PACIFICANW on ebay-Dead A600 HD

[mechy]

Ok,i promised a update on the Dead A600 drive saga,here it is,i just recieved a reply from mike lafayette of PACIFICANW (his ebay id).

to reiterate.
i won the A600 on ebay here:

 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8703124238&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1

Ok,ya,the text written about it should of been a redlight,i know.but alas i won it.
i payed by money order quick(fast as mail got it there).
it took him 13 days to send me the machine
he gouged me for shipping($25),actual shipping was $11.39 which is printed on the USPS sticker + his $5 handling fee.
i get the A600 finally. i crank it up for about 1 hour playing with it,and the HD dies,just sits there knocking and wont spin up.
i emailed him and asked him if he would replace the the HD with a good used one or refund enough $$ so i could find one on ebay.he did mention charging me more shipping if he sent me another HD to replace the defective one it came with(ohhh k?).In any case i offered to send the bad HD back for proof,since this is way cheaper than sending the whole machine.
Then he replied that the 600 worked for 1 hour and he didnt think he had to do anything,then after that he decided he wouldn't do anything since i had posted here earlier,even tho i only stated the facts.
his reply was he didn't have any but he would send me one when 'he gets some in' uh huh.
here's where i went to the bathroom mirror to look for the word 'sucker' printed on my forhead.

anyway,he deems since it worked for 1 hour in my possession its a good working amiga as described,even tho it died shortly after.If plugging it in and turning it on was bad for it,i guess i'm guilty.i didn't realise it was for show only. hmm.

to top it all off,he says it can be hooked to tv's on the composite etc,well thats true,if i lived in europe,since most american tv's dont do PAL,and mine DONT.the 600 is a german PAL machine.i guess i should of asked.thats my fault.

to be fair,he is going to refund the shipping he gouged me for,but no hard drive,gee that does me alot of good.
the special packing tape and packing claimed in the auction description is not there,just regular packing tape,bubble wrap and crumpled paper packing,which is adequate.
I've managed to keep 100% positive feedback,with no negatives or even a neutral,i've dealt with alot of people over the years and always managed to work any problems out 100%,but this guy doesn't want to replace the hd,so i guess that may be the end of my long record of good feedback because i am sure i will get a retalitory negative feedback from him.

gee,maybe i'm just unreasonable.


Mike

[odin]

Then again small 2,5" HDs shouldn't be that hard to find nor expensive.

[spihunter]

I hate to say it but from what I've read about this guy, you came out pretty lucky.

I'm sorry you've had to deal with him  :pissed:

[TheMagicM]

Just take your A600HD and let it go.   2.5" hd's are cheap even on ebay.  Did he have to buy a box and packing material?  

[TjLaZer]

I also bought a A600HD from him and the drive was DOA.  I didn't care as the drive was too small anyway, 80MB, I installed a 1.2GB Toshiba drive and cannot be happier.  Don't even sweat it.  I have a few drives as spares, do you want to buy one for cheap?

[keropi]

I had a good laugh when I first read about his "special" shipping packaging...
how can you buy from someone so lame?

[mechy]

What can i say,i really wanted a A600,its the only of 13 amiga systems i was missing!  

Mike

[dnelsonfl]

@Mechy,

I'm sorry to hear about your Ebay experience. Looking at the seller's reputation, you fared okay. At least you might even be getting some money back. Chalk it up as a not-so-great Ebay experience and learn from it. I've had a number of those, too. Instead of worrying about negative retalitory feedback, just don't leave him any.

A sneaker way I saw described once was to figure out when your opportunity to leave feedback is to expire, and leave him negative feedback right before that time. That cuts down on the window he has to respond with a negative. It was called "feedback sniping" but I can't remember who originally mentioned this. I haven't done it myself, so I'm not sure if it's possible for just a rumor.

I'm not a firm believer in the feedback system anyway since I've seen it abused so much.

Good luck, and maybe some helpful folks here have suggestions on how to get your PAL A600 working in a NTSC world. I'm not too familiar with the 600.

