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Got a PM from a local goon today, he had a pile of old computer stuff that he got from his in laws, and needed it gone. Here's a list of what I got: - Atari 800 XL with two floppy disk drives, tape drive and thermal printer, as well as a ton of games on cartridge, floppies and tape. - Commodore 64 (the later design, not the bread box) with an OG 1541 floppy drive and about 20 original games in boxes. - Amiga 2000 with about 6 mods on it, including being able to switch between different ROM versions and a weird external SCSI 21MB 3.5" magnetic optical floppy drive. And a gently caress load of games, including about 30 in original boxes and and bags and disk boxes full of magazine demo disks and pirated games. - Commodore 1084 monitor, but from the look of it I think it's faulty. The Atari and Amiga I offloaded to a friend, as he is a big Amiga fanatic and has been looking for an Atari computer for years, as the 8 bit Ataris weren't popular in Australia compared to the C64 and Apple ][. The Atari still works, managed to get it running at my friend's place on his old CRT TV
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Jul 30, 2017 09:35
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:49 |
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My friend fired up the A2000 today. The power supply went pop. He's got another A2000 at his home, he's going to check the power supply in his working one against the one I got on the weekend to see what's blown in it. Surprisingly the A1084 monitor works, even though we both thought it was going to blow up because the power switch on it was broken.
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Aug 1, 2017 12:43
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Got some C64 stuff today. And a bitter taste in my mouth as the dude has ripped me off pretty hard, as he left the original pricing on most of the items he sent me. Arsehole.
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Aug 10, 2017 10:27
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Got another small bundle of old Commodore/Atari stuff from a goon over the weekend. Included in the lot was some top quality Atari/Commodore joysticks, including the Australian made MultiCoin Amusements MCA-201, which is pretty well a 1980s Arcade joystick setup in a case. Such cool meaty microswitch goodness. Another joystick was the Suncom TAC 2, which is well loved in the community, and a Quickjoy TopShot joystick. The was also a Commodore tape drive and an Amiga external floppy drive. Got a kick in the balls from the Commodore stuff I got from Gumtree, the C64C power supply was missing its fuse and fuse holder, and even when I sourced a spare fuse it wouldn't work. I've purchased a new power supply from Retro Game Supply. Gave the 1541 and 1781 v2 floppy drives a clean out, as well as the pulling the keyboard out of one of the C64C (a really early version, had the motherboard used in transition from the bread bin to C64C design in it) and put that in the C64C I want to use (one of the later models that didn't have cooling issues). Also need to work out whether the C64 video cable I have will work with a normal TV or whether it needs to be used on a Commodore branded monitor.
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Aug 21, 2017 01:03
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Cool, my new C64 power supply (and a US SNES power adapter that will run on 240V) has been sent from France, hopefully get it some time this coming week.
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Sep 2, 2017 10:04
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Got the new Commodore 64 power supply in the mail today. Now all I need is the capacitor replacement kit to arrive.
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Sep 5, 2017 08:58
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Those are some awesome game art there. Sorry for the loss of your father in law.
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Sep 7, 2017 03:43
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d0s posted:link pls  I'd love to have a cheap accelerator for my A1200
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Sep 9, 2017 04:38
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Did some work on my C64 today, replaced all the capacitors with new ones Before:  After:  It's the first time I have replaced capacitors in an old computer, and seems to have worked, no smoke or loud bang when I put power to it. Sadly the RF cable I had wasn't the right size for the C64, and the only other video cable I have for it is for a Commodore 1084 monitor. Time to hit up the electronics stores next weekend
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Oct 1, 2017 12:41
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Got the C64 finally running on my CRT TV  Tape drive runs fine on it, was able to load Track & Field off it. However I can't get the 1541 or 1571 drives to work. The C64 will detect the 1541, but has trouble reading disks and errors out. The 1571 powers up, but the C64 won't detect it at all. I guess with the 1541 it's a head alignment issue or dirty head, but not sure with the 1571. Any ideas? EDIT: The 1571 issue was a DIP switch issue, it was set to Device 9, instead of the usual 8 that I'm used to. Sounds like death when it is trying to read a disk, so better give the heads a clean You Am I fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 02:20
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Me's main issue was drivers. Microsoft went to a new driver model in Win98SE, but still allowed the older Win 95/98 drivers to be used. However Me wanted drivers using the new model and a lot of hardware manufacturers hadn't factored that in. Cue tons of blue screens and instability until either manufacturers made newer drivers or people rolled back to 98SE. ---- Spent a part of Saturday working on my C64 at a friend's house. Seems the issue I was having with my 1541 and 1741 drives having read issues was due to a disk that a film of crud over it. Gonna have to clean the heads again on the drives. Sadly that same disk also clogged up the heads on my friends drive before we noticed that the issue was. The space bar still isn't working on it, got to pull the keyboard out and clean the contacts down on it. Also looking at purchasing one of these for my C64 - https://ultimate64.com/Ultimate-II__Cartridge_Set__Transparent_ It has TAP file support, which a lot of the other SD2IEC carts don't have compatibility with.
