Awesome thrift store pickup(s).

[Modelworks]

Probably because people like me stopped donating crap.
I drove by the Salvation Army and saw a buttload of Lincolns, Cadillacs and one Lexus. Said "fuck that shit" and never donated again.
Those people don't need bargain bin clothes and furniture.

The purpose of the places are to make money that they use for other causes not to be a cheap place for poor people to shop. the more they sell the more they can spend on the causes they support. By not donating you are essentially hurting their causes.

 

[jupiter57]

Probably because people like me stopped donating crap.
I drove by the Salvation Army and saw a buttload of Lincolns, Cadillacs and one Lexus. Said "fuck that shit" and never donated again.
Those people don't need bargain bin clothes and furniture.

The purpose of the places are to make money that they use for other causes not to be a cheap place for poor people to shop. the more they sell the more they can spend on the causes they support. By not donating you are essentially hurting their causes.

This goes for Goodwill & Salvation Army, not likely with the privately owned stores, though.
I donate about as much as I buy.
Whenever I buy something, they always tell you if it doesn't work, etc. to keep your receipt & they will give you a refund.
I always just take the item back (if it works) when I am done with it, etc. & drop it in the box so they can sell it again.

Back on topic: I used Canon BJC printers back in the day, cartridges were $50, but refillable so many times.
I went into Goodwill one day and they had about a dozen Canon printers on the shelf, almost all of them had cartridges, $6.00 ea.
I bought them all.
Those and a couple refill kits lasted me several years!

When I used to put desktops together to sell, I could pick up monitors, keyboards, & mice all day for $5.00 ea.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Sucks now that the economy has gotten worse. Before not many people went to the thrift stores, now lots of people do and all the good stuff is getting gone quick.

The best things I ever found at the local Goodwill :
- Bunch of USB scanners for $5 each (~6 years ago)
- 15" Dell UltraSharp for $5 (~5 years ago)
- Sega MegaDrive set for $10 (3 years ago)

 

[Paladin3]

Last month I picked up a Realistic SW-100 AM/FM/SW1/SW2/CB/WX/Police/Air radio like this one in brand new condition for $3.99.

 

[0roo0roo]

Eh, having fiddled with emulators, the idea of being able to play an old game again is more interesting then doing it

nostalgia wears off fast...but i guess you have a collectable now if you save it for another 50 years

 

[Locut0s]

The purpose of the places are to make money that they use for other causes not to be a cheap place for poor people to shop. the more they sell the more they can spend on the causes they support. By not donating you are essentially hurting their causes.

Uhh no, places like Value Village really are just places for poor people to shop. :biggrin: But yes others like Salvation Army etc you are right.

 

[Locut0s]

This goes for Goodwill & Salvation Army, not likely with the privately owned stores, though.
I donate about as much as I buy.
Whenever I buy something, they always tell you if it doesn't work, etc. to keep your receipt & they will give you a refund.
I always just take the item back (if it works) when I am done with it, etc. & drop it in the box so they can sell it again.

Back on topic: I used Canon BJC printers back in the day, cartridges were $50, but refillable so many times.
I went into Goodwill one day and they had about a dozen Canon printers on the shelf, almost all of them had cartridges, $6.00 ea.
I bought them all.
Those and a couple refill kits lasted me several years!

When I used to put desktops together to sell, I could pick up monitors, keyboards, & mice all day for $5.00 ea.

I see ink cartridges for random brands of printers in thrift stores all the time. Often selling for anywhere from $2 to $6 I suppose you COULD make a few bucks reselling these as even now they are expensive to get but I'm not sure if people would buy them off ebay or not.

 

[Locut0s]

Eh, having fiddled with emulators, the idea of being able to play an old game again is more interesting then doing it

nostalgia wears off fast...but i guess you have a collectable now if you save it for another 50 years

Yeah it's more about the collecting and owning than anything. I agree just use an emulator if you want to play.

But then that's the same with any collection hobby.

 

[Newbian]

Now port the mariocart 64 online somehow and lets play.

 

[Locut0s]

Now port the mariocart 64 online somehow and lets play.

It can be done with the right emulator and setup.

 

[Locut0s]

Grand Theft Auto IV and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures for $1.99 each. PC DVD, looks like they have all the manuals and everything they came with originally.

Not worth it right?

 

[CZroe]

Now port the mariocart 64 online somehow and lets play.

Mario Kart.

If you don't know that much, you aren't worth my time.

It can be done with the right emulator and setup.

Not really. The only reason SNES emulators work as well as they do is because they use time-stamped save states and it "rewinds" emulation to apply their actions and "fast forwards" it to re-apply your time-stamped inputs. N64 has too much memory to reliably do it this way. The methoids I've seen are just input transmission and it gets out of sync and does not really work.

