Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Recommended Amiga Dealers => Topic started by: Fester on May 13, 2006, 03:18:23 AM
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Hi there,
I'd like to know if there are dealers and service shops for Amiga computers in Wisconsin or even in the south-western part of Chicago.
I may get help from a dealer located about 430 miles from my home but otherwise would like to know if there's anything closer. I live in Wisconsin.
I have a half-built towerized 1200. Need help in finishing it up...
Thanks,
Fester
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I think theirs a deal in mpls. mn, they were on the links for amiga.org last year
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Hi Fester,
I live near Eau Claire Wis. Good to see another somewhat local person here. Raymond Commodore Amiga is the shop in Minneapolis, MN. Unfortunately I dont think he will be much help for what your doing with the A1200 tower. I was in his shop a few months ago and the place is a disaster. He had Amiga and old commodore 8-bit parts stacked on top of eachother in every corner of the store along with machines that were half ripped apart. I saw lots of broken A500s, C64s, and A2000s. Didn't see a single high-end component, A1200, A4000, or even an A3000. He doesn't return email, and his web site hasn't been updated for years.
Honestly, I'm not sure if I would trust any shops in the United States for new, high end components. The shops in Europe seem to be much more professional, keep their sites updated, and actually have inventory. My guess is that its pretty hard to make a living selling Amiga items here in the states. The people running shops here are doing it on the side. (now I hope some US shop comes behind me and post that I'm wrong)
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I myself live in milwaukee and have been looking for years. No dice. I'm not even sure if the local amiga users group still meets.
btw...did you have that address (email..web) to the place in mlps?
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I live in California and gave up looking for a local repair facility. I mailed my A4000 MOB to Amiga Center France. Jean Jacque did a wonderful job in restoring it to like new condition. Replaced faulty capaciters, put a coin style rechargable battery in, fixed the par: port and failing audio too. Great job and reasonable prices. The shipping is a tad long and expensive but, it's ultimately worth it!!
You can find the website at:
http://www.amigacenter.com
Bob
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Yep, here is the web address.
www.visi.com/~raycomp/
Email: raycomp@visi.com
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Olecranon wrote:
I live near Eau Claire Wis. Good to see another somewhat local person here. Raymond Commodore Amiga is the shop in Minneapolis, MN.
Hi there,
I will most likely visit Raymond Computer on Monday. It's the closest I've found and Ray responded to my emails in record-fast time.
By the way, I'm not the only Amiga enthusiast in my Wisconsin small town. To my great surprise, there's a developer here in Edgerton WI. Visit BITbyBIT Software Group, http://bitbybitsoftwaregroup.com/index.php. That's phenomenal as we're a sneaze-and-miss-it size town! I would ask him to help with building my amiga but he is extremely busy with his Amiga software business. I wouldn't want to take up his time for my issues.
Thanks for all who responded with ideas. I would not hesitate to send my Amiga to France if I had to. I'm already natively fluent in French. By the way, I'd be more than willing to do translation work for Amiga software documentation...
"Festeurrrr"
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Good luck in Minnesota!
Just completed putting my A4000 back together after a couple of months of repair work. First the motherboard needed refurbishment, and then the CPU card blew. Two trips to France (cause I didn't send the CPU the first time) but it's now it's like new! Certainly better than the day I received it from EBay. For about $400 (ebay fees and refurb costs) I have an excellent A4000!!
BTW, Jean Jacque at Amiga Center France can handle the transaction in English. I never had any problems understanding our emails.
Bob
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beller wrote:
Good luck in Minnesota!
Just completed putting my A4000 back together after a couple of months of repair work. [...] Two trips to France [...]
Hi Bob,
If I'm right, you're writing from California? Wow, I guess my 430 miles for Amiga repair is pale in comparison to your trips to France. Looks like you are a real dedicated Amiga fan.
Last time I was in Paris, I lost my wife in the train. She jumped on one while I was reading directions on a wall. We finally found ourselves at our rendez-vous site eight hours or so later...
Fester
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You misunderstood my "trips" didn't involve me, except to the Post Office. It was all handled via international mail!! Much cheaper...
Bob
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beller wrote:
You misunderstood my "trips" didn't involve me, except to the Post Office. It was all handled via international mail!! Much cheaper...
Bob
Ha! Ok,
I just thought you were just the most enthusiastic Amiga user in the world.
International mail makes more sense...
Fester
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I will most likely visit Raymond Computer on Monday. It's the closest I've found and Ray responded to my emails in record-fast time.
Good luck with that Fester. You'll have to post your "experience".
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You should take some pictures of the "store" and post them here I would love to see some of the inventory and see how he has it set up. It sounds like a desaster. :-o
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Olecranon wrote:
Good luck with that Fester. You'll have to post your "experience".
I just visited Ray's computer. Ray is very nice. Had a long chat about this and that. It's true, there's a lot of inventory in his shop. Never saw so many Amiga parts in all my life.
It was quite a drive. That's ok, I don't get out much. I live between Madison, WI and Chicago, IL. Left at 9 AM and got there around 2 PM. Coming back was a bit longer since it's full-fledged road repair season on I-94.
