Today, just to get out of the house, we set a budget of $15 and let ourselves go out to the rummage sales. We’ve got a houseful of stuff (it’s about time for a rummage sale of our own), so we’re trying to limit how much we bring in, which means tinier budgets. We can’t risk not going out, lest we miss out on something cool.

Pickings were mostly slim for sales; we drove around a bit looking for signs and ended up at a rather sparse sale. It didn’t have a lot of clothes or kid’s toys, which is usually a good sign, so we stopped. There wasn’t too much, but the guy did have a bunch of old video games for sale. I passed on the Super Nintendo cartridges and dug through his bin of old Atari cartridges. Oh, not all the cartridges were in the bin — he had pulled out the ‘rare’ cartridges, stuff he had looked up and was worth something, and priced those separately. The bin was the bottom of the barrel: stuff that’s not worth much, and not even the gamer wants to keep it. Wifey found a Q*Bert cartridge that she wanted just for the label, but it was rather water-damaged so she passed. Two of the cartridges that I picked up had their labels completely fall off upon being touched. The guy was asking a dollar a cartridge.

I did find two worth buying though:

M*A*S*H — In 1983, Fox Video Games, Inc was one of the early 3rd-party video game programmers. Atari did their best to prevent other companies from producing cartridges for their ubiquitous 2600 console, but in 1983 they relented and, in exchange for royalties, licensed programmers the ability to write new games. The gaming division of 20th Century Fox (making them also one of the first media-offshoot game developers) adapted various Fox properties, such as Flash Gordon, Alien, and — of all things — Porky’s, along with an Atari version of their hit TV show M*A*S*H. The TV series ended in early 1983, which meant the game was released post-finale, but the game relies little on the series itself aside from setting. The videogame, according to atariguide.com, has two parts — the first uses the same sort of gameplay as many generic Atari titles: piloting a helicopter, you pick up injured soldiers or parachuting doctors(!) while avoiding being shot down. Between levels, however, sounds interesting: as a surgeon, you use the joystick to ‘remove’ shrapnel from soldiers, a’la Operation. The “soldier,” understandably looks displeased with the foreign materials inside his body, but the huge passageways through his body make removal relatively easy. The game itself isn’t particularly common, but low demand results in cheap prices. I found a few on eBay for a couple dollars, little more than I paid.

E.T.: The Extraterrestrial — If you know anything about this game, you’d buy every single one you see, too. This is actually the third copy of E.T. I’ve owned: the first copy had its original box and instructions, so it went pretty quickly on eBay for a pretty penny; I’ve still got another cartridge in the basement. Despite already having one, there was no way I was going to leave one in the dollar bin at a water-damaged rummage sale. In 1981, Atari was the king of home videogames, and they had no intention of giving up that spot; arguably, their hubris would catch up with them. They spent a bunch of money advertising two big-name games for 1982: Pac-Man and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. They had millions of each title produced, expecting enormous consumer response. Pac-Man has a reputation of being a very poor version, but today it has a nostalgia quality to it, given the frequency I hear the Atari Pac-Man sound effects used on TV. E.T., however, was an enormous flop. Like I said, the first copy I owned had its instructions included, so in interest of testing the equipment, I popped the cartridge in my 2600 and tried to play it. Oh, my lord, it was unbelievably bad. There was really no indication of where you were going, or even what your character was doing, aside from falling into holes, and there wasn’t really any way to tell whether you were in a hole or not. Gamers all over passed on buying E.T., resulting in millions of unsold cartridges in Atari’s warehouses. Atari couldn’t get rid of them at any price, so every cartridge Atari still held was loaded into a truck and driven to Alamagordo, New Mexico. When the remaindered games arrived at the Alamogordo landfill, they were crushed, buried, and a slab of concrete was poured over them to prevent anything from being stolen or salvaged. Seeing that I’ve owned three in the past decade, the scale of the returns isn’t as excessive as one might expect; there could still be hundreds of thousands of these available, even if 5 million still went unsold. Ebay has nearly a hundred of them listed for sale right now, but even if it’s not as rare as the legend might indicate, I think it’s worth a buck to carry some of Atari’s hubris around in my back pocket once in a while. Maybe I’ll even get to play it again someday.

Oh, didn’t I mention that? I sold my Atari a couple years ago — once upon a time, they were a dime a dozen at rummage sales, so I always turned around and sold them once I had my fun. After a point, they ran out, probably because I was buying them all and shipping them off to California eBayers. I guess, if the intent of going rummaging with a budget was to stop us from bringing home useless stuff, the plan failed miserably. Oh, well; I never thought I’d run across a bin of dollar 2600 games, so I may find another 2600 any day now.

