>> The posting consists of a somewhat blurry but decent photo of the
>> unit from about 2 feet away, from an angle a bit behind where a
>> person would actually sit. The only odd thing in the photo is that there
>> are three non-standard toggle switches mounted on top (which I've
>
> Are those present on the machine you received? If so, it would probably
> indicate that what you have is not an adversting mock-up....
I'd go with that!
> There is one possibility that's not been mentioned yet. You might have an
> Exidy product, but not from a sorcerer system. Some manufacturers used
> cases/keyboards of their smaller machines as keyboards on larger machines
> -- Acorn did for one. The Acorn System keyboard is mounted in the same
> case (or at least a very similar case) to the Acorn Atom home computer.
> Did Exidy ever make anything other than the Sorcerer?
They made video games, as far as I know (of the self contained, arcade sort, I
mean). I once saw one called "Targ" in (I think) a cheap restaurant in Bristol.
I can imagine that these would definitely _not_ want a keyboard installed during
normal use, but might want one plugged in during maintenance or factory testing.
The custom switches would then do things like toggling between
run-as-arcade-game and service mode.
Just a thought.
> Alternatively, if somebody working at Exidy needed a keyboard for a
> development system, or similar, it would be likely they'd use parts of a
> Sorcerer. They'd be easy to get, and known.
>
> I thinki it's more likely, though, that either this is a deliberate scam
> (not necessarily started by the person who offered this for sale) or that
> some hacker years ago needed a keyboard and used parts from a Sorcerer.
> The piece of plywood inside the case may have been to weight it down so
> it could be _used_ as a keyboard.
Also possibilities.
> [...]
>
>> I have had another exchange with the seller enumerating the reasons
>> why I feel ripped off and prodding him to share the pain with me.
>>
>> His reply was, more or less, too bad. I'm sending a slightly more
>
> Ouch!. This is, alas, looking ever more like a deliberate scam. A
> reasonable seller would admit he made a mistake and offer to put things
> right IMHO.
My guess is that the guy who sold it had no idea what it was, but has spent the
money, and so is just going to be bloody-minded about giving it back.
Not that it really affects getting the money back, of course :-(
I'd tell him that if he doesn't cough up at least some (Say, $50) of your $200
within a week, you will be filing a case against him in the small claims court
for $400 - the increase being to cover fees and expenses. After which you will
still expect to receive your fees from him even if he settles out of court.
That might hurry him up a bit...
>> pointed reply at this moment. He even suggested that I try to sell
>> it to the 2nd highest bidder. Sheesh. I suspect I won't make any more
>
> Oh, I see. He misrepresents a product to you and the cure is for you to
> misrepresent it to somebody else???
Quite.
Philip.
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Received on Thu Aug 17 2000 - 07:05:46 BST