-David

[glitch]

Hi,

    I've got lots of 2.5" HDs here - from tiny 20MB to 3GB which would all be suitable for the A600.  They range in price from $5 to $20.  If you are interested, send me a pmail.  Otherwise, enjoy your A600!

-G

[leirbag28]

@mechy

Dont sweat it as they say..........although I feel you were partly responsible for not asking the right questions.....but I feel this guy maybe intentionally didnt mention it was a PAL Amiga?

From now on its pretty easy to tell (Usually)  All NTSC Amigas except the A1200 have a FULL ENTER/RETURN key......so if it has a blank key to the left of it..its probably PAL or at least I would ask to make sure........the same goes with the CD32...the NTSC versions 90% of the time have a Painted Commodore logo.......versus the PAL one that has an Engraved Commodore logo........this isnt always the case, but ask! I think some people switched cases in my opinion if they are not as I mentioned or switched keyboards.

Anyway..here is How to get your A600 to work on NTSC TV's
Either get a Magnovox RGB monitor that was made for Amiga.or even a 1084s RGB monitor as they all support PAL but the Magnovox works 10 times better as it actually resizes the screen to show full PAL!  this is the same Model as that famous  UK PHILIPS  CMK112 or whatever its called...this is the USA version......Magnovox and PHILIPS are the same company.

Also..if you want to use a Large TV, get a Magnavox or Philips TV.......alot of them support PAL and resize the screen too!  I think PHILIPS remembered their Amiga Days and just kept this feature :-)

another way is to get a TV that has Vertical Height and Horizontal Manual controls in the back or front......then when you boot your Amiga and the screen is flipping, just adjust the Vertical Height......uh wait.....its Vertical something......not Vertical Height actually.  Forgot what its called (Vertical Adj.?). but im sure you know what Im talking about.

although in this case the image may be in Black and White.

[mechy]

lierbag28,
 
yes,it was my fault for not thinking to ask if it was pal.i also didn't think to ask if the 600 came with a power supply since it doesnt work too well without it either:)) ,and it didnt The reason i wanted the 600 to use it where ever i took it by hooking it to any tv,oh well...
I knew the 1084 could display pal,but i don't want to drag one with me everywhere
the whole point was the 600's nice portability,i could take it to my friends house and use his nice fast wireless cable connection(have a orinoco silver card).its definately pal and scrolls wildy on any tv i try it on,the sync rate if off enough that i dont think vertical hold adjustments would help(assuming u can find a tv with them these days).

He as offered me a 3.5" scsi hd as a offer of good faith to make up for the bad a600 hard drive,which i will take.This will make us close enough to even as far as i am concerned.

oh well live and learn

Mike

[keropi]

Guess what! I got an email from the PACIFICANW auction lamer:

From:   "Mike Lafayette"
To:   keropi_666(at)yahoo.com   
Subject:   Amiga 3000T auction (tape)   
Date:   Fri, 4 Nov 2005 01:23:19 -0800

Hey big mouth, did you even read the auction description?  The following is stated:
 
"Also, we do not use "shipping" tape, we use "storage" tape which is much stronger and sticks better"
 
There are two types of clear tape for packaging, shipping tape and storage tape.  The storage tape is a little wider and it has stronger glue which is not affected by temperature as much as the shipping tape is.  Do your homework before you start talking {bleep} about me.

I will not reply to his email, as he clearly watches the thread, so why not reply here???
Anyways I still think he is lame, and the description of his packaging methods are even lamer... all this to justify the overpriced s&h prices he asks... that's low... unless he uses a class-4 packager to make his professional packages...

[Jeff]

I would be interested to know if the individual that recently won the A3000T receives it functioning or not. It did look pretty stripped in the pictures.

[leirbag28]

@mechy

Not sure what a SCSi hard drive will do for your A600 as they wont work, unless you have a Squirrel interface?

And yes.believe me......PAL will work on American TVs if you can adjust the vertical flipping thing..but your right.....you wont find new TV's witht that.........you could get one of those Composite to VGA adaptors, which support PAL and turn it into VGA :-)  then u can go to anyones house who has a VGA monitor (Probably everyone)  and plug it in :-)

[spihunter]

@keropi,

Maybe he's using military grade tape :crazy:  :crazy: