What hardware did you have?

Tom Dunne

As per the title.

I had (in chronological order):

Atari 800XL
Atari ST
Commodore CDTV (remember those turkeys?)
Sega Genesis (American Megadrive) with CD drive (still have it)
PC

Ruu_Old

Similar to this where you just moved from left to right avoiding the other cars.





As you can see, this is not a European Megadrive. It is the Japanese one so it could only play a few of the games we had. We later got a proper one.






I gave the above away before moving to America and thats where it ended and not likely to get a newer console now, hate the things. Not that long ago I bought a SNES with a few games and Megadrive (with 32x) on eBay and have began collecting again. I have 3 PCs as well.

Duggy747

Well my brother done all the winning / buying the consoles back in the day, I took care of the game sections.

The 1st was the NES + Zap gun, I was about 4 -5 and I remember my bro opening it on Xmas day and playing the Mario / Duck Hunt cartridge non-stop for weeks on end.

Then my bro won a Snes before it was released in the country in a Nintendo competition nationwide that finished up with the final in Dublin...........in a crappy lounge room in a hotel..........not exactly glamorous, eh? Suppose it was 1992! 7 games came with the Snes and we were sent a further 14 about a year later, much entertainment ensued.

Brother then went on to win 2 Gameboys and another Snes competition (The Snes that came in a FIFA box). Sold one of the Gameboys and sold the FIFA-boxed Snes to our neighbours...................who proceeded to put a bat through it and blew it up within a few months

The years passed and then we got a PC in 98', stuck with the games on that for many a year.

I bought a mint N64 + 2 mint controllers + 8 games for 50 quid off an idiot. I just wanted to play Goldeneye and that's all I did.

Brother bought the PS2 when Vice City came out and we built up a huge collection of games.

I then bought my then-super-power-house Aldi laptop around Oct 2005 and that's my current weapon of choice, still able to play the new games without choking.

All the machines are packed nicely away and it's always great to whip out them out. The NES cartridge slot dosen't hold down on it's own anymore I think but that's no biggy as long as it still works. The Zap gun is absolutely mint too, you'd swear I got Nintendo to build it yesterday.

trout

Only console I had which I got rid of was the N64... and I'm sorry I did now

I still have the following ... in roughly chronological order ... unless indicated, these are all working.

Commodore 'Pong' TV game, from 1979 (no longer working)
ZX81 (no longer working)
Spectrum 16 Kb (no longer working - membrane is broken)
Spectrum 48 Kb
Spectrum + (it's a REAL keyboard, dammit) with Microdrives
Spectrum 128 (second gen Amstrad model, with tape drive) with light gun!
Sinclair Z88 (missing the "m" key ... still works though)
Commodore 64
Commodore Amiga (I think it's a 3000 model) + RGB monitor, shared with Atari ST
Atari ST 520 (520ST)
Atari Lynx (only 2 games work now, rarely use this)
Gameboy
Super Nintendo
Megadrive (ton of games for this)
Mac Classic (Mr T model)
Compaq Portable PC (weighs about 4 stone!)
Mac Quadra (with paperwhite monitor)
Mac Performa with Midi keyboard and composer software.
Casio FX-700P (calculator with a BASIC interpreter)
Apple Newton OMP
Apple Newton 100
Apple Newton 110
Psion Revo
3Com Palmpilot
Playstation
Sega Dreamcast (I have 6 Dreamcasts, light guns, steering wheels and a fishing rod ... long story)
N64 (no longer have this )
Playstation 2 - first gen. Only three games, I never wanted any more (Tekken 3, GT3 and Colin McRae rally)
XBOX - first gen.
XBOX - Crystal
PowerMac G4
Powerbook G4
Self build PC - with a fairly modest spec by today's standards.
IBM Stinkpad T41.
GP32 handheld
GP2X handheld
Nintendo DS (for the brain training games)
Nokia N770 Internet tablet.

My lovely wife has since vetoed any further purchases. I don't know why

One fine day, I will have a den or attic room large enough to display these magnificent machines in all their glory. Until then, they live in plastic boxes in the attic.

Tom Dunne

Oooooh. Forgot this baby:



A Pac-man rip off, called Munchman.
It's actually still working, it's somewhere upstairs in the spare room.

When you got to level 5, it flashed Good on the screen where the score is usually displayed. So hi-tech!

hamster

Interesting Thread! Here's what I had:

1982 - VIC20
- Carts - Super Expander 3K Ram and Machine Lang Monitor cart. Here's a shot five mins ago. Haven't used it since 1984.


