Ebay listing that made me chuckle

[B S Magnet]

Today I planed to go to our home #2 in Elsaß / Alsace, but had to postpone it for tomorrow.
Let's see what kind of treasures I may have there. Maybe I am a millionaire - just don't know about it?

“Let’s see what’s behind home #2!” :tympani drum roll:

 

[B S Magnet]

My PCI-X Power Mac G5 is enriched tenfold by its SeriTek 1V4 SATA card. The only gripe I had was when trying to run it together with a 2SE4 card: they rely on different iterations of firmware and conflicted with one another. I ended up selling the 2SE4, since the plan for that was to take advantage of its port multiplier capability and to buy an external RAID drive bay.

Topical to the FirmTek/SeriTek sidebar, this is the 1V4 which has worked every day and every night, not even a coffee break!

It hosts one of my softRAID RAID 1 arrays, as well as where my SSD boot volume lives these days.

 

[TheShortTimer]

£1,000 GBP for a computer that requires replacement capacitors?

If you're going to set a price that high then it should at least factor in that work already being carried out on behalf of the prospective purchaser.

"It costs a thousand pounds and then you're going to have to repair it yourself" etc.

Apple Mac PowerBook 150 rare Vintage laptop 1995 model M2740 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Apple Mac PowerBook 150 rare Vintage laptop 1995 model M2740 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[B S Magnet]

£1,000 GBP for a computer that requires replacement capacitors?

If you're going to set a price that high then it should at least factor in that work already being carried out on behalf of the prospective purchaser.

"It costs a thousand pounds and then you're going to have to repair it yourself" etc.

Apple Mac PowerBook 150 rare Vintage laptop 1995 model M2740 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Apple Mac PowerBook 150 rare Vintage laptop 1995 model M2740 at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

That NBC sticker alone, especially in the UK, is rare enough to account for at least £694 of that price. At least another £150 is for the 0.5-per cent infusion of palladium flecks in the plastic case…

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

"It costs a thousand pounds and then you're going to have to repair it yourself" etc.

It seems seller thinks that you'll have additional pleasure with some tinkering .

 

[TheShortTimer]

That NBC sticker alone, especially in the UK, is rare enough to account for at least £694 of that price. At least another £150 is for the 0.5-per cent infusion of palladium flecks in the plastic case…

Yeah, the NBC Peacock stood out more than the computer itself.

This is much cheaper...

NBC Logo Vinly Stickers / Waterproof Hochwertige Aufkleber | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for NBC Logo Vinly Stickers / Waterproof Hochwertige Aufkleber at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

It seems seller thinks that you'll have additional pleasure with some tinkering .

At £1,000 GBP - the seller is mistaken.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

Got a wonderful G4 Digital Audio today, for 30 Euro, via "www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de"
Needed badly a good working one, to test these bad regulators and "sleep".

There was even an ATTO SCSI card inside.

Good deal? Yes, but... the computer had a lousy processor, had to exchange it.
One of my unexpected treasures found at home #1 and taken to the home #2 is a Sonnet 1.2GHZ DP.
Than - as it turned - the computer had an old ROM, had to upgrade it to 4.28f1
And it had no drive whatsoever. An "Apacer" 128GB SSD (an other "treasure") and a good working(!) PATA <--> SATA converter was added. One need of course the proper system folder. Takes time to locate a proper system.

Yikes! The PATA code inside G4 D/A does not support 48-bit addressing. So any (already) formatted SSD > 128GB needs a SeriTek/1SE2 (forget the SeriTek/1S2, the 1SE2 is much better).

Grabbed one, started the machine from it, located the proper system folder - copied and "blessed" it to the "Apacer".

And voila! There I have a wonderful, 1.2GHZ DP G4 D/A. With a newer ATI card, the original was the "Rage".

Spent the entire day working + all the parts + the gas driving to Freiburg area over the border and back.

I am happy, but I am unsure how the REAL and FINAL bill (driving time + "$8 / gallon" local gasoline price + all parts + 30+ years of experience) does relate to the "30 Euro" net price of that G4.