 

[clamum]

I used to go with a friend or two to Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul stores, mainly to get clothes. I've gotten quite a few nice sweaters for like a buck a piece over the years, and a few pairs of cheap pants.

This thread makes me want to check out Goodwill soon; haven't been there in a loooong time.

 

[Newbian]

It can be done with the right emulator and setup.

Talking about the n64 version as it's fun with their controllers and this way I can hook it up to the tv easy.

Mario Kart.

If you don't know that much, you aren't worth my time.

I don't think you seen the joke about it but it's a engrish fail one.

Although the mario kwart one was good to.

 

[Locut0s]

Talking about the n64 version as it's fun with their controllers and this way I can hook it up to the tv easy.

It's not hard to hook up N64 controllers to your PC and use those with the emulator.

 

[Newbian]

It's not hard to hook up N64 controllers to your PC and use those with the emulator.

Not as easy as plugging in the n64 again and loading the game.

 

[Locut0s]

Not as easy as plugging in the n64 again and loading the game.

 

[Ichinisan]

It's not hard to hook up N64 controllers to your PC and use those with the emulator.

Actually, Mario Kart 64 is one game that shows how inadequate emulators are.

On my old N64, one of the nicer-looking unlicensed controllers I tried was called "The Rock." I noticed that it allowed a range of motion that was slightly higher than a real N64 controller. In Blast Corps, pushing the stick all the way would cause your character to do a backward moonwalk if you were in a walking vehicle or on foot. You could duplicate it with a regular controller by deliberately messing-up the calibration (centering). In Mario Kart 64, that controller would cause random spin-outs while driving. You would suddenly hear a sound like you ran over a banana peel. You can even cancel it before spinning out by tapping the brake (just like a banana peel).

I noticed that emulators ALL allow you to over-steer and they ALL have this problem in Mario Kart 64. Even Nintendo's own emulated versions (Wii Virtual Console) do it.

In Zelda, you can rotate the stick 360 degrees and press B to slash your sword. This would do a quick spin attack that doesn't use magic. It's much harder to perform the move on any emulated version.

There used to be a solution: The N64 Adaptoid. You had to install the optional driver to get the direct-access API, then use an emulator that supported an Adaptoid input plug-in. This also allowed you to use a real, physical Memory Pak, Rumble Pak, 64GB Pak, Microphone Pak, etc.

Unfortunately, the driver was never updated for 64 bit and I'm not even sure if it worked with XP.


I believe this problem should actually affect all emulated platforms. If you use an adapter with a console controller, there's a mathematical algorithm that converts the circular axis to a square axis, losing some precision in the process. Then, the emulator converts a square axis back to a circle axis and even more precision is lost.

I really believe we need drivers with direct-access APIs for ALL console adapters, but I've never seen another one that did it.

 

[0roo0roo]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...hz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator.ars
yerp.

not that i care that much, mario 64 worked well enough for the levels i played and i didn't really care to much further.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

That's a good find, however I think I made out better today. I found a complete in box copy of Mega Man(the first one) for 5 bucks

That's a very nice find, particularly with the original box. The box can double or triple the value of it, depending on its condition.

 

[Ichinisan]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...hz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator.ars
yerp.

not that i care that much, mario 64 worked well enough for the levels i played and i didn't really care to much further.

Even in that most basic N64 game, there's an effect when teleporting or using the vanish cap. It's generated by GPU microcode (something like shaders), which emulators didn't even try to approximate until recently.

Other games used similar GPU microcode effects that aren't properly emulated.

 

[boomhower]

Never really found anything of real value for cheap at them. I have built a pretty darn good collection of books for next to nothing. My wife knows the authors I like and those that are popular in the general population(Koontz, Grisham, etc.) I have collected complete collections for pennies on the dollar.

 

[Locut0s]

Was in a BIG Salvation Army today and took some pics. Nothing looked interesting there but there was lots of junk so I imagine if you went often enough you could find stuff here. When they brought new stuff and unloaded it onto these tables everyone gathered round like they were giving out food at a concentration camp.

 

[midwestfisherman]

I picked up this Fender Nashville Power Telecaster from a church rummage sale 2 years ago for $50. It was dusty, has a small chip in the paint, and the wiring was pulled out. Took 20 minutes to polish it, re-soldier the wires back to the knobs, and restring it.

It's a very unique guitar because it has active pickups (powered with a 9V battery), a Stratocaster pickup in the middle, and an acoustic piezo pickup in the bridge. I recorded a blues track with it sometime back playing slide at first, then around 2:00 I switched to the Strat pickup:

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_4295653

That is an awesome find!

 

[Locut0s]

That is an awesome find!

Indeed. :thumbsup: