Amiga.org

Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: blanning on April 06, 2009, 12:01:47 AM

Title: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: blanning on April 06, 2009, 12:01:47 AM
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lot-of-Commodore-128-64-Peripherals-Museum-Surplus_W0QQitemZ260387994927QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item260387994927&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2|65%3A10|39%3A1|240%3A1318


Looks like a 1000 on top, upside-down and backwards.  If only I were driving distance from there.

They did apple 2es and 2gss not too long ago.  They also have a mac+ and se auction running now.

brian
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: save2600 on April 06, 2009, 12:07:45 AM
"These are not striped!"   LOL!

These kinds of photographs, ePay ads and sellers really piss me off. What a horseshit way to advertise, try to sell and photograph. Hardly any info at all ('cept you know how badly yellowed the A1k sitting upside down is). Just some lazy {bleep}s who don't care about much of anything "bundling" all this stuff up together. ARRGGGHHH!

Who are they expecting to sell this stuff to? Looks like they want it to be a terminal to terminal kind of deal and are probably thinking they're sitting on a gold mine of sorts. If there's no real local interest, good luck getting anyone in America to pay $350-$600 to have that shipped via NAVL or Forward Air! Course, there's still some Florida folks that don't mind driving out in anticipation of finding a diamond in the rough  ;-)  

Hmmm... there *might* just be a Phoenix board inside that A1000... LOL!
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: tone007 on April 06, 2009, 12:19:14 AM
This kind of deal is for the serious only.  

I picked up more crap than that last week.  Quick U-Haul rental and drop it off in the garage.

Shame it's on the wrong side of the country.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: Matt_H on April 06, 2009, 03:45:53 AM
Must not be a very good museum if that's how they're packaging up their preserved stuff :-)

Hopefully someone gives these a good home.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: aperez on April 06, 2009, 05:41:50 AM
Blanning,

I've done business with computercorps recently, in fact last weekend I drove to Carson City from the San Francisco bay area to pick up forty Macintosh LC II and IIIs, which I'm reselling. Computercorps is a non profit organization who mostly sells hardware in order to bankroll their true purpose, which is to provide computers to underprivileged families in the Lake Tahoe/Carson City/Nevada Desert areas.

They're good folks and they don't really know what they've got if it's not fairly commodity PC hardware. I doubt anyone there knows much about how to test some of this older hardware. To some of the other posters, there's no need to be hostile.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: InTheSand on April 06, 2009, 07:10:23 AM
You Americans get all the best deals with job lots of old CBM stuff!

Not a hope of ever finding anything like that here - would have all been imported and sold.

 - Ali
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: blanning on April 06, 2009, 11:50:22 AM
Quote

InTheSand wrote:
You Americans get all the best deals with job lots of old CBM stuff!


It only looks close compared to the pacific ocean.  It's still about 2000 miles away from here.  I've never seen a deal like this around here and don't expect to.  :-(

brian
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: Ilwrath on April 06, 2009, 01:17:36 PM
I expect there's deals like that down the eastern half of the country, too.  I imagine a lot of times these electronics donation centers simply dispose of or refuse to accept Commodore equipment because they don't know what to do with it.

Anyhow, why the hostility toward the sellers?  Don't people here WANT cheap hardware?   :roll:  
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: Darrin on April 06, 2009, 02:36:22 PM
Quote

aperez wrote:
Blanning,

I've done business with computercorps recently, in fact last weekend I drove to Carson City from the San Francisco bay area to pick up forty Macintosh LC II and IIIs, which I'm reselling. Computercorps is a non profit organization who mostly sells hardware in order to bankroll their true purpose, which is to provide computers to underprivileged families in the Lake Tahoe/Carson City/Nevada Desert areas.

They're good folks and they don't really know what they've got if it's not fairly commodity PC hardware. I doubt anyone there knows much about how to test some of this older hardware. To some of the other posters, there's no need to be hostile.