This should be a lesson to all unexperienced eBay sellers who are asking arm + leg for "retro".
Of course, one can make a lot of money from "retro"... but if we count all the efforts, time, experience, spare parts - than the result is quite humble. Without all that there is absolutely no money in "retro".

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

That NBC sticker alone, especially in the UK, is rare enough to account for at least £694 of that price. At least another £150 is for the 0.5-per cent infusion of palladium flecks in the plastic case…

This made me chuckle today:

Castlewood Orb 2.2gb IDE Internal Drive New | eBay

<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">Castlewood Orb 2.2gb IDE Internal Drive New . This is a bulk version, no retail package.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">As a bonus , a brand new in box Promise Ultra ATA/66 PCI controller is included.</p> <br> <p...

www.ebay.com

I told the seller, the £50 is the max I am going to pay, but without the controller.
He turned it down (as expected) and was even joking that without the controller that thing according my taste should be £25.

Sadly, he is right. The £50 is quite generous for that drive indeed. My goal is to test the SATA converter compatibility and the SATA controller code with that drive, it has quite interesting firmware.

The seller obviously is confused: not many "retro" users need that Castlewood ORB. Almost none.
Because that particular drive is with PATA interface. What "retro" user needs today a PATA removable drive with expensive 2.2 GB cartridges if he can buy USB sticks? Only a "retro" user who is limited to USB 1.1
A MacOS 9 user. Except that Apple's PATA solution is quite lousy. And one would need not only special mounting hardware - but even a special ATA storage driver taking care of Orb-specific firmware.
If not PATA from Apple - than TurboMax/33 and all Promise code should work, back than I had the Orb as a gift from Castlewood. Unfortunately I lost it when we moved from US back to Europe.

In any case that PATA Orb drive is without special drivers and controllers for "classic" MacOS has no customer.
250 Quid? Give me a break, with some pessimism: even 25 Quid is 25 to much.

If I am the seller I would never buy that drive, no matter how cheap it is: it has to be marketed properly.
And the seller has no resources and no information what audience should be addressed.
And unfortunately if he would "dress up" a G4MDD (that's maybe the best) with an ACard or Sonnet / VST / FirmTek controller and that particular drive than there is no guarantee, he would even get the money he spends on "dressing up" back.

 

[TheShortTimer]

And voila! There I have a wonderful, 1.2GHZ DP G4 D/A. With a newer ATI card, the original was the "Rage".

Congrats.

Spent the entire day working + all the parts + the gas driving to Freiburg area over the border and back.

I am happy, but I am unsure how the REAL and FINAL bill (driving time + "$8 / gallon" local gasoline price + all parts + 30+ years of experience) does relate to the "30 Euro" net price of that G4.

Whenever old(er) or faulty hardware is involved, there's always an additional cost in terms of bringing it up to scratch/repairs. In your case, look at it this way - the money and time that you've invested has given you a machine that will perform better than it did in its original specification.

This should be a lesson to all unexperienced eBay sellers who are asking arm + leg for "retro".
Of course, one can make a lot of money from "retro"... but if we count all the efforts, time, experience, spare parts - than the result is quite humble. Without all that there is absolutely no money in "retro".

Indeed.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

That "retro" thing reminds me.
I looked up the high-level SCSI driver code (the one which is stored by the "classic" MacOS on the disk).
Maybe I overlooked something and sure, I did not touch the high-level mass storage SCSI driver since well over 20 years. But as far as I see, if there is a properly written SCSI driver and a properly written SIM - than there is nothing, what would prevent the "classic" MacOS address 63 bits LBA. The only limitation is that there is a 32-bit limit of the number of sectors requested during the I/O (far more, than we need). But as far as where the said I/O starts (the LBA) the limit is 63 bit. The max. LBA any SATA or ATA drive can handle is limited by 48 bit. So we should be fine.