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Jan 30, 2018 02:46
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Seat Safety Switch posted:If you've been storing disks somewhere dampish you might also have fungus on the disk. Not sure if there's really a good fix for it with 5.25" floppies. I think the previous owner has been storing the equipment in his shed, so it wouldn't surprise me. The box the game was in was pretty battered (but no water damage). Going to check the other disks next weekend and see what their story is.
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Jan 30, 2018 03:32
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Hmm, should I get an Amiga 500 and mod the living gently caress out of it? There's one going for a reasonable price at the moment, including two very good joysticks with it and a pile of software
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Feb 21, 2018 03:49
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fishmech posted:No idea what mods you're thinking of, but most of the time you'd be better off jsut buying one of those little boxes that re-implements the system on FPGA. You'll spend a lot less than all the moddy bits.
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Feb 21, 2018 04:09
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Sort of a golden age for those upgrades. A Gotek USB floppy drive thing is like $20 and the TerribleFire accelerators are super cheap. I've already got an A1200 so might actually do something with that. Some British Amiga users feel the A600 is the better machine for earlier OCS software as there's better hardware support with the internal IDE connector and PCMCIA card slot as well as the newer Kickstart. I know some OCS software hates the A1200.
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Feb 22, 2018 01:43
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Ok, thanks for the info d0s!
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Feb 22, 2018 03:08
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Luigi Thirty posted:1040STF, 4MB Marpet solderless RAM upgrade, UltraSatan ACSI SD reader, NetUSBee NIC/USB host, Gotek running HxC firmware, TOM2 USB adapter, and I just got a Dell UltraSharp that supports 15KHz RGB. Pretty sweet system. It’s running NVDI 5, Geneva, and NeoDesk on Rainbow TOS. Pretty speedy in the desktop for an 8MHz system. Ataris are rare as hen's teeth in Australia (at least models other than 520ST). I'd love a 1040 (or Falcon, but doubt if I will ever find one in Australia), as I used to use one at high school for music notation and MIDI work
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Feb 25, 2018 05:52
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God I want a 1084/S monitor
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Feb 26, 2018 02:21
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I have done a silly thing. I have brought an Atari 1040STe that is the equivalent of the car that was parked in the backyard under a tree. Been in a garage for years with no cover on it. Will be fun restoring it.
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Mar 2, 2018 00:27
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So I kinda wanted an Atari ST. Of course the dream for most ST fans is the Falcon, but they are rare as hen's teeth and loving expensive. In a tiny market like Australia there is bugger all options, most of the Atari STs here are 520ST/F/FM/E models. I wanted at least a 1040ST. One of the fleabay sites someone was selling a 1040STF in what I'd call "was running when we parked it under a tree" car condition. It was cheap, it was a 1040STF, so how could I not say no? So got it in the mail during last week and had a peek at it yesterday and cracked it open. As you can see, it isn't in the best visual condition:   What's that in the floppy drive? Well it is a native Australian wasp nest. Australian wasps are pretty chilled insects compared to its arsehole European cousin, and love making tiny paper nests in strange locations, like in an Atari floppy drive. The wasps are long gone.    I don't think this Atari has ever been opened since new. All the screws are present and correct, including a tiny one near the mouse/joystick ports  Yep, more wasp nest, but was tiny. Not sure if anything could have lived there  Oh my. Surface rust on the power supply cover and floppy drive lid.  Fully opened up, RF shield, floppy drive and power supply out of the way. gently caress Atari for using twisted metal tabs within the construction of the ST. All the capacitors on motherboard and power supply are in good condition, none of them have bulged, popped or vented. All the chips are well seated in their sockets and there's no corrosion on the motherboard. Removed the tiny wasp nest out of the floppy disk drive. Over the next couple of weekends I'll remove the surface rust from the power supply cover and floppy drive lid, remove and clean all the keys, clean all the dust from the motherboard and wash the top and bottom parts of the case and eventually power it up. Can I use an Amiga mouse on this? Is it ok leaving the RF shield out of the machine or should I reinstall it?
