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My precious....
Aug. 15th, 2011 07:58 pmI do not normally pimp my eBay auctions, but this has been especially difficult to let go: my collection of 8-bit Atari hardware, software and manuals, the computing stuff I've had for the longest time.
I bought the Atari 800 while I was at university. It used to make the owners of BBC Bs turn green, never mind ZX Spectrum owners (I had one of those too, and eventually they sent one that worked!), because its hardware was years ahead of its time*.
The disk drive came from the Reading branch of Laskys - they did assorted computing stuff as well as other electrical goods. It cost £199.99 and I paid for it via credit card. A few days later, I got a letter saying that after I'd bought it, they'd been robbed and the credit card slip, necessary for them to get the money, was amongst the stolen items. Would I mind coming in and paying again...? I am slightly ashamed to say that I didn't, but went 'That's what your insurance is for'. Actually, it might have been £299.99 - a substantial chunk of that term's budget, anyway.
Anyway, if you any of you buy it, I'd love to be able to come round and stroke it all. My precious...
* You can see the results in several films of the time, typically set a decade or so into the future. A few years after the Atari 800 was launched, the designers went off with some money from Atari, designed an updated version of the specialist chips, handed the money back to Atari and went off to sell them to Commodore: the result was the Amiga.
I bought the Atari 800 while I was at university. It used to make the owners of BBC Bs turn green, never mind ZX Spectrum owners (I had one of those too, and eventually they sent one that worked!), because its hardware was years ahead of its time*.
The disk drive came from the Reading branch of Laskys - they did assorted computing stuff as well as other electrical goods. It cost £199.99 and I paid for it via credit card. A few days later, I got a letter saying that after I'd bought it, they'd been robbed and the credit card slip, necessary for them to get the money, was amongst the stolen items. Would I mind coming in and paying again...? I am slightly ashamed to say that I didn't, but went 'That's what your insurance is for'. Actually, it might have been £299.99 - a substantial chunk of that term's budget, anyway.
Anyway, if you any of you buy it, I'd love to be able to come round and stroke it all. My precious...
* You can see the results in several films of the time, typically set a decade or so into the future. A few years after the Atari 800 was launched, the designers went off with some money from Atari, designed an updated version of the specialist chips, handed the money back to Atari and went off to sell them to Commodore: the result was the Amiga.