The current 32-bit limitation (=max. 2TB) is because most (maybe all?) SCSI drivers do not issue 64-bit LBA reads / writes, but they could. And AFAIK all the SIM-s tell the SCSI Manager 4.3 that they don't support such large requests.
I am not sure, the SCSI Manager 4.3 does handle such requests (no one tested). If yes, than it's very easy. If not, than the SCSI driver must issue special requests for such special SIM-s directly, circumventing the SCSI Manager.

That would add some complexity and having own EnteringSIM / ExitingSIM "gating" (basically: critical section), but perfectly doable. Not the priority #1 at this moment - but if done, that would render everything of HK pirate obsolete.

 

[weckart]

This made me chuckle today:

Castlewood Orb 2.2gb IDE Internal Drive New | eBay

<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">Castlewood Orb 2.2gb IDE Internal Drive New . This is a bulk version, no retail package.</p> <p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">As a bonus , a brand new in box Promise Ultra ATA/66 PCI controller is included.</p> <br> <p...

www.ebay.com

I told the seller, the £50 is the max I am going to pay, but without the controller.
He turned it down (as expected) and was even joking that without the controller that thing according my taste should be £25.

I remember seriously thinking about getting one of these back in the day after I burnt my hands on a pair of Syquest Sparqs. Probably the worst storage solution ever invented. Made Iomega's Zip drive look like a paragon of reliability.

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

We got a king today, long live the king!

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/295179734281 (it is in Germany, but had to give my address in France: the moron does not ship to Germany). My offer was a generous 8.50 Euro. Who knows, maybe I will have luck?

This is the queen of the king:

Apple Radeon 9000 64MB ADC/DVI AGP Video Graphics Card für PowerMac G4 603-3352 | eBay

Produktart Grafikkarte. Marke Apple. Die Geräte sind technisch und optisch in einem einwandfreien Zustand.

www.ebay.de

Same seller, same card. This one ships to Germany! So I changed my home #2 address to the nearest post office in Germany where I usually pick the stuff up. And sent him a more generous offer of 10 Euro.

Who knows? Maybe there are two cards and I will get both cards?

But seriously: why on Planet Earth someone would make a (ridiculous) listing of the very same thing - twice?
Once on ebay.de and once on ebay.fr

And the listing on ebay.fr does not accept German addresses. To much money to burn from all that "retro" stuff to make two listings? If so, he should invite me for a free lunch. I love "pho" and "cafe sua da". Shouldn't cost much.

Update: oh, no! The moron just turned down both my offers. What can I do? Sob-sob-sob. 😥😥😥

 

[Ataman Honcho Honchev]

I remember seriously thinking about getting one of these back in the day after I burnt my hands on a pair of Syquest Sparqs. Probably the worst storage solution ever invented. Made Iomega's Zip drive look like a paragon of reliability.

I got one free from the manufacturer but sadly it was lost when we moved from Cupertino to Europe.
I did not test it extensively, the goal was to be just compatible. As far as I tested after some workarounds the Orb was OK. Today these Orb-Quirks are 100% illegal because the involved data from the Drive Identify structure (as Orb reports) occupy some mandatory fields of typical SATA / SSD drive.
But since Orb is by no means SATA (save SSD), this is not bad. I just wanted to verify (as well as the PATA <--> SATA converter).

The failure rate even of the best converters is alarming. If you need one, buy two. I mean, two converters of GOOD kind.

SATA ssd hdd female hard drive to ide 3.5" 40 pin male converter card ada'WR | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for SATA ssd hdd female hard drive to ide 3.5" 40 pin male converter card ada'WR at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

You probably will get one functioning and one junk.

Other than that you may get lucky with older Marvell chips. These cost much more - but are rare.

A typical bad adapter:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304770401652 or:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/195285454892 or:

SATA to PATA/IDE Hard Drive Adapter Converter 3.5 HDD Parallel to Serial ATA NEW | eBay

❤️ Converts Parallel ATA (PATA, ATA, IDE) to Serial ATA (SATA). ❤️ Features one SATA port, one PATA port (40-pin IDE), and one 4-pin power connector (Molex). ❤️ Convert IDE/PATA and SATA hard drive interfaces for use with older/newer computer systems.

www.ebay.com

Two round capacitors next to each other on the right side of the PATA connector = "no, thanks".

