My First Letter to Bob Fabris of the Arcadian (Circa 1994!) By Adam Trionfo: (April 13, 2006) While sorting through the small amount of paperwork that Bob Fabris sent to me along with the Arcadian mailing list (about a year ago) I found the very first letter that I sent to him. It's rather an amusing read, and what makes it really neat (for me) is that I wrote it twelve years ago! Here's the re-typed letter (with some comments about it afterward): 775 Garnet Drive, NE Rio Rancho, NM 87124 August 4, 1994 Robert Fabris 3626 Morrie Drive San Jose, CA 95127-9990 Dear Robert, Enclosed is the second issue of my newsletter, Orphaned Computers & Systems. I hope you enjoy it. You may be wondering why I sent you this issue. I was reading THE ARCADIAN, which I obtained from Richard Houser. It is an excellent newsletter! It was I who was visiting Mr. Houser when he called you a few months ago. I was surprised you were still in the same place! I would like to know if you would be willing to write an occasional article, dealing with anything Astrocade, just it shouldn't be too technical. (Although, I would love to read anything technical about the Astrocade, it just doesn't fit what my newsletter's primary audience is.) If you are interested, please let me know. Call me at 505-896-0241. By the way. In THE ARCADIAN I learned that there was once a user group here in Albuquerque. I wrote to the fourteen year old address and the man called me! We plan to get together soon. He has a Z-Grass that I am just dying to see! Blast from the past, groovy! I would like to thank you for putting together the Arcadian. It is an excellent resource for us classic computer users. You probably weren't thinking then that people now would be getting very great use from your ARCADIAN, now considered an invaluable reference guide! Sincerely, Adam Trionfo Comments about the Letter: 1) My return address is my MOTHER'S house! I didn't actually still live there at the time, but I used her address as a permanent return address (I was ALWAYS moving). 2) My original three Orphaned Computers and Game Systems newsletters were created before I did nine more with Chris Federico. You can read volume two, here: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Server/2990/ The original three issues are not online (those issues were a cut & paste affair). 3) Five years after this letter was written Richard Houser moved and gave me his Astrocade collection, which is what gave the push that got Bally Alley started (originally it was going to be a paper newsletter much like OC&GS). I did make one issue of the paper newsletter in June 2000. You can read that here: http://www.ballyalley.com/ballyalley/newsletter/bally_alley_2000_june_vol_1_iss ue_1.pdf 4) I did get together with the person who, I thought, had an Astrocade user group in Albuquerque (it never got off of the group). He didn't have a Z-GRASS keyboard: it was the Blue Ram and the keyboard expansion that he had (which is how I acquired mine). 5) Eight years after I wrote this letter all of the issues of The Arcadian were finally online (plus SO much more) at www.ballyalley.com. Isn't it funny where one little thread in your life can lead you? This letter isn't the start of Ballyalley.com (which was created six years later), but it WAS a step on that ladder. I suppose the FIRST step was picking up my first Astrocade at a flea market not long before this letter was written. My second step was discovering that the Atari User Group (in which I was a member) had Richard Houser as president. Someone pointed out to me that they thought he knew a little about this Bally game system that I had just purchased at the flea market. Mr. Houser and I talked, got together at his home one weekend and he showed me ALL of his Astrocade stuff (including all of the Sourcebooks that he published). This, in a nutshell, is how Ballyalley.com got started. Since this letter is the only tangible evidence of those dark, ignorant, early days, it is important to me. End of Document