Slashdot Mirror

Long-time Slashdot reader Mike Bouma shared Eurogamer's report about a rare Amiga 3000 auctioned on eBay: Mike Clarke, who worked at legendary UK game company Psygnosis from 1992 to 1999 doing audio work, rescued this particular Amiga 3000 from destruction after it had been placed down in a corridor, ready to be thrown out. Over 20 years later, Clarke is selling it on eBay... According to Clarke, this Amiga 3000 was first used by artist Jeff Bramfitt, who scratched his initials in the top of the case in pen "just in case someone took it off his desk".

Bramfitt used the machine to work on the title screens for Carthage, Infestation, Shadow of the Beast 2 and more classic Amiga games, but its headline claim to fame is it was used to create the original Amiga Lemmings intro and logo. Lemmings, which came out for the Amiga in 1991, was developed by DMA Design (now Rockstar North) and published by Psygnosis before the latter was bought by Sony. Later, it was used for Microcosm (3DO, Mega-CD), Scavenger IV (aka Novastorm, Mega-CD, FM Towns), and unreleased games such as No Escape, a tie-in with the Ray Liotta film, aka Penal Colony for Mega-CD.

Files for all of these games and more remain on this Amiga 3000's hard drive. "I think the above games were all in 1993, which was a very busy year because we got bought by Sony and alongside working on games by third-party developers, Sony pushed all of these film licenses onto us and gave us almost no time to make them," Clarke said. This Amiga 3000 is not without its problems, however. The floppy drive doesn't work anymore and the hard drive is "temperamental", which means you might have issues booting the thing up.
After 16 bids, the Amiga sold for £1,850 -- about $2,300 USD -- plus another £170 ($215 USD) for shipping.

"So much early gaming history has been lost mostly because, much like the BBC erasing Doctor Who tapes, nobody valued it when it was happening," Clarke tells Eurogamer. "I was the only person who saw the historical value in rescuing these machines and I also rescued over 800 development disks that were going to be binned at the time."

Penurious Penguin writes "Last year a Slashdot story mentioned the case of Daniel David Rigmaiden, or 'the Hacker.' With the help of an IMSI-catcher device, law enforcement had been able to locate and arrest the elusive 'Hacker,' leading to U.S. v. Rigmaiden. But far more elusive than the 'Hacker,' is the IMSI-catcher device itself — particularly the legalities governing its use. The secrecy and unconstitutionality of these Man In The Middle devices, i.e. 'stingrays,' has caught some attention. The EFF and ACLU have submitted an amicus brief in the Rigmaiden case; and EPIC, after filing an FOIA request in February and receiving a grossly redacted 67 out of 25,000 (6,000 classified) pages on the "stingray" devices, has now requested a district judge expedite disclosure of all documents. Some Judges also seem wary of the 'stingray,' having expressed concerns that their use violates the Fourth Amendment; and additionally, that information explaining how the technology is used remains too obscure. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of ISMI-catchers is their several-kilometer range. When a "stingray" is used to spoof a cellphone tower, thousands of innocent users may be collaterally involved. And while the government claims to delete all gathered data unrelated to the target, it also means no one else can know what that data really was. The government claims that because only attributes of calls — but not their content — are captured in the attack, search warrants aren't necessary." (More, below.) Penurious Penguin continues, "The use of a pen-register (outgoing) and trap & trace (incoming) device, requires little more than a mewl of penal curiosity before a court, and no warrant or follow-up on the case is needed. The pen/trap seems unwieldy enough, as the EFF explains:

"Most worrisome, we've heard some reports of the government using pen/trap taps to intercept content that should require a wiretap order: specifically, the content of SMS text messages, as well as "post-cut-through dialed digits" (digits you dial after your call is connected, like your banking PIN number, your prescription refill numbers, or your vote for American Idol). intercept information about your Internet communications as well."

Precisely what data these "stingrays" collect will hopefully be soon revealed through such efforts as those of EPIC. It should be noted that the Stingray is one of multiple devices with the same application. The Stingray and several others are trademarks of the Harris Corporation. Some are quite pricey ($75,000), and others are, as mentioned last year by a Slashdot reader, peculiarly affordable — and available. For a more comprehensive overview of the subject, see this Wall Street Journal article."

YokimaSun writes "Following on from Last months Mega auction of rare games that went for a staggering 1.2 Million dollars, comes another auction. This time its of the only Legend of Zelda Nes Prototype cartridge in the world, bundled with it is a sealed copy of the retail version of the game, those of you excited by this news will have to dig deep because the price is set at a mouthwatering US $150,000.00."

bmfs writes "A subwoofer so powerful it could loosen fillings, shake out the cholesterol from arteries and generally make a lot of noise. It seems that the Death Star, ignoring the weakness that ultimately lead to its complete destruction, was a pretty good design... so someone made his own (with a lot of help from a housemate). The Death Star Subwoofer is currently up for sale on Ebay."

Thanks to Blue's News for pointing to a Megatree Ltd. press release discussing the charity auctioning of the original development discs for Mega-Tree, the legendary, unfinished Commodore 64/Spectrum title that "was [to be] the third in a trilogy of games following 'Manic Miner' and 'Jet Set Willy'." The currently-in-progress Ebay auction, to benefit Cancer Research UK, has much more info and concept drawings of the game sometimes called Miner Willy Meets The Taxman by co-creator Matthew Smith, also noting that "The Atari hard disk containing more 'Mega-tree' graphics was 'lost' when it accidentally dropped off the back of Matthew's motorbike when he went through the Mersey tunnel."

BabyDave writes "BBC News reports that Eurotunnel are selling one of the 580-tonne Tunnel Boring Machines used to dig the Channel Tunnel on eBay, with proceeds going to charity. The auction closes on the 12th of April, and bidding currently stands at 1300 pounds. Anyone who's interested should note that the buyer must collect the item themselves, and returns will not be accepted."

dlesko writes "The historic Trojan Room coffee pot at The University of Cambridge has gone to the highest bidder on ebay for £3,350.00 (that's about $5,055.20 USD based on the currency rates as of 8/12/01). You can see the results for about 90days. Now they just have to hope that the person actually comes through with the dough..." A fitting end to a net.legend. If I could figure out where Arial, my old DEC Alpha Multia that was the original Slashdot, I would auction that off and give the cash to the EFF (minus shipping a cost of a case of beer ;) Dave? Rosie? Where did that thing go? I know it was finally retired as the SMTP server... I probably should get it back someday ;)