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View Full Version : Epic TI99/4A Garage find! My haul of the year!!!! Many many pics!!



vintagegamecrazy
08-17-2011, 04:06 PM
I didn't expect stuff like this to happen anymore but it did. I'm going to share my story first as this took some time and effort to finalize. I work for Roto-Rooter and was garage sale-ing in my down time one saturday. I stopped at several garage sales and it was starting to rain and the owner was commenting on how frustrated he was about the rain and that nothing was selling because of that and he was starting to close. He asked me if there was anything in particular that I was interested in and I asked if he had older video games like Atari. He said how about Texas Instruments? I said I'd be interested in anything he had as I was a collector. He took my name and number and said he had so much stuff that he couldn't get it all out as his Dad had moved in with him and brought a house full of stuff that filled his basement and garage. He wasn't complaining by the time he closed because despite not selling much he had gotten five or six phone numbers for people who were interested in several of his collections as he had cameras, pens, and many other stuff.

A few weeks later he called me back and said he had forgotten how much he had but had found five boxes of Texas Instruments stuff and wanted me to come over and look at it. I did and Oh MY did he have stuff, several consoles, several boxes of games and programs, tons of peripheral expansions and tons of magazines! I looked through it all and he gave me a price which was more than I could afford at the time. I asked if he could hold onto it for me and said that I would take it all but had to sell a bunch of stuff on Ebay to get some cash first. We wrapped up and I left. I gave him $10 for his small stack of magazines to put a deposit on the lot and to have something to read.

I had gotten the money a week or so later and was ready to seal the deal but stuff came up. He was out of town off and on for several weeks for work and had that wonderful Midwest Derecho that knocked power out for him for a week and he had to stay in a hotel since he was on a well and had no water.

Finally about two months later on 8/16 I met him at 8 at night and paid him and he welt over several of the items with me and kind of had to spend some time reminiscing over his hobby that he had to say goodbye to. He told me to save the magazines in case he ever wanted to call me and see them again which I didn't have a problem with.

He shared several stories with me and said that he ran the dial up BBS back in 1985 and shared a lot of stories about that and told me how he went on a buying spree when TI started liquidating their stock in 1985. He showed me countless documents and programs he wrote back in the day. He didn't let me keep that stuff as there was confidential information on much of the stuff that he needed to destroy which I understood. I was also able to talk to his Dad and he shared some stories of himself when he was a distributor for Atari and Intellivision back in their hayday. The stories were priceless and I loved listening to them both and he said he was so happy to find me as he was happy to sell this stuff in one big lot instead of trying to piece it out and that he wanted to give it to someone that would enjoy it as much as him. He knew that there was a lot of duplicates of many of the items and said he hoped I could sell some of it and make some of the money back.

There is too much stuff to post all the pics at one time so stay tuned over the next few days as I sort it all out and post more pics. I got this stuff for a good price IMO but not a dirt cheap steal so I'm not going to say what I paid for it all until I post all of the pics. There is just that much stuff. I am going to sell a lot of it as I don't need it all as there is a lot of extra stuff and am going to need help on pricing and value so please help me out.

Stay tuned for the ride as there' s going to be more pics than anyone of us know what to do with!!

I'm going to start with the games and software. There was a total of 75 carts, tapes, and disks and almost all of it is complete in boxes and in excellent shape and I don't think most of this stuff has ever been used before!

The stacked games are duplicates

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There are six Terminal Emulator II carts here and I got more loose ones too!

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Two copies each of two different boxes of Household Budget Management!

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Four of these. Two are still sealed in cardboard boxes!!

vintagegamecrazy
08-17-2011, 04:07 PM
Post number II since I'm already over the pic limit.


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The last two images are of the Software Entertainment Value Pack which contains Parsec, Hangman, Adventure and Pirate Adventure, Connect Four, Oldies But Goodies - Games II, and Blasto. The manuals for these are still shrinkwrapped! The pic also shows a handful of loose carts.

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The cassettes inside of these have never been opened!

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Two Disk Manager II carts and two extra manuals and a States and Capitols Cassette.

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Two brand new Shrinkwrapped TI Writer Wordprocessors, one still in the cardboard box.

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Computer number 1, I don't think it's ever been used. It has all of the innards and plastic and manuals and is near or in perfect shape.

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Computer number 2, used and some light wear, but it has all of the packaging and innards.

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A cassette player with cables and a brand new dust cover for the player.

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Two voice modules, one brand new and two cartridge expanders, one still shrinkwrapped though wrap is torn.

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Two dust covers, one for the computer and one is for a TI dot matrix printer. Guesses on value, they're made by Elek-Tek Inc.?





Stay tuned as this isn't even all of the software. I think this entire thing will be about 40-50 pics which I will try to post over the next few days!!

Thanks for looking and please comment too!!

vintagegamecrazy
08-17-2011, 06:50 PM
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v465/vintagegamecrazy/TI994A%20Garage%20Sale%20Haul/DSCI0324.jpg
Discwasher Pointmaster Pro joystick, Archer stick, and an Atari 2600 controller with a Grabber Ball and a Stick Stand.