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Mar 11, 2018 04:20
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Kthulhu5000 posted:If you don't have a mouse for it currently, I would suggest the following adapter: Ok, gonna need an extension cable because of the lovely location of the ST ports Luigi Thirty posted:You don’t need the RF shield but it makes a nice mounting bracket for hardware mods. It was covered but yeah you’ll need an adapter for an Amiga mouse. There are keyboard shortcuts you can use to move the mouse around in TOS if you’re a masochist though. I think it’s Alt+Arrow to move the mouse and Alt+Undo/Help for left and right click. I'll see for the mean time that I can borrow my friend's 520ST mouse, as I don't think he is using his unit at the moment.
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Mar 11, 2018 07:40
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Luigi Thirty posted:One of the classic mods I need to try sometime is wiring up a battery holder to the keyboard controller. For some reason in the ST and STE it has an RTC built-in but no battery backup. You can build a circuit that runs off three rechargeable AAA batteries and keeps the controller powered at all times... but they run down pretty fast. Nice, I haven't had too much of a look at ST mods outside of Goteks. I don't have any ST software on me, so going to hit up my friend who has a ton of retro systems to see if he has any spare ST stuff for me to try out.
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Mar 11, 2018 23:22
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I just love the style of the 1980s and early 90s "wedge" computers.
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Mar 12, 2018 09:14
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Maybe it was economic reasons, as Jedit said the Commodore drives were more expensive than the computer. Here in Australia the floppy disk ruled the C64 market here. Friends used to go through 1541-IIs like crazy. I never saw a C64 tape drive until the early 2000s.
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Mar 15, 2018 03:40
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Did some cleaning on my Atari over the weekend: Keyboard before:  Keyboard after:  Top case before: Top case after:  Also gave the motherboard a spray down with compressed air. This weekend will be focused on removing rust from the metal shields.
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Mar 20, 2018 02:43
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Yeah, the function keys look really good on the Atari. The computer itself I think is a better design than the Amiga 500/600/1200, especially with the internal power supply and reset switch at the back. No need to go digging under desks for power switches on external bricks like the Amiga. The only thing that sucks about the Atari design is the mouse/joystick ports. Why Jack, why?
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Mar 20, 2018 05:02
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I gave a friend a TAC2 controller. Then again I have a nice Aussie made C64/Amiga controller that was made out of 1980s arcade components and another microswitched controller which I can't remember its brand at the moment, and too lazy to check. At the moment I am cleaning the rust off the metal shields that cover the PSU and floppy drive in my Atari 1040. They are drying out in the sun and hopefully give them a coat of paint later this afternoon
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Mar 30, 2018 03:33
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Spent the past two days finishing off the refurbishment of the Atari 1040STf Both the lid to the power supply and floppy drive with rust removed and sanded back  Finished job on the floppy drive. There's small rust bumps there, but I think it should be good   Power supply cover all cleaned up and painted  All the RF shielding back in place.  It powers up with no bang or smoke. Waiting on a cable order from the UK so I can connect it to an old Multisync monitor, hopefully will get some video out of it  The 1040 above my stock A1200. I need to replace the lower case on the A1200 due to the yellowing on it (I have the replacement, just need to pull it apart) Not to slam the 1040, but the keyboard on it suuuuucks compared to the Amiga's.
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Mar 31, 2018 14:03
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Statutory Ape posted:looks amazing, good work Thanks. I was kinda thinking of retrobrighting it, but I haven't tried it yet and I don't think the Atari looks that bad. Luigi Thirty posted:Best Electronics sells replacement keyboard domes that make the keys feel a million times better. I had to replace the whole keyboard in my ST (the PCB was cracked) and threw them in when I bought it. Ok, I'll look into it. I love that dude's mid 90s website design theme
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Apr 1, 2018 01:25
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Kthulhu5000 posted:As a heads up, the high-res monochrome video mode of the Atari ST operates at frequencies that many common VGA monitors can handle, so if the cable you're getting is some kind of SCART cable or whatever (link?) and it doesn't seem to work, try getting an ST-compatible VGA cable and see what it does on a modern PC monitor. The order I’m getting includes SCART cables as well as a SCART female to 9 bin RGB which should suit a Mitsubishi multisync I have at home. If not, a friend of mine has a Commodore 1084 with SCART on it
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Apr 1, 2018 05:14
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This is the cable I'm getting for my STf: https://coolnovelties.co.uk/coolnovelties/atari-st-video-cables/38-atari-st-quality-rgb-scart-video-cable.html There is supposed to be a difference between the ST and STE cables, but haven't heard of the STf video issue.
