Commodore: Goodwill Online Stores

I'd love to have the PET, just for a museum piece, I'd never use it, but I love the retro styling, especially the monitor. Old TRS-80's are also retro-cool, they used them a lot in Star Wars scenes, disguised in big consoles, etc. of course.

But the price is way to steep for me now, especially when it would keep me from more Atari, Commodore and other stuff and systems. I could get probably all I want for close to that current bidding price!

 

I found out that these Bally Arcades and Astrocade's seem to be selling around the $300 mark, so maybe I can sell it when I'm done and buy a PET. Not really though, as I said, I'd use the money to buy a few other micros like a C64 and others, or upgrades for my Atari like Rapidus and VBXE. Until I have all the goodies I want for my Atari stuff, the rest comes second.

 

I was able to dabble with the VIC-20, even before I got my Timex/Sinclair 1000, my freshman year of high school because my church youth group leader had one and often had dinner and movie nights at his house. He had it sitting on the carpet in front of his 25" wood grain console TV (it was actual wood, actually). I tried typing in some of the BASIC I'd learned in Junior High on Bell & Howell branded, black Apple II+'s. Because of the different BASIC's, it worked, sort of, but I didn't get the exact screen display I was expecting like the Apple II, and the scrolling was worse, not to mention the lower resolution graphics. But I had fun with it. I remember playing some Defender/Stargate clone on it.

I owned one briefly 15-20 years ago, when my winters were spent buying old gear for dirt cheap, restoring it and selling it for a fair price on ebay. I was averaging over $500 month in profits.That ended once thrift shops and flea market vendors caught on how much more they could get, even for their broken, dirty crap, on eBay, even if they still sell at the market, they want eBay prices!

I'm not sure why I didn't get a VIC instead of a ZX81. I think at the time, the VIC-20's were still a bit more than my parent's birthday budget for me could afford, and I was lucky to get the Timex/Sinclair and extras at bargain bin prices.I would have continued with the Z80 and Sinclair's Spectrum, if either Timex or Sinclair still sold them in the states, that's when I chose Atari because I couldn't afford my first choice at that point; an Apple IIc.

I think the VIC-20's came down in price too, soon after that, for the same reason: Discontinuation. A little sooner and I probably would have been a Commodore guy, and eventually move up to the C64, and be able to use my VIC disk drive and recorder, etc. with it.

But knowing what I know now, I'd still have chosen Atari over the Apple, regardless of price. It just would have been an 800 or 1200XL, or even 800XL instead of a 130XE. I always felt I dodged a bullet in NOT saving up for an Apple IIc, as either Commodore or Atari had far superior 6502 based hardware built in, and could get more of it for the much reduced costs. All you have to do is look back on all the graphically and audio based software of the Apple II's compared to Commodore and Atari's to see the proof.

Even if the Apple was made to be more up-gradable, with it's open architecture, how much software truly made use of the upgrades and didn't just go for the lowest common denominator compatibility, Just like Atari's software, in the U.S., was always stock 800 oriented with 48K limit. 64K ports were reduced to 48K. Though I'm not into Apple and could be wrong, I haven't seen anything in it's software collection (from screen shots and video I've seen) that looks better than C64 or Atari. Nobody looks to Apple for a great arcade shooter with explosive sound effects.

Yep, old geezer Baker here, just rambling on about the good 'ol days and thoughts just meandering along the currents of my brain, me babbling on enough to put you all to sleep. Sorry. If you didn't read all the way down here, good for you! (even though only the boring 'ol coots who did read all the way down here will know) You don't know how much proof-reading and editing and cut and pasting I had to do just to make these random babbling seem sane! If you think this is all over the place, you are lucky I chose to proof read and edit! At least my mind is still lucid enough to know that most of what I've said here, you guys have all probably heard before in other threads somewhere, out there...from me.

 

Matt, you sound more and more and more like my all-American comedy hero Rich Hall, the more I progress towards the bottom of your marvellous micro retro rambles, fella, so please, do, ramble and babble on!

Rich rambles too:



One of these days, Rich Hall will explain what the hell a computer retronaut and man-cave dweller is and what are the mysterious methods maintained in being a member of the Atari Owner micro board...

You heard it here first (and note how you NEVER see Matt Baker and Rich Hall in the same room/post together etc. It's uncanny...!)

 

Is this goodwill site still going, I can't connect to it at all?

 

Thanks for trying Tim, same thing.....Tried differing browsers including Tor and no joy...

 

Nope, Sorry Tim, nothing, like the site does not exist..

Gateway timeout sorry its not allowing contact..

It sounds like a thrift style merchant which may tie it from selling abroad

 

I suppose that its classed as charity for the US market only so to stop the hassle of people trying to order from outside they just block it. I suspect if you used a VPN and bypassed the protection that it would not allow outside USA shipping.

Oh, magic voice, I had one of those as well as the FM Sound expander with the little plastic keyboard that fitted over the breadbin one...I use the emulated one in WinVice these days..

I'd like to get a real one but cash is soooo tight, may even have to sell some Atari gear..

 

The site doesn't show for me either. Strange behaviour though, just returning 404 errors instead of a clearer "Sorry this site is only aimed to US buyers/visitors." Great pictures, good stuff.

 

I have a Talladega racing tape just like that one, for my Atari. I bought it and Cosmi's Forbidden Forest at the same time, in late '85 early '86 before I acquired my first 1050 for my 130XE. Only the tape ripped and is ruined. But I've been saving the cassette shell to eventually make a new recording of the game and replace the tape inside the shell. It is one of the few survivors from both the 'Great Software Loss of '96' and one of just a couple after the more recent 'Great Texas Storage Theft.'

My Talladega tape has been broken since the late 80's and I've been carrying it back and forth across the country ever since...did I mention that my tape is an Atari/C64 "flippy" cassette from Cosmi? I bet the tape in that picture is too. But, mainly I've never bothered because I have an .xex version on disk and the game just isn't very good.

 

This resonates with me as I'm of the same frame of mind, I look at some huge collections with awe but in the end I just think, "how much of that would I play" and the answer is shockingly small. I simply collect what I'll play these days, sure if I had the money it might be different but I'm ok with the way it is.