Atari 2600

From: Alexios Chouchoulas <alexios_at_vennea.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon Apr 21 07:35:26 1997

  I remembered a message here about pricing and video games yesterday.

  Someone had an Atari 2600 (the new, revamped, black type) at the car boot
sale in Edinburgh yesterday.

  He explained to me that this was a "games computer" with around 8 carts
(<sarcasm>lemmesee, Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Pole Position, etc. -- ooh,
rare</sarcasm>). The price: 20.00 UKP (around $30?). Surely, these people
are joking. I didn't even want to haggle for a new VCS.

  Now, if it was the *OLD* type, I might have been interested (I don't
normally collect this stuff, but the old VCS has sentimental value -- I
played my first game of Space Invaders on one).

  Unfortunately, at another flea market, another time and another country
(and anyway, the wench is dead), an original VCS was going for around $100,
with extremely common carts selling for as much as $25. Amazing. Almost as
expensive as the thing when it first came out. :-)

  My theory for this is that game machines haven't changed all that much in
the last 20 years: still a box, still take carts (or CD-ROMs nowadays),
still have joysticks. What the heck, it must be worth something, right?
Whereas computers have changed so dramatically that your average car boot
sale joe will sell an old `computer keyboard' (probably a ZX-80) for
peanuts since it doesn't appear to have a monitor or a CD-ROM or Winblows
installed.

--------------------------- ,o88,o888o,,o888o. -------------------------------
Alexios Chouchoulas '88 ,88' ,88' alexios_at_vennea.demon.co.uk
The Unpronouncable One ,o88oooo88ooooo88oo, axc_at_dcs.ed.ac.uk
Received on Mon Apr 21 1997 - 07:35:26 BST