierophant]

There is one huge problem with collecting disks and tapes, by now they are probably trashed. The magnetic surface on the disks and tapes will wear out in a decade, as opposed to a cartridge that can be played for decades. Big problems of cartridges is that there are not too many to collect for either the Atari 8-bits or Commodore 64. Also the genres are limited. Few RPGs, Text-based adventures, strategy games, or simulations, the historically dominant PC genres ever found their way to cartridges. Cassette tapes were not very big on the Atari 8-bits or North American Commodore 64 games, so they can get expensive to import.

[Trooper]

There is one huge problem with collecting disks and tapes, by now they are probably trashed. The magnetic surface on the disks and tapes will wear out in a decade, as opposed to a cartridge that can be played for decades.

 

That is of course very true! I have to say though that I have several hundred games on cassettes and/or disk and when I last tried them out about 6 months ago I didn't find a single cassette or disk that didn't work. They all work great.

 

This, of course, is depending a lot on how you store them (on top of a speaker would probably not be a great place ). But like you say, eventually they will all go down the drain and all there is to hope for is that they have all been archived and are readily available.

 

Cheers!

 

Troop

[jon-paul]

Q. Were disk drives and diskettes that expensive in Europe that the cassette format persisted for so long? In the states' date=' cassettes were common 1980-1982 but declined rapidly after that.[/quote']

 

I remember paying £130 for my 800XL around 1985/6 (dixons package with tape recorder), and a disk drive cost about the same again (plus drive to Orpington/sillica shop). total of 260£, or about 3 weeks take home for me at the time and i was a bit better paid than most school leavers. The drives for the Commodores as well remained as much or even more expensive as the parent machine, and again were difficult to source. The Spectrum never had a firm format. Floopy Drives for the BBC were cheeper, but the beeb cost a lot more initialy (still about £300 for the base machine).

 

Cassettes as a result stayed in circulation untill the end of the 8 bit era over here. A whole stream of budget labels like Mastertronic and Firebird also kept things going for the format (though i understsnd they did convert some games to disk to try and crack the US market, we never saw them here) . But the market for disks was there, and especialy tape to disk software.

 

The result is that Tapes and 8-bit machines are synominous over here.

 

Now, I prefer carts, but disks seem to have a wider selection of games. Cassettes seem the most common, but often the most unreliable as well

[Callipygous]

I bought my first disk drive, a 1050, for about $150 (1984?). After Tramiel took over, they sold the huge surplus of stock at deep discounts. This wasn't "cheap", probably $300 in today's money, but well worth the time savings over cassettes. My admiration goes to the Brits who have the patience to load those 48k cassettes that I see up for auction.

[deathtrappomegranate]

Heh!

 

It was a way of life (and still is, from time to time).

[Wrathchild]

I didn't get a 1050 until I was at college (around 1987/88 ) when I

persuaded a friend's brother to part with his for cash

Pity he didn't sell me the Alternate Reality he had at the time

 

The transformation of development via MAC/65 from cassette to

disk made me think "bugger" because the games market was

just about diminished then! A few years later I also had an ST

and was kindly given the MadMac cross-assembler which,

combined with a cable from the ST parallel to the 2 joystick port

as a way to get the resulting program from the ST to A8,

meant that development turnaround time was not too bad.

 

As for the long loading times, we had a 4ft pool table in the

room with the computer which mean't my friends and I had

alot of time to become enough of a hustler to shock a few

collegues in later life when you were down the pub with them

 

Best wishes,

Mark

[LYNXGUY]

Diskettes are ok too but I have to make copies of them just in case one of them gets damaged or stops working. That is the drawback to diskettes.

 

However if you keep them in a diskette box (preferably one with a dark cover to keep sunlight out), they could last for a long time. I have some diskettes that A2600 tested for me that are almost 20 years old yet they still can be read from

 

I agree 100% with the above quote