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Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

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Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#31

Post by Tade0 »

trentnix wrote: post #25
xwdv wrote: post #3

It’s such perfect condition I have to wonder if they bought a cabinet then made up a faked story about finding it out on the curb outside as trash for clicks.

I’ve been following Tim Lapentino for many years and immensely enjoy his Art of Atari book and love for all things retro nerdity. I’d be really disappointed if this was faked. But I admit, it is astonishingly remarkable that the guy who curated a Tron exhibit would also be the one to find a minty DoT environmental, an arcade grail, abandoned on the curb.

Well, it was his relative who found it so I guess his whole extended family and social circle know that he's into this.

I occasionally get guitar questions because people know that I put the time into researching what's what and can at least tell them "yeah, this is crap - don't buy it".

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#32

Post by gabereiser »

ZiiS wrote: post #30
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the ballpark resale price is for it, the author mentioned it could sell for big bucks, but it'd be interesting to see how much.

At $2k it would sell today. The condition looks great could easily go for more then double that to the right buyer (Environmentals are prized but obviously limit who has room for them).

$2k would be a bidding war. This is worth way more than that! I definitely know some collectors that would part with $50k to have this.

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#33

Post by TacticalCoder »

baz00 wrote: post #6

I'm not surprised at seeing this. Most of my electronics "purchases" in the 80s to 00s were perfectly good discarded things just thrown out on the street because they were inconvenient or someone bought something shinier. I even got a 2 year old Intel Mac Mini once and used it as a desktop for nearly 3 years! An arcade machine, regardless of how rare it was, would be something I walked straight past though! Too big a…

> An arcade machine, regardless of how rare it was, would be something I walked straight past though! Too big and heavy.

Yeah but there's nothing like standing up in front of an actual arcade cab, one joystick in each hand, and playing Robotron 2084! (one joystick to move in one of eight directions and the other joystick to fire in one of eight directions).

About ten years ago a friend of mine was moving to a smaller house and had no room for his vintage arcade cab... So he offered it to me. I immediately took it (my fancy car wasn't big enough to carry it so I went and borrowed my parents' car).

This cab has already been moved to three (EU) countries (!).

It's fully working, I've got a few PCBs (both originals and bootleg PCBs) and I've got a Raspberry Pi with a Pi2JAMMA adapter, driving the CRT screen...

It's a joy to see my little daughter play on the games I used to play as a kid (like Elevator Action, Buster Bros/Pang!, Bomb Jack, etc.).

It's an amazing relic from really glorious times.

P.S: it used to be in my office room first, then in the living room (which was epic) and now in its new house it's in the laundry room next to the washing machine : )

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#34

Post by sidewndr46 »

tibbon wrote: post #13
Luc wrote: post #4

I saw this a few days ago on an arcade collector's forum (not based in the US), and the majority reaction was disbelief. People seemed to think it was a hoax. That thing is museum quality. I wonder if it's due to those suburban garages, allowing people to pile up stuff for decades. That and having more cash to buy goodies than most of the rest of the world, of course.

Large objects can be so hard to deal with that they are often discarded, regardless of theoretical price or value. Motorcycles, Hammond organs, etc. So often it might be worth quite a bit it someone in another location, but especially after someone dies, there often isn’t the energy to deal with it. So on the street it goes. You can find some people asking $6000 for a Hammond B3, but then someone can’t give away a D-…

Same thing with aquariums. If you want a 150 gallon you have to pay. If you want a 2000 gallon and are willing to go pick it up and move it, it's usually free.

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#35

Post by xnx »

trentnix wrote: post #28
iamben wrote: post #5

What's the monetary value of a find like this? It always boggles my mind when people jump straight to "bin it" rather than "I'll see if anyone wants to buy it". I guess sometimes you just need the headspace!

I’m working order? Maybe as much as 10-12k. The emergence of barcodes has inflated the price of games like this. A DoT environmental is widely considered an arcade grail and is rare. It’s extremely sought after and the logistics of the size of the cabinet resulted in lots of them being trashed over the year or chopped up.

