$12 worth of fantastic loot!!!

[bfauska]

I was looking for a HDD for my upcoming emulation cabinet and ended up at a REPC a computer recycling store in Seattle.

There price on HDDs was silly 20gb $20.  I know that I can't get the same per GB price on a small drive as big one, but these were used and standard retail on drives from 250-400gb is about $.25 a GB.

BUT

I got this pile of goodies for $12 and that includes the 2 Pennies in the pic.


What's that you say... a pile of junk, NO NO NO. In the top left you will see a mouse and trackball that somebody (like me) could make into a questionably quality arcade TB and have fun in the process. To the right of that is a DB15 extension cable that I can make into a much nicer looking cable for my Player2 CP.  Next, in the center we have a USB keyboard so that when I build my cabinet I can use a KewWiz and not have to worry about switching over when I need the Keyboard.  In the lower left There is the other half of the Player 2 CP solution.  Last but not least in the bottom right There is a pair of panel mount connectors that will make it onto my cab for a clean solution to plugging in either Firewire or USB.

$12, can you believe it?  With 2 cents left over, which is good, because I don't know what I would do if I didn't still have my 2 cents to spread around this forum.

[RandyT]

Heck. the trackball is probably worth what you paid for the pile if it works well. 

Ham radio clubs should start doing their flea market events, known as Hamfests, pretty soon.  Lots of older computer gear usually finds its way to these events, and usually can be had for cheap prices.  Radios, odd science gear, and painted ceramic frogs will most likely also be sold at them.  Something to watch for in the spring and summer months if that kind of stuff interests you.

I get most pf my classic console gear from these, BTW 

RandyT

[bfauska]

Well, even though the trackball came with drivers:

I hadn't figured that it would work without some sort of monkey business.  I hadn't used a serial port in ages and expected that to pose some problems so  I had already disassembled it and the mouse to see what I could do to make them play nicely with eachother and then began looking for the mouse hack info around here when I got the wild hare up my #%@ that told me to plug it in and see what it does.  Turned off PC.  Plugged in Trackball. Booted up.  Moved pointer with trackball.  I guess that I only have to worry about mounting it into a CP now.  I think it is fairly low resolution, but I don't know how to check or what to compare it too.  With windows only allowing one setting for pointer speed if I leave it set for my microsoft intellieye (fairly old itself) the trackball moves pretty quick across the screen. 

I have only use optical trackballs in the past, is it normal for the ball to feel like it is not as smooth when rolling diagonally?  It makes sense to me that it would, since the rollers are being used at a weird angle, but it seems odd that it would be normal.

I suppose I should play some trackball games now and see how I like it.

Not too bad for a $1 trackball.

[RandyT]

Heh. Nothing says DOS louder than a 5.25 " floppy disk with the words "Pop-up menus" 

It's cool that it works, but It's probably normal that it feels different in certain directions.  Happens with real arcade trackballs as well.  IIRC, some arcade games, like Marble Madness, were apparently coded so that the trackballs could be mounted differently because of this.  If one of the "funny" directions is one of the primary directions required mostly to play the game, it would make sense for them to re-orient the ball so as to require that direction less often.

But on yours, you should probably look for crud on the rollers before anything else 

RandyT

[SithMaster]

What size ball is that?

That floppy brings back memeries of the only one i have.  it is for paint.

[bfauska]

The rollers are clean and it plays fine I think.  I don't have anything to compare it too, but I had a fun game of Golden Tee just now and I've never played that before.  I also played Missile Command, but I've only played it on console games.  Marble Madness was fun also, I can't tell where the sensitivity is supposed to be, does the marble only move while you spin the TB normally, this TB doesn't have much spin after you stop rolling it, it will continue for a bit, but not as long as my old Trackman MarbleFX. 

I don't have any calipers here, but using my tape measure, I'd say it's 1 3/4" ball.  It seems like a good size for my panel since I have some size concerns.  A little chinsey maybe but if I upgrade it'll only get bigger so I can make a hole for this one and then go bigger if I decide I love TB games and hate this TB.  I may also look at using my Trackman, but it is shaped weird and I don't think I want to cut it up, I haven't used it in forever, but I loved it when I did use it, it's also probably more like 1 1/2 inches, but that's only from memory.

[psychotech]

 

That trackball really is nice ..for $1 I bought my serial trackball for 5€ - not bad actually, since it works great.

Now, do the trackball hack 

See my Bombjack thread for one mounting solution.. 

[Mamezilla]

Great find bfauska!!   

I'm glad I kept my old Crayola trackball I got a while back...  serial and paid $30 canadian dollars for it at a local Radio-Shack (before these changed to The Source by Circuit city). 

[bfauska]

Interesting about Radio-Shack, they're still Radio-shack in the states, owned by Tandy who also owns CompUSA, which I can't imagine you have in Canada, seems like it would be a silly name at least.

[bleargh]

Would be willing, but it'd be better than "The Source"... changed the name, changed all the packaging, upped the price... 

Only plus to the switch was that they dumped all of their old "Radio Shack" stock into local liquidation outfits, so if you were lucky enough to wander in the week of the dump then you got a serious score on all the bits.  Me, though, nobody bothered to fill me in until after they'd cleaned out all the good stuff. 

[Mamezilla]

Yes, correct me if I'm wrong but I believe what happened is that the contract between Inter-Tan and Radio-Shack came to an end and Inter-Tan decided to associate themselves with Circuit city.  There was a time were some people tried to revive the Radio-Shack brand in Canada, but it seems it came to a halt on January 2007: see http://www.radioshackisback.ca

The Source has some nice items, but prices are also higher like bleargh said.  You have to wait for a sale if you want something there and you're not in an hurry.  They have however a sale on their website called " the circuit breaker of the day", where they offer one item each day with huge savings.  Worth checking each day, also you can have the item delivered at a local store.

RandyT:  yes hamfests are a great place to find stuff.  I am a ham radio operator myself.  Got last year a new Belkin FM transmitter for an Ipod for $20 (worth $50 at FutureShop), as well as an USB 2.0 7 ports hub with external power supply for $10 (worth $25 or $30 I think), so this IS a place to check for computer and electronic stuff.

I didn't mean to hijack the thread, so back to the topic :  bfauska, have you found a way to mount it in your cab ?  There was a tutorial back then on 1UP's website for the Crayola (which is why I got mine), but didn't see anything for this one.  But hey, at $1, if you are crafty enough (which I'm not), you could certainly do it.

PS:  pardon me if there are grammatical errors or typos in my post, since ma native language is french

[bfauska]

I haven't figured out how I will mount it yet, but it is a really basic shape and I think I will be able to do something pretty easily.

[SithMaster]

id just drill holes through the case (avoiding internals of course) and mount using screws inserted from the bottom.

[Thenasty]

Heh. Nothing says DOS louder than a 5.25 " floppy disk with the words "Pop-up menus" 

RandyT

Specially on a 360k Floppy Disk