1984-1987 C64 - My fave machine - combined with c128 - 6 years
* 1541 Floppy Drive

1985 - Interton Electronic VC 4000 Video computer - have another cart here - its black and holds games of tennis, soccer and pinball.

1987-1990 C128
* Action Replay Cart MkVI
* Load it! Cassette loader

1990-1993 Amiga 500, Workbench 3.12
* 512K trapdoor chipram expansion.
* External Floppy drive

1993 - 486DX2-66Mhz 8Mb ram, 15" Goldstar Monitor, 250Mb HD
1995 - Pentium 120Mhz, 16Mb ram, 17" Sony Monitor, 1Gb HD
1997 - P233Mhz, 64Mb ram, 2Gb HD - Voodoo 1
1998 - PII-266Mhz, 128Mb ram, 10Gb HD - Voodoo 2 and then 3
2001 - PIII 866Mhz (Coppermine) 512Mb ram, 80Gb HD, Geforce 2, 22" IIyma vision Master Pro
2006 - Pentium D 820 2.6GHz 1Gb ram, 160Gb HD, GT7600, External 500Gb, 19" flatscreen

Dublin Laptop 2003 - P1.8Gb 384Mb, Geforce 2 Go, 30Gb - still going, 5yr anni next feb!

* I remember we used to run up to the local priest's house to waste hours on his BBC Micro (Castle Quest was a game in mind). Another Mate had the speccie - wasn't impressed with Horace and the Spiders. Interesting another friend had a varient of the Sharp home computers (a built in monitor and tape drive - still don't know which one it was to this day!).


I envy your collection trout - I had to sell my way to the next machine. That p120 I purchased from Dell in 1995 was IR£2500 !!! What was I was smoking!

CiDeRmAn

Back in the day, 1985, I got a Spectrum 48k for Christmas and I had that for a while, followed by a short time with a Commodore64, next up was a Spectrum+3 I got from a guy, it was rubbish, ended up using a tape deck, again!
Then in '91 got my first gameboy, loved SuperMarioLand.
In '92 got a Megadrive and followed that with a Snes in '93.
In '94 I bought a 3DO and was blown away by Need 4 Speed, Star Control2 and Road Rash.
In '95 got my first PC.
In '96 I bought a PS followed by a N64 on release.
I bought a NeoGeo Pocket and Gameboy Pocket and Gameboy Colour over the years.
I hung on then until the Jap launch of the DC which I picked up, nice.
Then did some back tracking, up to this point I was selling my previous console to fund the new one but from now I kept them and collected, I sold the DC and got an N64 and a Saturn, both of which I still have.
Now I was collecting big time.
I bought the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube all at launch as I did with the 360 and Wii.
I picked up the rest of my collection since '99, here's the list of those,

Sega-
Megadrive I
Megadrive II
CDX
32X
Master System,
Gamegear,
Saturn,
DC.

Nintendo-
Nes,
Snes,
Gameboy
Gameboy Pocket
Game Boy Colour,
Gameboy Advance SP
DS Lite
Gamecube
N64
Wii
Virtual Boy.

Atari-
2600, six switch woody
2600, vader console
7800
Lynx
Jaguar

Xbox,
Xbox 360

PSone with official screen
PS2, still my original launch one with no probs.

Vectrex

Dragon 32

TurboGrafx 16

3DO

NeoGeo Pocket Color

Ngage

Amiga 600

Spectrum 16 and a Spectrum 48k



I've got games for everything, but a lot for the PS1, PS2, Wii and N64.
I've got some rarer items too, like Steel Batallion and Kula World.

Still looking out for a few outstanding consoles, an Intellivision and a Colecovision, not to mention a NeoGeo proper and a Commodore CD32.


Unlike the good Mr Trout I have a nice attic which I have had converted and where I can display and play my hoard to my hearts content, ha ha ha... at least when she says I can, sob sob sniffle...

tonyj_mc

Comadore 64
Amiga 4800 (i think, only one i'm hazy on)
Atari 2600
NES
Snes
Original Game Boy
Game Gear
N64
PS1
Gameboy Advance
PS2
Nintendo DS

TechnoFreek

here's what I had and still have in chronological order

C64
Amiga 600
Playstation
Playstation 2
PC
SNES
Mega Drive
GBA
PSP
DS Lite
X-Box 360

My brothers between them also have

Saturn
N64
Dreamcast
Gamecube
Wii

All in all not a bad collection and I'm not even including MAME and other emulation possibilites !!!!!!

