First off, I think this is a great and wonderful looking project - I don't play the game (wish I had more time for it - maybe someday), but such a controller looks like it'd be fun and useful, and it could be repurposed (or the idea) for such things as a UAV groundstation or such.



My heart sank though on seeing that the case and such was made from that trainer, which is actually somewhat of a collectible for retro-computing enthusiasts. I mean, if you had just the parts but not the complete system, that's one thing to repurpose, but I couldn't bear to cannibalize the ET-3400 I own for this kind of project. While prices on ebay shouldn't be considered the "last word" on value, they do give an idea - type in "Heathkit ET-3400" and while the prices are all over the map, an assessment does put the unit at around $100.00 in value, and that's probably climbing. I got mine from a hamfest for $25.00, but I intend to keep it in as-is working condition, too.



I guess I worry on seeing this that others might be encouraged or educated that if they find a "cool old enclosure" that they should discard or repurpose the innards - not realizing they could be destroying history, or something actually valuable on the collector's market - imagine someone doing this with an old Altair 8800, or a KENBAK-1 - or ripping the keypad off a KIM-1 single board computer!



Some might write me off as fussing about stuff - but they may not realize that, if they did get a deal on one of those machines because the seller either didn't know what they had, or thought it was going to another collector (it happens; several years back I picked up an Altair for $150 and was offered $900 for it later that same day on a collectors mailing list) - that they just destroyed a lot of money. This kind of thing happens in the regular antiques world quite often - people refinish a piece of old furniture not realizing that low-cost barn find that was valued at $50,000 before their work now is only appraises at a few hundred dollars due to the damage caused by the "restoration".



I guess all I can do is to warn people about this kind of thing - if you find something like this that seems like a cool piece of old electronics to tear apart and repurpose, stop and think before you do. Consider and research whether it has any value on the collector's market in the condition it is in. If you find it does have value, but that you'd have to put some work into restoring it - assess what that would would entail, and decided whether it would be worth it to do that work, or pass it on to another collector who might want to. Otherwise, if the items was mass produced in such quantity that it probably won't ultimately matter, then have at it for your projects.



I know in my past I have made such mistakes; I once destroyed a non-working, but probably could have been fixed, transistorized-logic desktop calculator with a nixie-tube display, and a memory function based on a wire-delay-line system - I regret doing that every time I think about it. I don't know if it was a collectible or not, but the technology was very unique, and I wish I hadn't been a stupid 18 year-old kid at the time.