In the dark days before everyone had a personal Nintendo system, my sister and I would cautiously venture up to my uncle’s room and ask to use the Atari for a little while. Sure, it involved sitting on bedsheets that smelled strangely of pizza and averting our eyes from his poster depicting barely-bikini’d female butts, but it was usually worth it for a few minutes of grossly pixelated fun. I distinctly recall watching him play a desert combat game of some sort, and describing to me the very intimate and grotesque details of what mustard gas was and could do to a human body, and subsequently not being able to shake the imagined sensation of it for years, or eat mustard without imagining my insides blistering up. He always was a ray of sunshine. Creepy, creepy sunshine.

Between the E.T.s and Adventures and Combat Tanks, there was Swordquest, perhaps the most unexplainable, bizarre game of them all. It was all a maze of pushing flashing pixels through walls of other pixels, picking up objects and seeing numbers flash on the screen upon your success. It made no sense to me, but being the nerd-o-mo-tron and mathelete that I was, I was determined to break its code. It wasn’t until recently that I learned that the game was essentially impossible without the clues from a mini-comic that came with it. Given the state of the room where the Atari was located, instruction manuals had surely all been used as coasters or rolled up to smoke illicit substances from. How was I supposed to know that these games were based on the mathematics of the kabbalah and spiritual chakras? My Rubik’s cube still sneers at me from the corner of my desk to this very day, mismatched faces reminding me of my intellectual failures.

Swordquest was, in actuality, a series of Atari games that presented the players with a real-world puzzle to solve, with combined prizes of $150,000 for the top brain-heads. Beginning with Earthworld, and moving through Fire, Water and Airworlds, players were to find the clues at home, and then compete at an Atari gathering to determine who would take home the fabulous prizes, since all a nerd really wants is a chunk of white jade with a million precious gems embedded in it like so many olives in a delicious olive loaf. An olive loaf of pure decadence.

Unfortunately, only three of these games were made, and only two of the five amazing prizes were given away. It is very likely that they comprise the most absurdly decadent video game memorabilia ever created.

Among the five prizes were The Talisman of Penultimate Truth (made of gold and spattered with zodialogical birthstones), The Chalice of Light (made of platinum and similarly jewel-spewed), The Crown of Life and The Philosopher’s Stone, also comparably gaudy and impractical. All of these were estimated to be worth $25,000 each. The grand prize winner would take home a $50,000 Sword, which is a prize much more fitting to a geek with dreams of slaying orcs and rescuing fair maidens. Of these items, only the first two were given away, and The Talisman was quickly melted down for its raw materials and used to pay for an education. It stands to reason that if you’re going to destroy one of the finest artifacts from video game mythology, no education is going to help you anyhow. Let’s steal the hands off of Jack Kirby’s corpse while we’re at it. C’mon, it’ll help me pay my way through beautician school.

At this point in 1984, Atari was sold and the Swordquest contest was called off, with very large sums of money given to competitors who had made it that far as consolation prizes. It is rumored that former Atari CEO Jack Tramiel retains the three remaining items. If he does, I hope that he has them hanging on a wall next to mounted heads of endangered animals, and maybe animals that he just created on a whim. Sometimes, a cadre of highly-trained eels dusts this study and sings six-part harmony to him while he sips brandy from the skull of Ghost Rider. At least that’s how I like to picture it. Such objects deserve no less. The Chalice remains in the safe deposit box of its winner.

While Earthworld and Fireworld Atari carts are relatively easy to find, Waterworld is valued at roughly $60 to $75 due to its scarcity and lower production numbers, given that Atari knew that such lavish contests couldn’t be continued, and beyond that there was really no point in playing the game. Unless, of course, you enjoy navigating a digital tree of life with a fidgety pixel and figuring out which room to drop the rope in.

I think I’ll stick to Tetris, which is its own reward.

Here’s a phone call I recieve at least once a summer:

“Hi, Derek: I’m at this rummage sale, and they’ve got this computer thing, I think it’s a video game…The guy has ‘make an offer’ on it, and says they’re collectible. What do you think it is worth?”

