Random photos of stations I have visited

[kuro68000]

8 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

I can see Mojo san is a true 'Hard Off' fan! Nice ride on the Nanbu sen!

 

It's such good fun to visit them and dig through the junk sections. You never know what you are going to find, and there's always something in every shop.

 

 

8 hours ago, miyakoji said:

Nice pics @mojo.  What do you use to take them?  Apologies if I missed it in the posts.  The low light pictures look very good.  Soka Station looks like it could use a bit of a scrub.

 

I remember first seeing a Hard Off store in Yotsukaido, Chiba.  "No way," I thought.  Yes way.

 

 

Google Pixel 7 Pro. The camera is unrivalled on smartphones. The night vision is almost too good, a lot of those scenes are actually darker in reality!

 

 

 

7 hours ago, marknewton said:

Mojo,

 

I'm at home, in bed, sick as the proverbial dog, but reading this thread and admiring your photos has made me feel a lot better. Thanks for sharing them with us.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

 

Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad I could help.

 

 

5 hours ago, Kamome said:

I figured they were all the same group, but interesting to know. I’m quite a fan of Book Off as they have such a lot of weird and wonderful stuff in the non book sections.

 

And the road to yet more madness opens before me... I'll do a few Book Offs when the opportunity arises. They are even worse than Hard Off for getting lost sifting through things in there. I'm trying to find a Tron laserdisc, I think Book Off have those sometimes...

 

I realized I'm forgetting to post locations on most of these, I'll try to improve.

[kuro68000]

Did so much walking today... Feet are really painful. Forgot to take anti-inflamatories.

 

Anyway, some really good Hard Offs today. I realised I've not been posting the locations of these photos, so I'll try to remember to do that.

 

 

Most branches have this kind if sign up.

[kuro68000]

 

 

Koenji

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Koenji station

[kuro68000]

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Near Tama

[kuro68000]

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Wish I had bought this now. Might have to go back...

[kuro68000]

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How we had to program PROMs back in the day...

[kuro68000]

 

I would have bagged the radiometer, but it didn't appear to have the sensor with it. The timer is for recording stuff off the radio. You plug your tuner/tape recorder into an electrical outlet on the back, and it turns them on at a pre-set time.

Edited December 16, 2022 by mojo

[kuro68000]

 

The Captain Scarlet of laptops.

[kuro68000]

 

I really want a PC9801. There were a lot of interesting games for them. They are not exactly portable though. Might try a Yahoo Auction because then someone else will pack it and hopefully all I have to do is lug it to the post office.

 

If you aren't familiar, the PC9801 line is similar to IBM PCs, basically what all modern computers (except Macs) are. They ran DOS/V initially, which is kinda like MS-DOS but with Japanese language support. The hardware is similar to western machines, same Intel CPUs or compatibles, but the graphics and sound are different (better) and so is the way memory is arranged. Some MS-DOS software worked okay on them. Later models could run Windows.

Edited December 16, 2022 by mojo

[kuro68000]

 

Two more things I really wanted to buy. The luggable PC was listed as broken, most likely fixable. Those early "portables" had CRTs and so weighed a ton, and I believe that one runs some custom NEC software. If only...

 

The Epson dual floppy drive is for an Epson computer. It's a bit like the old Commodore floppy drives, in that it's actually its own little self contained computer. The computer it connected to had a max of 32kb RAM AFAIK, while this thing had 64kb internally. Imagine your floppy drive having more RAM than your computer.

 

I need to find a bare 5.25" drive...

[kuro68000]

 

Some high end calculators. I'm looking for a good one to get, but really want one of the computer type ones rather than the calculator type ones. The more computer like ones were apparently sold under the Tandy brand in the US.

[kuro68000]

 

Walkmen and MD players are in demand again... Lots of spare vacuum tubes too.