Retr0gamer

What I had in chronological order:

C64
Gameboy (got stolen by some arsehole)
Megadrive
P100 PC
PS1
Self built PC about a 1.2GHz machine
Gameboy Advance
PS2
Gamecube
Xbox
Sega Saturn
Self built PC which is getting on a bit now
N64
SNES
Dreamcast
DS
Wii
Xbox360

trout

I also have a Sega GameGear ... which powers on. Sadly, I can no longer find any games for this :mad:

Anyone have GameGear games for sale or trade ? Failing that ... anyone want to buy a GameGear (one careful owner) ?

Revelation Joe

The ones in blue I still have:
Grandstand 4-in-1 Pong game (about 1979)
Sinclair ZX81 (no RAM pack)
A similar PacMan rip-off called PuckMonster
Three handheld Bandai LCD games
Atari 400
Atari 800XL
Atari 2600 - black and silver
Commodore 64GS - basically a C64 with no keyboard that played cartidges only - still with five games all boxed
Nintendo NES - still boxed with six games all boxed
Sega Megadrive
Nintendo GameBoy - still with original box and nine games all boxed
PlayStation - original version
PS2

NES
Game Boy
Mega Drive 2
Ps1
Dreamcast
PS2
Gamecube
PSP
PS3

o1s1n

Consoles

---

Commadore 64
Nes
Snes x2
N64
Gamecube
Wii
Sega Megadrive II
Sega Megadrive 3
Sega 32X
Sega master system converter II
Playstation x 5 (I don't know why, keeps seeing them about)
Playstation 2

(I feel like I'm missing something...?)

Should count up all the controllers actually. Must be about 30.

Handhelds

---

Sega Nomad
Galaxy Invader 1000
Gameboy
Gameboy pocket
Gameboy pocket colour
Gameboy advance
Gameboy advance sp
DS Phat
DS lite

I've around 500 games in total. 120 of them for the Megadrive. Would absolutely love a converted attic turned games room.

Maybe some day

CiDeRmAn

I had a Nomad and was sorely disappointed on 2 counts, 1 it ran through batteries like you owned Dixons, and 6 at a time! and 2 it wasn't completely compatible with all games, as it was a portable Genesis rather than a Megadrive, so I couldn't play my beloved Virtua Racing on the go, boo hoo....
I traded it with a guy who used to work in Bookmart and Game Xchange when it was in the old shop for his Virtual Boy, I reckon I got the best of the deal, I have Galactic Pinball, Mario Tennis, Mario Clash, Red Alarm, Panic Bomber, Golf, V Tetris, Vertical Force, Virtual Wario Land. I think thats the lot.

o1s1n

You got a better deal as the Virtua Boy is worth more due to rarity. But as for being practical and useful? The Nomad is far superior.

Don't get me wrong, the Nomad is still totally impractical, needs a nuclear reactor to power it...but I don't care. It's a full colour 16 bit handheld you can plug Megadrive/Genesis games straight into. Which was released 10 years or so before Nintendo came out with something similar. You can't get any cooler than that.

CiDeRmAn

I remember kids on the bus sitting behind me agog while I played RoadRash2 and Sonic 3 on the trip into town, a feeling of intense smugness washing over me. I didn't feel that again until I imported a PSP, mmm its good to be smug....
Made a difference to the pointing and laughing when I struggled home with the immense bulk of the 3DO, folk just don't understand!

On a brighter note, if you are lucky enough to have a Virtual Boy Richard Hutchinson, the creator of the great Vecflash multicart, is releasing soon a Vboy flash cart, one game may be used at a time but will allow the less filthy rich to play the back catalog of VB titles, 3dTetris here we come!

K.O.Kiki

So anything pre-noughties counts?
Hmm... so I'll tell you all about the old 66mHz (I think it was 66. Maybe it was 133) that I learned to play TIE Fighter on. Yes, rebel scum, come into my sights... Mmmmmh, nostalgia; must use that WinXP workaround someday.
Other than that, this retro-gamer hasn't actually... bought many retro games. Though I do own a MegaDrive model1, SNES, GBC (Pikachu FTW!), PS1 (lost in attic), a pair of N64s with RAM carts (no, I can't remember why I own 2. Something about guilt...) and some old TV-games-type "Tennis" clone. Without joysticks/paddles, unfortunately. I'll see if I can get pics sometime...

Oh, and all gaming is done on PS2 & DS Lite now.