The very best one, with Marvell chip:

StarTech.com 40-Pin IDE PATA to SATA Adapter Converter for HDD/SSD/ODD 65030852258 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for StarTech.com 40-Pin IDE PATA to SATA Adapter Converter for HDD/SSD/ODD at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Made by the same factory which made the SeriTek cards in Taiwan.

Oh, $26 to expensive? A bad one for $5 is much more expensive.

 

[weckart]

The failure rate even of the best converters is alarming. If you need one, buy two. I mean, two converters of GOOD kind.
You probably will get one functioning and one junk.

No, I meant I thought about getting the Orb back in the 90s when I had the fragile Sparqs. All my systems were either IDE or SCSI back then. No need for adapters. Back then 2GB capacity on fast writable removable media was very seductive.

Not sure I would want one now, even out of retro curiosity. I have three working Jaz drives and a couple of Zips with plenty of discs for compatibilty with old tech.

I do take on board what you say about cheap PATA/SATA adapters. Probably made with salvaged or reject chips. Fortunately, all the ones I have seem fine.

 

[lepidotós]

Not really a laugh, more confusion. Would this even function? It's (supposed to be) a PCIe Radeon (DDR?). I doubt it'd work on Windows, but maybe Linux radeon would work?

 

[TheShortTimer]

It's certainly worth of a laugh at that price, $115 USD for a 32MB graphics card?

 

[lepidotós]

Honestly, that's just eBay.

 

[TheShortTimer]

I'd very surprised if any of those items were sold at their current prices. Very surprised.

 

[lepidotós]

I guess it generally tends more towards $170-200...

 

[TheShortTimer]

I guess it generally tends more towards $170-200...
View attachment 2190541

Even that's too much. I'll take my chances with flea markets and abandoned discoveries instead.

Though the existence of an Amiga compatible Voodoo card was a surprise.

 

[B S Magnet]

It's certainly worth of a laugh at that price, $115 USD for a 32MB graphics card?

Starting to wonder whether there’s a cadre of sellers who like to think of themselves as selling their stuff on e[𝒏]Bay — where 𝒏 could be either “xploitation”, “xtortion”, or “gregious”, amongst others.

 

[TheShortTimer]

Starting to wonder whether there’s a cadre of sellers who like to think of themselves as selling their stuff on e[𝒏]Bay — where 𝒏 could be either “xploitation”, “xtortion”, or “gregious”, amongst others.

Cadre is quite an apt description!

Yes, that's entirely plausible given the uniformity of the listings and pricing across different sellers.

 

[lepidotós]

I'm not so sure -- in my experience selling stuff, eBay automatically suggests a fairly common price a product tends to sell for, and even generates a template listing (while encouraging you to change it slightly so it doesn't look too generic). Combine that with people looking at other listings to try to price their own, and just being greedy in general, and they're probably just going along with the herd more than anything. I mean, "retro" computing stuff is generally speaking in, so why not capitalize on it before people start getting nostalgic for, say, GeForce 7000 instead?​

 

[B S Magnet]

Cadre is quite an apt description!

Yes, that's entirely plausible given the uniformity of the listings and pricing across different sellers.

Me, I’m personally a fan of seller fuujxzevz83452, purveyor of fine pre-owned CPU wares from the People’s Republic of Wherever.

I'm not so sure -- in my experience selling stuff, eBay automatically suggests a fairly common price a product tends to sell for, and even generates a template listing (while encouraging you to change it slightly so it doesn't look too generic). Combine that with people looking at other listings to try to price their own, and just being greedy in general, and they're probably just going along with the herd more than anything. I mean, "retro" computing stuff is generally speaking in, so why not capitalize on it before people start getting nostalgic for, say, GeForce 7000 instead?​

It’s a clever little selling tool, as setting suggested prices higher overall, based on previous eBay seller suggestions guiding other sellers, assures eBay will receive a healthy fee from the transaction.

 

[TheShortTimer]

$15k USD. A treat for a bored billionaire, perhaps?