Fester
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tonyvdb wrote:
You should take some pictures of the "store" and post them here I would love to see some of the inventory and see how he has it set up.
Ray probably reads posts here. He might want to share photos. I saw a nice case (top part) from an A2000. This gives me an idea to build a mini-itx pc using a left-over Amiga 2000 case. I could probably fit at least two epia boards in there with an a-b switch. This would make for an interesting machine...
Fester
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beller wrote:
BTW, Jean Jacque at Amiga Center France can handle the transaction in English. I never had any problems understanding our emails.
Bob
Well, he can repair most things, but unfortunately his English isn't as good as it could be. I have had two packages down there with hardware for repair, but both times some of the hardware came back semi working :-(
I have to send back the latest hardware I got from him, and this time I shouldn't have to pay any additional costs according to the emails between the two of us, but I'm afraid this is something that will get "lost" in translation.
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Olecranon wrote:
I will most likely visit Raymond Computer on Monday. It's the closest I've found and Ray responded to my emails in record-fast time.
Good luck with that Fester. You'll have to post your "experience".
Hi there,
My experience so far is that Ray has not returned my correspondence since early summer. I'd like to get my Amiga 1200 and parts back.
Fester
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I remember Ray from back when he was in a different shop about 1.5 - 2 miles from where he is now.
His shop has always been loaded with alot of stuff, I remember back when he was at his other shop he had 2 sons (I think) working with him and his dad was in the shop too.
He and his boys were always working on Amigas and C64's soldering stuff in the front behind the counter. Ray also had a BBS running for quite some time which I visited from time to time.
Just last year my dad and I packed up dad's Aerostar extended van with back seats removed, we piled from the floor to the ceiling Commodore and Amiga stuff and brought it to Ray to sell dad got 300.00 for the whole load.
There were about 3 C64's in boxes and a couple without, 2 vic-20's out of boxes, 1 C128-D out of box, a few dataset tape drives, several 1541's and 1571's, 3 amiga 500's one with external hardrive that plugged into the side port, 2 amiga 2000's in boxes, 1 amiga 2500 out of box with 2620 and microway flicker fixer, Buddah IDE, external floppy drives 1010, couple of different Bridgeboards 1-386 1-486 Goldengate, 1 ICD 68000 adspeed accel, 1 1084S mon., 2 1902 monitors, boxes and boxes of compute magazines, run, ahoy, and others, loads of 64 and amiga software.
We managed to keep a 2000 I bought about 8 years ago which was brand new in the original box (for 128.00). We added to it a microway flicker fixer, 68040 blizzard board, Catweasel with Buddah, HD floppy drive, 1084S, and some misc. disks for the Amiga.
We just recently purchased 3 4000T's from AVS which used to be an Amiga dealer in MN. Barry has pretty much gone to PC based support and has very little Amiga stuff left, He does have as of about 2 mos. ago 1 A4000D and A1200, he has a handful of Toaster boards and a few other misc. things. The 4000T's we bought worked but needed some TLC mine has a CSMKIII 060 in it (the other 2 are stock). We didn't get any software with the systems or manuals (hence my post for a copy of a 4000T manual) anyhow I am rambling so I better stop for now.
IN closing Ray has been around for a while in generally the same area, I have not had anything serviced by him so can't say how his service is. I do know that the items he does have he gets a fair price for (not that they aren't woth it) just like people on Ebay usually get decent prices.
Anyhow goodluck on your repairs!!!
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amesie2 wrote:
Anyhow goodluck on your repairs!!!
Unfortunately,
I am very sorry to say that I am unable to reach Ray. I tried several times through email. I called him 3 times with no call back.
He has all my 1200 equipment. I brought this to Ray in the hopes that he could finish towerizing it. I had run into difficulties installing Mediator and was looking for someone with more experience. Ray was the perfect choice it seemed.
It looks like I may have to kiss this hardward goodbye, unless Ray would communicate with me. I haven't heard from him since early summer.
I have no idea why. Perhaps he ran into snags, or broke it by accident or perhaps the equipment was stolen from him? Did I say something wrong? No. I have no idea why he's not responding.
At this point, I'd like to pay him for his work and get my stuff back.
Fester
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Fester,
Ray has some strange hours as I remember.
Mon. Closed
Tues. thru Fri. is 12:00 to 5:00
Sat. I think he is also 12:00 to 5:00 but not always
Sun. Closed
Not sure if this helps or not, you should be able to get hold of him by phone.
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amesie2 wrote:
Fester,
Ray has some strange hours as I remember.
Mon. Closed
Tues. thru Fri. is 12:00 to 5:00
Sat. I think he is also 12:00 to 5:00 but not always
Sun. Closed
Not sure if this helps or not, you should be able to get hold of him by phone.
That's true, but I did speak to his business partner on two of those phone calls and left a clear message on a third call. He received many emails as well. He was replying to my emails at first. I will call one last time and send him a registered letter. I don't know what else I can do.
Fester