Confused until I realized "barcodes" was probably an autocorrect of "barcodes".

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#36

Post by orev »

So a guy who just so happens to specialize in old games, and just happens to have an exhibition going on specifically about Tron, who happens to have a friend who owns an arcade and a network of people who know how to evaluate and restore arcade cabinets, just happens to be visiting people in a place (it sounds like) he doesn’t go on a daily basis, hears an offhand comment from his young niece who happened to be riding a bike a few blocks away, happens to find a perfect condition game cabinet that’s been sitting out in the weather for who knows how long, that was put there by a random old lady who was apparently able to drag the thing to the curb but doesn’t want to discuss anything about it.

Look, I’m willing to accept that rare things can happen, but this is pushing the bounds of belief. There are so many coincidences and this story needs to at least be viewed with some skepticism toward the details.

It’s not unreasonable to wonder if the goal here is to generate a viral story, which seems to be working at some level.

Occam’s razor would suggest that they obtained the game “somehow” and the provider just doesn’t want any publicity.

P.S. And if they decide to sell it, the decent thing to do would be to at least checkin with the old lady and offer some of the proceeds.

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#37

Post by detourdog »

Roark66 wrote: post #23
tibbon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large objects can be so hard to deal with that they are often discarded, regardless of theoretical price or value. Motorcycles, Hammond organs, etc. So often it might be worth quite a bit it someone in another location, but especially after someone dies, there often isn’t the energy to deal with it. So on the street it goes. You can find some people asking $6000 for a Hammond B3, but then someone can’t give away a D-…

Indeed. I used to own a vintage IBM AS400 server system and a separate disc enclosure. Each component was roughly the size of two mini fridges one atop the other. It weighted over 130 kg each. Add a "smart" crt terminal and a carrier bag full of cables. Unfortunately I had to relocate for work and I couldn't take it with me. I tried to sell it, then I advertised to give it away. Eventually I had to take it to local "…

I got a fully complete Nixdorf 820 with the dust covers for free. As far as I can tell I might be the only person outside of the Nixdorf Museum with one.

I don't I could sell it if I wanted to. The drives alone seem to powered by washing machine motors.

This group usually tries to rescue things. https://vcfed.org

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#38

Post by MisterTea »

Arcade trash is amazing. One day driving around my neighborhood in a box truck I spotted a arcade cabinet at the curb. As I'm getting close I see the side and its Terminator 2! I stop the truck, see a guy in the back yard, flag him down and ask "Is this trash and does it work?" he says "Yeah it works but the guns don't vibrate anymore and I need the room in my garage" So into the back of the truck it went. I was lucky to A. find it and B. also happen to be driving a truck.

Guns were easily fixed. The vibrator is a solenoid with a rubber tipped plunger mounted to an L shaped bracket made from stamped sheet metal. The plunger strikes the short length of the L and the bend takes the stress. Over the years the constant slapping broke the plate at the bend. I welded the plates back on adding two gusset strips on each side to brace them and the guns were back to vibrating. Still have it but hasn't been powered on in ages.

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#39

Post by [deleted] »

orev wrote: post #36

So a guy who just so happens to specialize in old games, and just happens to have an exhibition going on specifically about Tron, who happens to have a friend who owns an arcade and a network of people who know how to evaluate and restore arcade cabinets, just happens to be visiting people in a place (it sounds like) he doesn’t go on a daily basis, hears an offhand comment from his young niece who happened to be ridi…

[deleted]

Re: Environmental Discs of Tron Roadside Pickup

#40

Post by cduzz »

iamben wrote: post #5

What's the monetary value of a find like this? It always boggles my mind when people jump straight to "bin it" rather than "I'll see if anyone wants to buy it". I guess sometimes you just need the headspace!

You pay for things when you buy them and when you keep them and when you pass them on to their next owner.

Often these transaction costs are both in time and in money, and people all value their time and money in different ways.

Disposing of this thing, which likely has a huge amount of emotional weight already embodied in it, via a specialist web site and interacting with a gazillion flakes is likely an exhausting prospect.

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