Ebay Auction Title: Video Gaming History, the Bally, VIPER Z-GRASS 2000 extremely rare hardware. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Video-Gaming-History-the-Bally-VIPER-Z-GRASS-2000-extremely-rare-hardware-/252094937115?hash=item3ab207781b This rare video gaming equipment is only for extremely serious collectors, these are not toys but a collection of one of a kind and unique gaming hardware from the period of the home arcade console revolution from the late 70's early 80's. It is actually new, not used, but I listed it as used because of wear & tear after 30+years in and out of storage. I built this machine myself as I did most of the boards in this one of a kind amazing collection. Although the Bally Home Computer/Arcade/Astrocade was not the most popular it was actually the best machine out there at the time. It had a System Bus and was capable of becoming a full blown graphics computer which was unheard of at the time. It ran with a Z-80 microprocessor from Zilog. Let me introduce myself, I am Ed Larkin, founder of Alternative Engineering in 1978, 2 friends of mine and I made up the company and we started off making memory and keyboard add-on's for the Bally Home Computer/Arcade under the company name Alternative Engineering. Our product line was called "VIPER" Systems (Video Image Processing Equipment Research). The 3 of us all worked at Digital Equipment Corporation and at that time DEC was the second biggest computer company in the world, second only to IBM. After successfully making and selling 16K Memory boards, power supplies and full sized Keyboard we heard rumors that the company that made the Graphics and Sound Chips for the Bally, Dave Nutting Associates (DNA) also had a special graphics based operating system they developed alongside the chips called Z-GRASS 32. The Z stood for Z80 microprocessor and GRASS "Graphics Symbiosis System" and the 32 referenced the size of the Operating System which was on 4, 8K Rom’s thus the 32. They were interested in licensing it to one of the 3rd parties making hardware for the Bally. At that time there was a cult like group of hardware people like us and others who were devoted to this amazing computer and how far we could go with it. We knew we had something very special that no other arcade machine on the market had. Several of the 3rd party companies were being considered for the implementation through hardware to produce the consumer version of this custom language but our hardware impressed them the most and flew out to Chicago and met with Dave Nutting Associates and were awarded the exclusive license for Z-GRASS. We had spent over $100,000 developing all our products and were out of money when we got the license. Then we were about to apply for a loan to start producing the VIPER Z-GRASS 2000 systems when the bottom of the video game industry fell out. We could not raise any money or get a business loan because we were asking for the money to build gaming machines and no one was giving any loans to anyone for gaming anything since everyone, everywhere knew that the home gaming console industry had just collapsed.. It was extremely frustrating letting down all the Bally/Astrocade hard core users. To this day it still bothers me when I think about how close we were to making history by releasing this incredibly ground breaking Z-GRASS 32 OS. This collection of historic hardware includes several one of a kind hand wired prototype Z-GRASS boards. I do not know if the VIPER Z-GRASS 2000 still functions as it has been in storage for 30 plus years and I don’t have a working Bally system to verify. My guess is that the power supply may not still be working but I don’t think that the circuitry would not still function so it might need a new power supply to work. I am not guaranteeing that it will because 30 years is a long time. They are still rare collectible boards and prototypes that any collector would be proud to have in his or her collection. This collection of development and finished boards are extremely rare and the prototype boards are the only ones in existence. I should know I built them myself and hand wired some of them. Please check my personal website for proof of who I say I am and that I am the owner of this rare historical gaming hardware collection. I am currently working on a custom Hybrid PC FPS gaming controller and will be starting a Kickstarter campaign for it in December. I am still involved in the gaming industry, I am also the inventor of the Mouse Bungee which I sold to Razer in 2010. www.edwardlarkin.com Items included in this sale: 1 VIPER Z-GRASS 2000 System. The consumer ready version of the device. 1 VIPER Z-GRASS 2000 Pre-Production System Board 1 VIPER Prototype E-Prom Burner 1 VIPER RS232 Prototype Communication Board 1 VIPER 16K Memory Board 1 VIPER Multi I/O Prototype Board 1 VIPER Z_GRASS Prototype Operating System Board 1 VIPER SYSTEMS Z-GRASS Oil Painting by Chuck Morse 2' x 3' 2 SETS of ZGRASS 32 Language ROMS, 1 in the POS Board and the other in the Z-GRASS 2000. Total 8 peices. Unfortunately I don’t have any VIPER 1 units but if you can find one online you could plug in all the VIPER boards to see if they still work which I think they will. Again you will also need a Bally Home Arcade/Computer/Astrocade unit. More information on our VIPER 1 Unit: http://www.ballyalley.com/documentation/viper/viper_1_and_extended_basic.pdf