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Apr 1, 2018 08:10
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Been busy most of the day with my old computer fleet. Took both my Amiga 1200 and Atari 1040 ST to a friend's place for some testing. I had feared with the A1200 that the IDE controller may have died, as the CF Card drive I had setup in it wasn't being detected by Workbench, even after rebuilding it from WinUAE. However all is working fine with IDE and CF card, looks like I had missed a step with setting up the CF card in WinUAE. The Atari 1040ST actually works! Years of sitting within a garage getting wasp nests and layers of dust and grime on it, it boots up to the original TOS 1.0 on it. The floppy drive seems to be dead on it, it wasn't reading any disks. Next steps for it is to get the TOS version up to at least 1.04 and replace the floppy drive in it with another one. Not really interested in putting a Gotek in it, but interested in getting an UltraSatan for it. Also got a Commodore 1084 out of the deal with some hardware swaps with said friend. Got a pile of SCART cables that work fine with the monitor and the C64, ST, Amiga, SNES and Mega Drive.  The ST fired up on the 1084 (yes, even the flap is still on the monitor)  The SNES and Mega Drive look amazing on this monitor compared to the composite on the CRT TV. However there is a bit of noise on the audio channel with both the SNES and Mega Drive. Might be a dodgy earth connection.
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Apr 21, 2018 10:58
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I did quite a bit of work on the floppy drive due to it having a wasp nest in it, but still has issues reading. I think it is just shagged out. The Atari seems to be more compatible with PC floppy drives than the Amiga was, so I'll take the Atari to my friend's computer shop and shift through his floppy drive collection to find one that works.
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Apr 22, 2018 01:11
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fishmech posted:Atari ST systems with double sided support used floppy drives 100% compatible with standard PC floppy drives (I think the single sided models did too, but not sure), however the Atari ST system software would format disks just a bit different than a standard MS-DOS system. That's why you'd have to format the disks in a PC and then take 'em over to write data from the ST on back in the day to exchange files, or use third party software on the ST or PC to read/write the two slightly different methods. Thanks for the info, I kept on hearing differing views from some Atari forums. One thing I really want to get is the 1.04 ROMs so it can also allow the Atari to read IBM formatted disks. There's also a ST site that sells the blitter and socket mount so you can install it onto a stock ST. Not sure if it is worth the time or money, but I heard it helps in GEM.
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Apr 22, 2018 08:06
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Fermented Tinal posted:
Ah neat they are back in stock again. Grabbed one.
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Jul 13, 2018 02:12
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How long does it take for non-EU goons to get their Ultimate II+? Counting three weeks since the "shipped" email was sent.
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Aug 13, 2018 02:48
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Got my 1541 Ultimate II+ in the post. Time to fix the non-working space bar on the C64 and then load the Ultimate II+ with games
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Aug 18, 2018 05:11
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Retroleum was good for keyboard parts for my C64, it just took awhile for it to get there.   I remember being 7 or so years old and playing Spy Hunter so much on my neighbour's C64. Memories. The Ultimate 1541 was the final piece of my C64 puzzle.
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Aug 19, 2018 01:12
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Kthulhu5000 posted:I believe so, and since the VIC-II only works with Y/C video (basically, S-Video but often with separate plugs instead of one DIN) internally, so there's no RGB to tap in a stock system. I believe any hypothetical video upgrade mod would involve a video processor replacement with something akin to how the NESRGB works. I have my C64 connected to a Commodore 1084 monitor via the Y/C cable. I think I may have a C64 SCART cable at home (1084 also has SCART), I'll try it out next weekend to see what the difference is.
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Aug 20, 2018 04:32
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:49 |
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There's an Atari 1040STE for sale dirt cheap, looks complete, the ad doesn't say it's working or not, but the case and keyboard look in great condition. If it works, I might offload my 1040STf
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Sep 23, 2018 06:56
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