As they're doing it to fund a good cause then it's a shame that they don't realise that they could probably make more from it by breaking it up into individual lots.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: dougal on April 06, 2009, 02:42:11 PM
I agree ...

It gives them a better chance of selling them .
They can prob make more money out of it .
It gives people a chance to know what they are buying.
You only buy what u want , not what you don't .

Quote

Darrin wrote:

As they're doing it to fund a good cause then it's a shame that they don't realise that they could probably make more from it by breaking it up into individual lots.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: jorkany on April 06, 2009, 02:47:14 PM
Quote
These kinds of photographs, ePay ads and sellers really piss me off. What a horseshit way to advertise, try to sell and photograph.

So what should they do, open up the bundle and get somebody who knows something about antique computers to review each and every component?

Seriously, some of you people live in some kind of fantasy land. To these people it's probably just a bunch of old junk and they need to get it out of their warehouse. You don't want it, don't buy it. Maybe they just don't have the time to go through individual item they're selling and have 100 little sales, some of which might not sell, on Ebay. This way all it takes is one buyer and the whole problem is solved.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: recidivist on April 06, 2009, 02:52:23 PM
 The hostility is because these bulk auctions  requiring committing  lots of money and time,truck pickup effectively shut out  99.99% of prospective buyers!

 Just like the Cincinnati  Public Schools computer auction of some years ago where  the Commodore and Apple systems were  sold only as  huge lots of "keyboards"(really the cpus, disk drives, and monitors SEPERATELY.
 The only people that wanted OR knew what the items were  had neither the money or storage to buy  three seperate job lots of say a 100 pieces each in order to put together systems.Oh yes, the various cables were tossed in yet another "lot".

 So the school system ended up PAYING for dumpsters and labor to throw away those C64s and Apples,

 MANY  students,parents,or members of the public would have bought  a complete set or two .

 Such bulk auctions are a way for administrators to claim they are recovering value from ex-School(government)(institutional) assests when they simply want it gone and consider the items worthless trash.Similar auctions dispose of many other items from cars to fence posts and most is sold for a fraction of true value to scrap dealers.I know of an old radio engineer's estate that was mis-handled  the same way ,and tens of thousands of  dollars in test equipment sold as a truckload lot for scrap metal!!!
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: blanning on April 06, 2009, 05:20:13 PM
One man's treasure is another man's trash. :roll:

My local goodwill won't take computers anymore.  I wonder if I could talk them into calling me instead.  Or at least telling those who call to call me.

brian
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: T3000 on April 10, 2009, 08:09:31 PM
Hey! That Computer Corps is about 40 minutes from where I live.
Hmmm... (ponder, ponder...) nope, don't need it. Already have a small pallet of C=64 stuff as it is that I need to sort and unload...
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: Fester on April 10, 2009, 09:23:35 PM
I was browsing through the seller's other items. They have a Nicolet 445 for less than $50.

Linkedy-link (http://cgi.ebay.com/Nicolet-444A-FFT-Computing-Spectrum-Analyzer_W0QQitemZ250079501854QQihZ015QQcategoryZ97202QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262)

The same model appears here (http://www.testequipmentconnection.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3657) for almost $6000.00

Curiously enough, it seems to be the same picture...
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: save2600 on April 10, 2009, 09:51:30 PM
The last oscilloscope I bought off ePay was a pile of "untested" junk (understandably gambled, but...). Let me translate un-tested... "we're fairly certain it's broken and do not know how to fix it. In fact, we wouldn't know how to test it even if it did work, but we really know nothing about anything we sell and happenstancedly come across, therefore: no guaranties expressed, written or implied".  lol
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: save2600 on April 15, 2009, 09:30:28 PM
$177 for a pallet of cool computing gear. Yep. These guys are masters of 'not for profit' alright  ;-)  
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: redrumloa on April 15, 2009, 10:44:51 PM
Quote

save2600 wrote:
$177 for a pallet of cool computing gear. Yep. These guys are masters of 'not for profit' alright  ;-)  


Must have been someone local who won the auction. I think there was only 2 bidders, with me being the first bidder and the loser. I got a freight quote of just over $1,000, that plus auction price I probably would have lost money on the deal.

