o2william's CGE photos and ramblings

[o2william]

If anyone's interested, I just put up some photos (of not very high quality, I'm afraid) and comments about the show right here (http://www.classicgaming.com/o2home/articles/cge2k4/index.shtml). Since this is on my site, the comments may be a little Odyssey2 heavy. :)

Like I mention at the link, I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to meet up with more DPers at the show. The group photo completely slipped my mind, I didn't know about the various hotel parties, and I didn't even remember the forum badges until Sunday. I really gotta get with the program! But when I see a working Defender machine, all other considerations pretty much go out the window.

A great show, I enjoyed it as always!

[Kroogah]

Excellent! That "1980 Sears Catalog" picture gave me a good laugh.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

4jays had an O2 trackball? So is this the one that we'd seen before that (I think) belonged to an acquaintance of Lee Seitz, or is this a third one? Might have to revise my claim of having one out of two, as well as having the first one at one of the gaming shows. :eek 2:

Still, to paraphrase Meatloaf, one outta three ain't bad. :) And to be honest, what with two of the known copies being boxed, there had to be more of these out there somewhere.

[digitalpress]

Well done, William. Great read and pics to boot! Thanks for sharing this with us.

[o2william]

4jays had an O2 trackball? So is this the one that we'd seen before that (I think) belonged to an acquaintance of Lee Seitz, or is this a third one?

You know, I didn't think to ask. I assumed it was a third one, but I guess it could have been Lee's friend's. I'll check with Lee and see if he knows anything. The box was in great condition. I took a photo, but it came out all blurry. :(

I agree with you... I think there are more of these out there, but they look so much like Atari 2600/C64 trackballs it's hard to tell the difference. If you don't have the box, you might not even know which model you have.

BTW, Atari2600.com also told me they sold an Odyssey2 WICO joystick adapter at the show. I've never even seen a photo of one of these. Apparently it's also identical to other such units, only with an "O2" sticker on it. I bet there are more of these out there too, perhaps misidentified as Atari or TI adapters.

[o2william]

Lee checked with his friend, and 4Jay's was indeed a "new" one.

So that's three confirmed O2 trackballs, at least two with boxes (wasn't yours boxed too, Earl?). I'd say there are definitely more out there to be found...

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

http://www.thelogbook.com/odyssey/trakball/bixfront.jpg

Yep...mine's boxed. Still, interesting that a third one turned up - what were they asking for it?

[o2william]

Hm, that means all three confirmed examples are boxed.


what were they asking for it?

Believe it or not, I didn't ask. I knew I shouldn't buy it (budgetary considerations), so I decided I'd better not risk being tempted. :) I find 4Jays to have reasonable prices overall, but they're reasonable dealer prices, meaning not exactly cheap. The trackball was gone by Sunday, so somebody must have scooped it up.

[slapdash]

Anyone curious about the Coleco booth should check out http://www.colecovision.com/.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

That site's had that info for quite a while now. I love the line "For too long, the market has been deprived of new Colecovision products" though! LOL Seriously, I'm interested to see what exactly they're planning to do to bring the brand back.