I had an excellent Saturday drive out to the country to meet up with a guy who had a ton of Atari goodies. A friend pointed me to this guy's craigslist ad because he knew the seller (who had earlier tried to sell him the stuff), but when I called earlier this week the seller explained that he had already sold most of the goodies through another ad. Bummer. But then he emailed me later and said he had found a box of books and other Atari stuff and I could have it for $20. Just a couple of grainy pictures, but I went for it.

Showed up at about 10 this morning and WOW. First of all, he had a box full of old 400s and a bunch of other nice stuff waiting for the other guy, so I drooled over that and had the evil thought of offering him some cash for some of it but a deal is a deal and I respect other people's hauls. Plus, mine was a pretty good deal too: a bunch of books, a 410 recorder with manual, a few ST programs, 8-bit EPROMS and boards, four 400 replacement keyboards, these awesome MINTY Atari folders, instruction manuals, awesome old receipts (I love that stuff) and a printer stand.

The 410 came with a weird tape in it, labeled "Western Electric" (with Ma Bell logo) "OVERDEPOSITS AND UNDERCOLLECTIONS AND CHARGE DUE RECALL." I have not tested it yet, but am looking forward to it! I like strange items like this.

I started making a complete list of stuff, but just decided to shoot a video instead:

After this haul I probably should have gone home immediately, but I hit the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and St. Vinnies on the way home. More good luck! I picked up a PS1 with memory card, hookups, and long-box Ridge Racer (no controllers) for $5, a set of Pointmaster controllers, Vader stick, Turbo Touch 360 NES controller, 5200 controller, boxed Genny NBA Jam, and a center channel speaker plus rear speakers (Pioneers, $10) for my budget entertainment system. Wound up costing me about $30 total for some fun stuff. I have never even seen the Touch 360 controller before--spotted the NES connector and went for it at $2.

Anyway,my wife is at her hair appointment and I have to clean all of this up before she gets home, so that's all for now!