Collectors of all sorts tend to hate these calls. Expertise in any field will lead to tough-to-answer questions: “It says ‘California’ on the bottom,” isn’t necessarily enough to identify a $500 pottery piece from a $5 one, and neither is the maker enough to identify the value of a computer. Adding to the confusion are people who think, just because it’s old or because someone mentioned one on TV, that it deserves a $50 pricetag. Still, I’ve gotten pretty good at getting close. No collector wants to buy something for $50, then find them for $5 on eBay, and collectible dealers don’t want to lose money on buying an expensive machine that has no resale value. Here’s my methodology for evaluating computers, both for collecting or for reselling:

1. Does it have extras with it? Whether a video game or a computer, you want to make sure it’s well accessorized. The TV videogames invariably have controllers, a plug-in, and a cord to connect it to a TV. A computer should have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, possibly a printer, scanner, modem, or other useful parts. The more parts, the more likely the machine will have everything available to make it usable.
2. Are there games/software? Modern computers don’t necessarily need to have disks along in order to test it, but it’s essential that a video console have at least one game. If the computer seems to have panels missing, exposing empty internal spaces, it may not have any software left.
3. Complete game consoles almost always have a buyer. Video gamers aren’t always looking for rarity: they simply want to play games. Nintendos and Segas, which were manufactured by the millions for a number of years, can often be bought at a rummage sale for a few dollars, and on the a collector may pay $10-$20 for it. A well-tested machine, with good controllers and everything to start playing immediately, will go higher. Due to the large number available, however, don’t expect to make hundreds off it. This even goes for older consoles like the Atari 2600 — so many exist that there’s not a rarity demand, so prices tend to stay low.
4. If it’s pre-1990s, and you don’t remember seeing a commercial for it, it’s probably valuable. Even bigger manufacturers, like Atari and Commodore, made computers and gaming systems that fell flat, didn’t sell well, and were quickly discontinued. If you’re surprised by an odd PC with the Atari logos all over, or a strange little computer with the Commodore logo on it, someone’s probably looking for it to complete their collection.
5. PCs have little to no value. This one is a little tough to gauge, because pre-1990s Amigas, Commodores, and Ataris can be quite valuable, while the Macs and PCs only have minimal value to tinkerers and repair shops for parts. The IBM-compatibles are the worst, because most are assembled from off-the-shelf parts and have no inherent rarity. 1985-1990 is a nebulous time for computers, when standardization of hardware was occuring, so fewer of the unique machines were being made. Collectors prefer machines made by individual manufacturers from original parts, not ‘clone’ machines from various makers.
6. Apples and “Classic Macs” have moderate value. Any pre-Mac Apple computer has collectible value, and the early all-in-one “Classic Macs” have a following. All fit into the nostalgia-collecting realm, where many adults today had one of these computers either at home or in school. The later the model, the less rare it is, but $20 for a “Classic Mac” isn’t an unreasonable appraisal, and older Apples (in working condition, with accessories) can be worth $100 or more.
7. $20 is the most to spend on an untested complete machine; $5 for an incomplete machine. Untested complete systems still have valuable components: power supplies, controllers, disk drives, software. Fragmented systems, such as one missing a controller or power supply, still have moderate value to people willing to take a risk on an untested piece just to get their system back up and running. If it’s a common machine, like a Nintendo or Classic Mac, you can’t expect it to be worth more than $20 in complete working condition, so no matter how clean or in nice shape it is an untested machine is still untested.
8. Anyone asking more than $10 at a rummage sale better have a good explanation why. If not, they really don’t know what it is, and cannot reliably tell you if the thing even works. The best question to ask is, “does this thing work?” with a confused look on your face. Really, it’s the best way to get an honest answer: someone in-the-know will have a long description of what the machine is and does, and a shrug or an “I don’t know” isn’t good enough.

#7 is probably the most important of the guidelines. If you’re interested enough in an old computer or video game console to consider its value, it must mean you want to play with it for a little while (don’t deny it!), and $10 is definitely cheap enough for an afternoon of entertainment. Following the rest of the rules will ensure it’s useable and entertainingly unique, and you’ll be less likely to be disappointed. Once you’ve gotten your Commodore or Atari, you can start watching rummage sales for new games, other accessories, or just know a little more about the systems next time you run across them. Vintage computers can be a lot of fun for tech-minded collectors; just make sure you don’t waste your money, and try not to call me every time you see something with cords attached to it.

Tetris, for me, is a way of life. It’s one of those yardsticks by which intellect, time and the value of one’s secret worth in the world are measured. Being a Tetris master is like being a ninja, except made of squares. Brightly colored squares. It’s like being one of those freak-brained guys who can solve the Rubik’s Cube in 14 seconds, yet still cannot manage to brush their hair in the morning. It’s a little sexy, it’s completely impractical, but it’s somehow deeply rewarding, even if you can’t quantify it.

