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$12 worth of fantastic loot!!!

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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  ;D

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"  :D

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  ;D

RandyT

SithMaster:
What size ball is that?

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

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