cumbac              Central and Upper Midwest Bally / Astrovision Club
                    2206 West 21st Street
                    Minneapolis, Minnesota 55405

THE SKY IS FALLING
    THE SKY IS FALLING
        THE SKY IS FALLING
            THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES
                ABANDON SHIP - WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
                    ROLL UP YOUR PANTS, IT'S TOO LATE TO SAVE YOUR SHOES
                    ...AND OTHER TIMELY TOCSINS

December 9, 1982

Dear Arcade Fanatic:

The enclosed half-page advertisement was xeroxed from today's Minneapolis Star 
and Tribune. The nationally-known firm of C.O.M.B. (Close-Out Merchandise 
Buyers), well-known advertisers in Popular Mechanics and other such hardware 
jock mags, has acquired a 1.2 million dollar stash of 1982, fresh-in-the-box, 
Astrocades. Figuring a street value of $240 bucks apiece (AstroBasic not 
included), this adds up to an inventory of 5000 machines. And they are for 
real...I drove over to C.O.M.B. and checked them out myself. The price: 98 
bucks apiece! Now, you and I both know that is well below dealer cost, and 
damned close to what it cost Astrocade to market the things. And who would have 
a stock of 5000 of them just lying around? Most dealers I know talk in terms of 
dozens... never thousands. The only clue we are given is that they were 
acquired from "...a financially troubled East Coast distributor...". Don't 
forget that C.O.M.B. is making a few bucks on this deal themselves; they didn't 
buy them for anything near the 98 dollars each that they are selling them for. 
Somebody took a bath somewhere... we can smell the soap all the way up here in 
Cold Country.

I am sending this note to you for several reasons. First, you are one of the 
key people in the Arcade underground and can be trusted to either spread the 
word like wildfire or figure out a way to cash in on this action yourself; I 
don't care which. Frankly, I am merely the bearer of the news and don't want to 
get caught up as a middleman again the way I did two years ago when Montgomery 
Wards closed out all their cartridges at $9.00 apiece. I'll run interference 
for anyone who needs help, since C.O.M.B. is a Minneapolis firm, but I won't 
put up any front money this time or crate up units and run back and forth 
between UPS and C.O.M.B. As I understand, they do a brisk mail-order business, 
take all major charge cards, and the telephone area code is 612. You can 
probably work out your own arrangements.

The second reason is that I'd like to see these 98 dollar 'Cades get nice homes 
where they will be loved and properly cared for.

The third reason is that I would like to hear from someone with East Coast 
connections who can tell me who bellied up and gave away a million bucks worth 
of Astrocade hardware. Where did they come from? Somebody died, that's for 
sure.

As for the $19.95 cartridges, they've got cases and cases of 'em, but not all 
titles. The ones I know of for certain are:

Tornado Baseball/Hockey/etc.
Demo Derby/Grand Prix
Biorythmns
Dogpatch
Red Baron/Panzer Attack
Brickyard/Clowns
Galactic Invasion
Space Fortress
Astro Battle (Space Invaders)
That dippy Star Wars down-the-trench thing
...and about six other old titles.

No, they don't have The Incredible Wizard, or anything newer than Space 
Fortress.

Well, read the ad and do your thing. I've done my job and you can't say you 
didn't know about it. Good luck, you Arcade nuts, and I hope somebody is 
happier about this than the guy on the East Coast that lost his pants. (5000 
units...that's got to be, like, Sears or Montgomery Wards. Nobody stocks 5000 
Astrocades. Nobody stocks 5 Astrocades that I know of.)

Oh, yes, my now-famous closing line: Sounds like the end to me. But I've been 
saying that for four years now. Who the hell is Nitron, anyway?

Your pal,
Craig J. Anderson