Every old video game console dies eventually. Moving parts seize-up, circuit boards fail, cables wear out. If a user needs a replacement connector, chip, ribbon, gear, shell—or any of the thousands of other parts that, in time, can break, melt, discolor, delaminate, or explode—they’re usually out of luck, unless they have a spare system to scavenge.
But there is an exception to this depressing law of nature. In San Jose, on a side street next to a highway off-ramp, inside an unmarked warehouse building, is part of the world’s largest remaining collection of factory-original replacement Atari parts — a veritable fountain of youth for aging equipment from the dawn of the home computing and video gaming era. This is the home of Best Electronics, a mail-order business that has been selling Atari goods continuously for almost four decades.
But if you’d like to share in Best’s bounty, as many die-hard Atari fans desperately do, there’s a very important piece of advice you need to keep in mind: whatever you do, don’t piss off Bradley.
I love this story. There’s a lot you can say about having one person dictate nebulous terms like this, but we’re not talking a primary, secondary, or even tertiary life need here. It’s his way, or the high way, and I like that, in a romantic, old-timey kind of way. His website is glorious, the outdated catalog that is entirely outdated unless you combine it with decades of online updates – it’s almost mythical, a modern fairy tale.
Bradley seems welded to an old school boutique service kind of model. It’s little different from one company in Monaco selling high end tableware and accessories to wealthy yacht owners. I’m guessing he’s tetchy because he’s an old man and takes his business personally. The woman who owns and runs the tableware company is much more friendly and forgiving but the value of orders placed and “don’t care about the expense” reliability of her clients more than compensates. There’s a cheese shop in Paris which sells to the presidential palace which is somewhere in the middle. One of the women there does fuss a bit but she does know her cheese and if she says she is selling you her very best you can guarentee it is the best and the order will be complete and ready for delivery on the exact second she promised and people do place a premium on this.
We all know someone like Bradley, in one field of electronics or another.
On another note, anyone interested in treasure troves of old redundant home computers and consoles might enjoy the closest equivalent I know of in the UK, CJE Micros. No tales of grump and damaged pride, I think, but a hell of a catalogue of Acorn things. No, I’m not being paid by them, I just think its fun to browse these old sites that look like business first, mod-cons like CSS later.
There is being someone who values his time, and there is being a grumpy dick.
He’s both and that is not a compliment.
I’ve bought quite a few parts from him over the years and he’s always been communicative and nice. He’s more like that grizzled old bar owner who sells some amazing drinks you can only get from him. As long as you’re nice and don’t get impatient with him, you’ll get the goods you ordered. He even had that plastic piece that goes into the JagCD to hold down the lid. Mine had broken years and years ago from heavy use of the Virtual Light Machine, then one day I thought I’d see if maybe he had one I could buy. Sure enough I ordered that and some other Atari parts, and now my JagCD is tip-top. I’ve only ever had to replace the motor / laser assembly in it, and that was a 10 dollar part from a panasonic CD-ROM that I ordered off ebay.
Bradley is a nice guy, and we’re lucky to have someone around that still supports the old Atari machines. Especially the new stuff he comes out with like cables, 5200 joystick membranes, etc.
Reading the story, and having seen some photographs of the man, I find it likely he’s on the spectrum, which would explain (though not excuse) his behaviour. Regardless, it’s his shop, so he can do what he pleases. Being a grumpy dick isn’t against the law, no matter how frustrating it is.
I’m sorry, did you imply that you can correctly diagnose someone with autism based on their physical appearance? I don’t need to see a photo of you to determine you’re full of shit.
I wonder if he will buy up all the Atari VCSs?
Very interesting look at the vintage computing corner.
And… “AN ELECTRONICS SHOP IN SUNNYVALE IN 1983” looks very similar to Fry’s Electronics (which was unfortunately one of the victims of the COVID last year).
But as many other things, I wonder how long it will take before people give up on the old hardware, and just use programmable FPGAs to rebuild more of those systems:
https://atariage.com/forums/topic/307802-any-chance-for-an-atari-260052007800-fpga-console/
Raspberry has definitely caught up. But that is software emulation only. Hardware emulation / redesign seems to be a little behind (actually a lot, but I don’t want to disparage the good work done so far). Once that becomes more mainstream, a 3d printer + an FPGA board + add/ons for ports/controllers will enable anyone to remake those systems, without needing to dig for Internet for discontinued parts.
VHDL/SystemC remains a bit above the average skillset to become mainstream. In the Raspberry Pi, you have Scratch as an introductory programming language, you have nothing equivalent in the FPGA world.
I don’t think sukru’s proposing we all start developing these FPGAs, but someone could, and sell them to the retro enthusiasts. I also think they mentioned the Raspberry Pi not as an example of an entry-level system, but as a good computer to emulate retro computers on.
Yes, a bit of both.
For example, there are teams working on RetroPie for emulation, OSMC (XBMC) for multimedia, OctoPrint for 3d printers, or CarPC for very specialized applications to list a few.
The end user only needs to download an image, burn to an SD card, and maybe configure a few things on text files. After that they can jump into many of these wonderful DIY products. (They can even 3d print custom NES style cases to complete the image).
But all these developers push the system, and every new RPi iteration becomes even more capable.
For FPGAs, there is only Mister at the moment.
The problem with FPGAs is that it’s so easy to enhance the original. Look at the ZX Spectrum Next, or the MEGA65. They’re nice projects, but other than still being 8 bit, they’re hardly “retro” with their full HD HDMI output and 100MHz speed. Sure, once there _really_ aren’t any original SIDs anymore, an FPGA one may be a good replacement, but replacing the entire machine by FPGAs kind of defeats the purpose, imho.
Isn’t a benefit of FPGA that you have multiple cores, and so could easily switch to a stock speed core, an enhanced core, etc.?
Fair point though, it is still not the same (even if significantly closer than software emulation on a pi).
I’m still trying to justify a reason to purchase a MISTER FPGA. To “preserve all this history”… or just play some games 🙂
“looks very similar to Fry’s Electronics (which was unfortunately one of the victims of the COVID last year).”
Let’s be honest, Fry’s was unfortunately the victim of Fry’s. Covid was a convenient way their executives could spin it down without it being immediately clear to most people that they were perhaps some of the most ridiculously untalented businessmen in the history of transactions.
Their shelves were devoid of desirable product for at least a year before anyone ever heard of the virus, negating the single draw they had against the neweggs and amazons of the world.
Efforts in that direction are already in progress. Check out the MiSTer FPGA project.
(See the list of links to various FPGA core efforts in the sidebar.)
ssokolow,
Yes, Mister is a step in the right direction. But more needs to be done.
I actually got an FPGA board to try it myself, however it turns out it was not compatible.