Shame, I hope whoever won will break it up properly. Keeping what they want and selling the rest. Hopefully they won't cherry pick a few items and send the rest to a landfill :-/
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: mdivancic on April 15, 2009, 11:07:00 PM
Quote

redrumloa wrote:
Must have been someone local who won the auction. I think there was only 2 bidders, with me being the first bidder and the loser. I got a freight quote of just over $1,000, that plus auction price I probably would have lost money on the deal.


Holly crap Red, who you using for freight. We use UPS Freight and I could have had that shipped anywhere in the US for less than $400. Let me know if you want the link.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: redrumloa on April 16, 2009, 02:48:27 AM
Quote

mdivancic wrote:

Holly crap Red, who you using for freight. We use UPS Freight and I could have had that shipped anywhere in the US for less than $400. Let me know if you want the link.


I rarely use my UPS account, so I don't get any real discounts. UPS freight is quoting about $1,000, with me guessing class.

-----
Less Than-Truckload Freight Results

Results
LTL Freight Service    Total    Days in Transit    
UPS Freight LTL
Non-Guaranteed    1049.88 USD*
Non-Contract
Show Details    5

-----

Keep in mind, the freight would have to travel over 3,000 miles to get here.

http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&lat=33.951045&lon=-99.976945&zoom=6&q1=89703&q2=33324
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: save2600 on April 16, 2009, 03:57:51 PM
Moving arcade machines to and fro the country, I use NAVL (North American Van Lines) and I'd say on average, a 400 pound machine costs about $350-$400 to ship. After you send one machine, they typically will do a half price deal on the second. And we're talking about them handling this antique/collectible stuff with kid gloves! Blankets, shrinkwrap, etc. Never, ever had a complaint from them. They would LOVE to move something already bundled up on a pallet I bet. Be a lot easier on their end anyway. Just remind them to bring a pallet jack!

In the future, I'd recommend looking into NAVL (Michelle Bianchi) to be precise, if you're getting $1k quotes from UPS Freight. She's the lady you'd want to get ahold of for this kind of move and a sweetheart that doesn't "overcharge".

Terminal to Terminal via Forward Air (the drop off and you pick up at the airport) would have been even cheaper. $250-$300 average if it's already on a pallet...
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: WOWZER on April 16, 2009, 10:09:36 PM
Looks like I am the lucky winner of this auction.
To be honest I was mostly interested in acquiring a working vic-20, c64 and a 128. And hopefully a couple of working monitors. If I'm lucky enough to find a working A1200 tucked in the middle, that would be a bonus.
It is way more stuff than I wanted or need, and I did not want the majority of it going to a landfill, so I partnered up with another amiga.org member and we are going to split it up equally.
We will let you know of any hidden treasures in there, if any.
If there is anything left that neither of us wants and is of any interest to anyone else on here, I'm sure we can work something out.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: Damion on April 17, 2009, 06:18:32 PM
WOWZER and I are going to head out to Carson this weekend and check it out. Looks like the majority is 8-bit stuff. There "might" be an A2K in the pile, which is really my main interest, along with the fun of just checking out what's there. I like the 8-bit computers, but sadly I already have a bunch that I don't have time to use. My girlfriend and I just got a new puppy (a cute little Papillon), and even my Amiga time is cut down to maybe a few hours a week, if I'm lucky. That, along with the fact that I'm running out of room for old computers, means I personally won't be hanging on to much of it.

Anyway, should be interesting. It's quite possibly just a pile of junk, but you never know... maybe there's a stack of NOS A2K's and C128's hiding in there. ;-)

Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: beller on April 17, 2009, 06:46:18 PM
Congrats on winning guys!  I looked at it and was tempted to bid but the wife did NOT want another pile in the garage.

Only a couple of hours and a nice drive to Carson City from my house in Elk Grove (Sacramento).