It’s an intimate, fast-paced digital game. As you play, (alone, against a computer or against a human opponent), you lay your intellect bare. You say ‘These are my naked analytical skills - how do they compare to yours? Please ignore my various moles.’ And all for the love of fitting blocks into rows and not leaving any little gaps behind. Tetris brought on a wave of puzzle-solving based videogaming that hasn’t faded away since.

Tetris existed well before it arrived on the original Nintendo Entertainment System, having been created by Russian native Alexey Pazhitnov in 1985. In 1989, after countless legal battles between Nintendo and Atari for the rights to distribute Tetris : The Soviet Mind Game, Nintendo released the game for both the new Game Boy and the NES at around the same time, in a move that can only be described as ‘stealing my soul forever’. Not long after the release of Tetris, the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended. There is no coincidence in this. The US lifted its ban on nesting dolls and those tall, furry hats, and all was right with the world.

Perhaps the exotic appearance was some of the allure of Tetris. Nevermind that Nintendo was directly a product of Japan - any of the games that were brought over were highly Americanized. Nintendo never even released the second volume of Super Mario Brothers over here in the states, deeming it ‘too difficult’ for us to handle. Russia, however, was forbidden, and Tetris game didn’t bother hiding its Russian roots, neither in music or the strangely domed buildings in the title scenes. Did turnips give the Russians super powers? Did they really eat a black bear every morning for breakfast? Could you honestly import their wives? And would Tetris hold the answer?

I got my Game Boy in the early 1990s. Being from a single-parent family, getting a video game system was a really big deal, given the expense of it, so I valued these rare and precious things immensely. Part of this process of appreciation was playing Tetris and Super Mario World until my thumbs fell off and to the exclusion of eating and sunlight, all for months on end. I could bring the Game Boy anywhere (despite the early Game Boys being as large as a forearm and running on four quickly-depleted AA batteries), but the NES version of Tetris had more vibrant music and fancy little scenes with folk dancers if you did a really good job. I still oft think that life would be nicer if a small troupe of Russian folk dancers appeared and did a little jig every time I did something positive.

This love of Tetris did not end there, but by 1990, America was so taken by this new experience of Tetris that Nintendo decided to capitalize on the puzzle gaming genre and released Dr. Mario, as ‘the cure for Tetris’, a game in which one must match colored pills with viruses to eliminate them. This caught on with almost as much fever as Tetris, and I quickly borrowed both Game Boy and NES versions from my neighborhood friends. The Game Trade was powerful in those days. A copy of Super Mario Brothers 3 could often be bartered for all three Mega Man games and The Adventures of Bayou Billy. Puzzle games were given to kids by oblivious aunts who followed the recommendations of oblivious toy store employees, but I was still pretty stuck on Tetris, even with the strange appeal of Low G Man and silent, monotonous vistas of Xenophobe.

My attic holds a copy of the original Tetris board game. The mechanics of the game relied upon players blindly reaching into a box of pieces and presumably NOT trying to feel or peek out the right piece to fit into the empty spaces on their board, which is something that you simply can’t trust a little sister to do. The pieces didn’t get played with so much as ‘whipped at high velocity across the room at eye level’. Still, many survive and have made a grudging peace accord with my retinas.

Nintendo followed up Tetris with other variations of Tetris, while other gaming companies created clones of the game with small changes in game mechanics, looking to capitalize on the popularity of puzzling, but things faded. Hatris was confusing and fairly unrewarding, and Tetris 2 tried to improve on an already perfect formula. Bomb blocks were added and game physics were tweaked. The short-lived and migraine-inducing Virtual Boy introduced Tetris 3D. Tetrisphere for Nintendo 64 was a valiant effort, but system after system, original Tetris always won out. Wordtris never seemed to give you enough vowels, and often had creepy Russian circus photographs as backdrops. And Tetris Worlds for the Game Boy Advance? Don’t even waste your time. It feels like playing with your favorite pet, except your favorite pet is suddenly made entirely of hot dogs. You want to love it, but all of your 5 senses are being assaulted with WRONG.

Still, I’ve made it a point to try my hand at as many of these variations as possible; even online, Flash-based versions, such as this one. As of this month, Tetris has found new life in the form of Tetris DS, a cart for the revolutionary Nintendo DS handheld system. Please stay tuned for part two of my Tetris obsession, when it’ll become even more clear why I don’t socialize that often.