CiDeRmAn

As far as retro is concerned, I reckon anything predating the current gen is valid, once the software isn't brand spanking new.
So, that means owning a copy of Rez or GitarooMan for the PS2 is retro, owning God Of War II isn't.

K.O.Kiki

So retro is now anything older than 5yrs?
... I'll accept!

CiDeRmAn

I suppose it's all a state of mind.
I am, perhaps, an exception as I grew up in the 70's and so home gaming was born then, I played most everything when it was shiny and new, like Pong on a box fresh machine or, later, playing Manic Miner on a new Spectrum 48k.
Now there are young whippersnappers out there whose first taste of gaming goodness was a 2nd hand Playstation. Your notion of what is retro may be slightly different, not sure how you view classic games from formats like Megadrive, Saturn, C64, Snes and Nes, are they ancient oddities? Have you played any outside of a PC or Console emulator?
For folk like me that played them new, that awaited their releases with anxiously held breath, competing for that last shop copy of Goldeneye or Zelda OoT, the games are wrapped in nostalgia, memories of a time when gaming was a little different.
So, younger retro fans, what is it about games predating your birth that make you love them?

K.O.Kiki

CiDeRmAn wrote:

I suppose it's all a state of mind.
I am, perhaps, an exception as I grew up in the 70's and so home gaming was born then, I played most everything when it was shiny and new, like Pong on a box fresh machine or, later, playing Manic Miner on a new Spectrum 48k.
Now there are young whippersnappers out there whose first taste of gaming goodness was a 2nd hand Playstation. Your notion of what is retro may be slightly different, not sure how you view classic games from formats like Megadrive, Saturn, C64, Snes and Nes, are they ancient oddities? Have you played any outside of a PC or Console emulator?
For folk like me that played them new, that awaited their releases with anxiously held breath, competing for that last shop copy of Goldeneye or Zelda OoT, the games are wrapped in nostalgia, memories of a time when gaming was a little different.
So, younger retro fans, what is it about games predating your birth that make you love them?

You know, I haven't played much in the way of pre-'86 games, but I have studied the old arcade titles (both for course & personal) to see what it was about them that made them so addictive.

Let's just say I'd be ruined if I was a child of the '80s

But my gaming started in the 16bit-era, during the first REAL console wars (NES had no competitors, really). And even though I wasn't a fanboy, I could see that I preferred Nintendo's output to Sega's -- in my humble 8yr old opinion, Sega's "edgy" and "cool" felt a little tacked on, and I had more respect for what the SNES was achieving.
Then I took a break from consoles because they were so frickin' expensive (yeah yeah, just as the PS1 came to town :rolleyes: ), and only played budget & doujin PC games for a few years.

Now? I collect PS2 games & play 2D fighters.

Where am I going with this expose? I have no idea

Tom Dunne

CiDeRmAn wrote:

I suppose it's all a state of mind.
I am, perhaps, an exception as I grew up in the 70's and so home gaming was born then, I played most everything when it was shiny and new, like Pong on a box fresh machine or, later, playing Manic Miner on a new Spectrum 48k.

As a 70's child also, I am right there with ya.

CiDeRmAn wrote:

Now there are young whippersnappers out there whose first taste of gaming goodness was a 2nd hand Playstation. Your notion of what is retro may be slightly different

Sightly different? Different planet, if you ask me.

It does make me feel old when the kids here refer to the Playstation as retro. I'll just shuffle over to the corner here with my mug of hot chocolate and my Atari 2600.

trout

I'm a child of the 70's too ... it's all retro to me.

I viewed the computers and the consoles as two different things with two different purposes.

My folks would always support & indulge me on the computers front from the ZX81 right up to the Mac classic, so long as I was learning to study programming and problem solving, or basic WP and Office type applications, even the Midi music stuff ... as they thought it would help me in years to come. So the games were incidental here.

The consoles I bought myself, with pocket money and paper rounds, usual stuff, and given the price of games even then, I was quite picky. I played no more than 5 games on the PS1, but I got great value out of them. Even now, I love to fire up Gran Tourismo, Tekken 3, or even Wipeout. Same goes for the Dreamcast ... for me, that box existed to support Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive ... that's all. I haven't made the leap into PS3 or Xbox360 for the simple reason that none of the games I've seen have made me want to buy the platforms. I'm sure there are many great games for these systems, but none yet have floated my boat enough to make me buy them. (maybe DOA5 will change my mind :rolleyes: )

Now that I'm old and crusty, I wonder what my kids will make of the old man's 8 / 16 / 32 bit collection in years to come. I mean, how can you explain the appeal and importance of a ZX81 or Spectrum to someone born in this generation ?