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Three different Controller splitters, TI branded, Wico Command Control, and a Discwasher Pointmaster sealed. Is the Discwasher one rare as I've never seen it before?

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Lots of cables and connectors and another dust cover for the cassette player.

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TI PHP 1250 External Disk Drive. New, I opened up the box to take the pic! What's it worth?

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External Floppy Disk Drive enclosure. Also new. Again, what's it worth?

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PHP 1240 Disk Controller. I got three of these and they new. I opened one of them for the pic, the one I will keep. What are they worth?

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Tandon TM 1002 Disk Drive. Again I got two of these both new, I opened one. What are they worth?

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9900 Micro Expansion System. I don't know if it's been used or not as it's been opened. This seems to be valuable. Worth?

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PHP 1260 Memory Expansion, unopened.

ugly_monster
08-17-2011, 07:45 PM
Congrats on THAT. Nice one.

vintagegamecrazy
08-17-2011, 08:57 PM
Now for the rest of this stuff!
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Magazines
Home Computer Vol. 4 No. 1
99'er Nov. 1983
Unisource Electronics Catalog
TI99/4A Fall '85 Catalog
TI99/4A The Everything Book
Summer '85
Winter '85/86
Summer '86
Fall '86
Fall '87
Winter '83/84
Spring '88
Elek-Tek inc Vol VI, VIII

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TI99/4A Computer Fair bags.

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Old news Letters

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More manuals and fliers

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Databiotics catalog and other stuff.

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Gram Kracker guide
Printer Optimizer manual
Beginner's Assembly Language Binder/Handbook

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Many guides for writing TI programs, Zork I-III manuals and other stuff

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A huge collection of Chicago Times Newsletter of the TI99/4A Users Group. I arranged these in rows by year. I'm missing Mar. 1984, Jan. 1985, Oct. 1987

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More Chicago Times Newsletters, Missing Jan, Aug, Oct, Nov, of 1988. May and Aug. 1989 and I have Jan. of 1990. Did the Newsletter end in 1990? This is massive newsletter collection and most of these are unread and still taped shut. These will be great to read. Is there anyone interested in archiving these as I would be happy to lend these out if needed.

This is finally everything that I got. I got the pics taken faster that I expected but this stuff is still far from sorted as far as what I'm keeping and/or selling. If there's anything you'd be interested in buying or trading for let me know via PM. I am not going to sell anything that I don't have a rough estimate of value on so please help me on value, especially the hardware.

Finally I'm sure that you are all wondering what I paid for this entire lot. The grand total for everything was $200.00. This was far from the best deal ever but I think it was more than a fair price and think I could get far more that I paid for it if I sold it all piece by piece.

Also, he said he had found a Texas Instruments monitor later but said he'd have to get $40 for it. He said it worked because he was using it as a TV somehow. I don't think it's a bad price since I don't have to pay for shipping on it but what do you all think is fair for something like that? I want to pick it up later when I have some more money.

For now please enjoy all of the pics and please comment.

Thanks!!

stargate
08-17-2011, 09:38 PM
Sweet haul and an even better story. Literally priceless...

Steve W
08-18-2011, 12:17 AM
I never knew that TI put TI Invaders out on diskette. And nice find on that 9900 Cor-Comp Expansion System, I've read about them but never saw one back in the day. The Disk Memory System card and the Memory Expansion card (the one in the box) are for the Peripheral Expansion Box, which the guy didn't seem to have. Odd, I would have thought he'd have one or two, especially considering he's got replacement floppy drives and expansion cards for it.

I have no idea how much any of this is worth, but it's a damn nice haul nonetheless.

vintagegamecrazy
08-18-2011, 12:25 AM
He told me that he had PEB's back several years ago but had sold them off. Wish I could've gotten a hold of one though!

misfits859
08-18-2011, 06:09 AM
I remember trading some baseball cards for my friends Parsec back in the day. Loved that game. I remember playing the TI Pac-Man ripoff extensively too. Fun times.

Griking
08-19-2011, 03:27 PM
I love older pre Windows computer systems and that's an awesome haul.

If I'd found it I don't think I'd have it in be to break it up and sell of piece by piece.

Kitsune Sniper
08-19-2011, 04:41 PM
More Chicago Times Newsletters, Missing Jan, Aug, Oct, Nov, of 1988. May and Aug. 1989 and I have Jan. of 1990. Did the Newsletter end in 1990? This is massive newsletter collection and most of these are unread and still taped shut. These will be great to read. Is there anyone interested in archiving these as I would be happy to lend these out if needed.

Get in touch with Jason Scott of http://textfiles.com/ - He'll probably help you out and have those newsletters (and everything else) scanned for upload to the Internet Archive.

If my scanner wasn't so sucky I'd volunteer to scan everything myself.

Congrats on your find.