I'd be interested in seeing a full inventory once you get a chance to unbundle the equipment....

Bob
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: save2600 on April 17, 2009, 06:54:25 PM
That's so cool you guys went in on the package deal like that. Very neat that the community gets a chance to see what that was all about. Kudos and good luck! I've already PM'd Wowzer about any A1000 peripherals in hiding. And good luck -D- on your A2000 and whatever goodies you might find in one of those babies!
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: joetee on May 02, 2009, 04:53:03 PM
Fester alerted:
> I was browsing through the seller's other items. They
> have a Nicolet 445 for less than $50.
> The same model appears here for almost $6000.00

THANK YOU for the alert Fester - I went there and "bought it now" within the hour! Truly thanks, and thanks again uncle!
Though shipping that monster costed more than the item did, it was worth it.  It was DOA as the item description said...

I disassembled it and reseated every card - still dead.
I tested all the power supply voltages - all ok - still dead.
Then I noticed an internal hand (not tweaker) adjustable control for intensity and moved it clockwise = INSTANT DISPLAY: seems that it was semi-working all along!
I re-focused it, but there was still something wrong with fow the characters&fonts displayed.
While troubleshooting that a day or two later I somehow actualy broke it - no display. :.(
...found a mini 5A fuse on one of the wire wrapped boards that I had blown because I'd had it all un-folded to troubleshoot with the power on: Bravo to the designers to even have sub-level PCB fuses!
Replaced the fuse and reseated litarally all the hundreds of TTL chips on all the PCBs - Now the fonts are all scribed perfectly on the CRT = a clear case of "Socket-itus".

Now it seems to be 95% functional with some of the front panel switchs being intermittent. Its good that they are easily replaced since they are REAL 1970's flip-switches and not flat plastic membrain crapola.  
> Curiously enough, it seems to be the same picture...
Heh: I will post some new pictures of it here later, proving that I snagged it and it really does work!

Perhaps I should re-list it on eBay for 6000?
Nah, I'll just add it to the collection...

Peace,
JoeT

Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: Fester on May 02, 2009, 10:39:43 PM
Wow! Looks like you had a whole lot of fun with that! Good to hear. I thought perhaps there was something fishy with either the auction or the other website since they were both using the same image.

Good for you!

I haven't been playing with electronics lately. I have spring in mind: Planted 8 cedars and made a garden box today. Glad to be outside while it's not snowing or 110F.



Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: WOWZER on May 02, 2009, 11:28:47 PM
Well to be honest, the lot was a little disappointing.
Other than the one A1000 that was visible in the picture, it consisted of mainly 8 bit machines. No other Amigas.
The A1000 was in extremely bad condition and -D- took that as he didnt have one and wanted to see if he could bring it back to life.
The rest of the stuff was....

C128 x 6
Vic20 x 3
C64 x 8
1571 x 10
1701 x 4
1084 x 2
1902 x 1
And about 13 various printers that were completely worthless.

Out of all of that there were maybe 2 of each of the 128's and 64's that were in good condidtion. The rest were all missing keys and pretty beat up. And one VIC20 that was in excellent condition.
There was also one other computer in there that stood out.
That was a B128-80 in prestine condition surprisingly.
Although I would have to say I am happy to have gotten some good working 8 bit stuff, I was hoping for some hidden Amigas in there.
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: recidivist on May 03, 2009, 06:00:42 AM
Some people pay very well for  the B series!(Not very useful,but rare I suppose.)
Title: Re: Museum dumping commodore machines
Post by: Damion on May 06, 2009, 12:53:59 AM
Yeah, nothing too exciting, but a few nice computers anyway. After sorting through some of it over the weekend, I ended up with a nearly mint US 64C, and a clean (Japanese made) '71. There's also a decent condition 128, then some rough '71's, and other 8-bit stuff... which I'll probably scavenge a few SIDs from. Sadly, the A1000 was trashed, though TBH I probably have enough Amiga gear to keep me occupied for the foreseeable future. :-)