Re: Atari Power supplies

Josh McCormick wrote:

> You make me feel like an Ugly American! :)

:) You are... In terms of easy-to-get-this-wonderfull-vector-game! :)
 
> In a place like Holland, you've got to have old buildings, old tools, old
> artifacts all over the place. And I'm guessing that people are very quick
> to attach value to them and to recognize their place in history.

Where the hell did you get that image from holland? hahaha... You probably think
we're all in wooden shoes watering the tulips... :)
No really, I've never seen these myselves!
 
> The United States, however, is such a "new" country that a since of value
> in history just isn't there. A vendor isn't thinking about locking his
> arcade games up for 50+ years because they're historically valuable. He's
> thinking that this game isn't earning money any more and is only worth the
> parts. Or maybe he gets into a habit of just warehousing the stuff he's
> not circulating.

The same way overhere. Problem is however, operators trash a game after 1 or 2
years of use. Games like Tempest were thrown away back in 86, or even before.The
only things you see are the newest of the newest since everybody's got their
PSX...

> So my theory is that the European vendor is happy to just hold onto his
> vintage games. Sometimes they'll sell, but they'll keep in mind that it'll
> be worth a lot more one day, and prices it accordingly. The American
> vendor might be thinking that maybe this guy knows something I don't, but
> this is really just junk to me, and I'm thrilled that someone would PAY ME
> to haul it off.
>
> What do you think?

I think that you think we in Europe care more about old thing than Americans,
just because our history goes back much longer (opposed to the 500 years of the
modern US). I think that is not true. I consider the Dutch as on of the most
technically engaged people in Europe. For example, in Holland we have the most
computers per resident, of Europe!

I was once in the city of New York, and I really believe your culture is much
more like ours (the Dutch) than, for example, the French or English. For
example, all the US movies, sitcoms or other TV shows are spoken English,like
they should, in stead of dubbed as in the rest of Europe.
That's because almost everybody speaks English quite well. Sometimes I think we
try very hard to be part of America :) (But we can go in a cafe and buy alcohol
without ID or being 21! :P )

> > So if anyone knows where to find an empty cabinet here in Europe, let me know!
>
> I'm sure you've looked into shipping charges. How much does it cost to
> ship a cabinet from the state to Holland? From England to Holland?

It would cost about $300 to get it in Holland, and maybe 100 UKP from England.
Way too much for a game the same cost!

> Hmmmmm... I wonder how much of your point of view is shaped by the fact
> that the games are very hard to get ahold of. Your "reward" is in the
> effort of putting together a complete game. Here in the US, because arcade
> games are more common, I think the reward is in finding the best price (in
> complete games, or in parts). I know that if I didn't have as much easy
> access to arcade games, I'd be more willing to adapt some of the PCBs in
> my closet to JAMMA.

You are peobably right about this. Here, the issue is not 'FIND ONE AS CHEAP AS
POSSIBLE', but 'simple 'FIND ONE!' :) The price is not an issue (WHEN you find
something, the price is quit right), since the higest price is still cheaper
than buying one from the US + shipping.
Ofcourse I'm talking Vector here, raster games are quite easy to come across.

> No, but I was a webmaster from 1995-1997 for an ISP. It helps to see all
> the bad things our customers created.

That sure helps!
I did some web designing for my company also, you can see it at
www.matranortel.nl. It is not my job, however.

> The discussion area is going to have to wait, unfortunately. The feature
> that I thought would be the most valuable (and will have to wait as well)
> is the "scoring". That is, someone submits a link, and the users can
> promote it up to a high score (and more prominence) or demote it into the
> trashcan. The "mass moderation" concept not only floats the cream to the
> surface, but it also increases the scalability of the site by reducing the
> time it takes in administrative overhead.
>
> The concept is geared more toward it being a groupware application rather
> than a website. In this sort of groupware application, the users of the
> system are also the contributors and editors.

Well, I'll be very curious to see the final result!

> Other than giving the timeframe "soon", I'm not going to commit to a time.
> I will say that the first version that goes online is going to be much
> less complex than the final design I showed you. (No user logins, no mass
> moderation, no messages, no voting or scoring. Mainly the hierarchy thing
> with various boxes under each category ("fact sheet", documents, links,
> for sale, persistent sales). That, and cross-referencing to other
> categories (pokey chip, Atari button with LED, etc).

Hmmm... I liked the looks as you send pretty much, but we'll see!

> > C'mon... This is about a vector related site after all.. :) Now tell me, WHAT
> > has the electrical storage capability of a 19VLUP22 to do with Vectors... :)
>
> DOH!

What? :) Got shocked?
I think we are really off-topic now, maybe it is better to send repies only to
our own address.

Cya !
Received on Sun Dec 26 17:14:30 1999