CiDeRmAn

As for the comment that the 16bit war between the Megadrive and Snes being the 1st console war, I have to disagree.
While they weren't strictly speaking a dedicated games machine, the computers of the 80's were used as such and so the battle of half wits between us Speccy owners and them lousy C64 owners was fierce, as was the battle between ST and Amiga owners.
I seem to remember some sniping between 2600 owners and Colecovision too!
Not so much between Vic20 and ZX81 though, although given the price differential they probably moved in different social circles anyway!
Also you'll probably find that in Ireland and the UK the Nes had plenty of school yard competition with the Master Systemm, only in Japan and the US did the Nes have such dominance.
And not forgetting the long standing competition between honourable PC owners and those lowdown arty farty Mac owning types! "Look at me, my computer has one mouse button and can draw pretty pictures!"

daedalus2097

Had the following (and still have somewhere)
Atari 800XL
Sega Gamegear
Atari 800XL x2
SNES
Amiga 1200 x2
Mac 68030 laptop
N64
PowerMac 601
Amiga 600
Gamecube
Gameboy Advance
Amiga 1200
Nintendo DS
Wii

There's also a bunch of PCs of various vintage, but who cares about them?

Dr Bob

K.O.Kiki wrote:

But my gaming started in the 16bit-era, during the first REAL console wars (NES had no competitors, really)D

Eh
The SMS was as widespread and sold as well here as the NES.
It tends to be forgotten about as most retrospectives of the 8 bit consoles tend to be written by guys in the US where it was a "failure".
<sorry ciderman - posted that before I read your post of , pretty much , the same point.>

daedalus2097

trout wrote:

I still have the following ... in roughly chronological order ... unless indicated, these are all working.

Commodore Amiga (I think it's a 3000 model) + RGB monitor, shared with Atari ST

Hmmm... The A3000 is a lovely machine! You sure it's an A3000 though? As they could be used with a VGA monitor too and needed an adaptor to be used with an RGB Atari monitor. You sure it's not an A4000?

I'm looking for a 4000 you see

CiDeRmAn

Games are just better played on the host hardware though, I mean who wants to play Pitfall on a PC, or even one of those plug in joysticks, much better to go out and buy a 2600 and a copy of the game and get stuck in, looks a lot cooler too! The best find for my 2600, the woody six switch I love and a copy of DefenderII, sweet!
The 7800 though, just gathering dust, pity...
Best retro machine, My Vectrex without a doubt, a thing of real beauty that even my game hating wife can appreciate, if not actually play!
Got a multicart from a guy in the UK so I can play pretty much every release ever on it straight from an onscreen custom generated menu, all the games are now public domain so no legal issues either.

Crowman

Ok here's what I had over the years , in order...

1.Spectrum 48k
2.Spectrum+
3.Atari ST
4.PC (286)
5.Panasonic 3DO
6.Atari Jaguar
7.N64
8.Dreamcast

And a recently aquired Sega Saturn.

I dont have most of the above anymore!
However I did hang on to the Jag and Dreamcast, both still see plenty of action!

CiDeRmAn

Re: Trouts comment about how to explain the appeal if the ZX81 and the Spectrum to the current gen of gamers, I'm afraid its probably impossible, I don't necessarily think the lack of power or ability of past machines has anything to do with it, I mean current phones aren't that much more powerful and they have games that folk keep playing, rather the structure is old school, innovations like save points and minigames forsaken for sprawling collect um ups like KnightLore, Alien8 or Jet Set Willy.
Where the oldskool machines did shine was things like 3DDeathchase, 3DTankDuel, StarStrike, Uridium, Bounder and Manic Miner, smashing stuff.

Not to sure how I could sell a ZX81 to a gamer now though!

Nor a 2600 for that matter!

Saturns rock Crowman, try to find Nights and Burning rangers with the analog stick, also VR racing is nice, as is Sega Rally.

CiDeRmAn

And one other thing, if a machine is required to fill in the blanks on the best of gaming in the last 7 odd years, go buy a PS2, shocking I know, but the machine has so many great games, all cheap as chips, every gamer really should own one. Many of the games are classics now and owning the best of its backcatalogue still takes ages to assemble, I have 124 games for mine and its still growing. Get one for Ico and Shadow of the Colossus alone!