geogray

quote: Originally posted by Horax: Hmm.... my Top Ten Consoles are (in no order): - Atari 2600 - Schmid TVG 2000 - Sega Saturn - Commodore 64 - Saba Videoplay - Dreamcast - SuperNes - Interton VC 4000 - Sega Mega Drive - Philips G7000 Ok, I think the Schmidt TVG 2000 is the Arcadia (yes?) The Philips is like an Odyssey 2. What is an Interton VC 4000 and Saba Videoplay?

quote: Originally posted by Cassidy: Awww, Why did you have to go and make me want one? Geez! Now I cant stop thinking about making a portable with a screen like the VCSP. That would be smaller, easier to carry, etc. Ahhhwwww. Cassidy BTW, the screens are available at www.mcmelectronics.com for pretty cheap...You can run it all from a Mavica battery if you change the backlight to a couple of bright led's. I'd be interested in what you do too! I'll have to check out those screens. I have a little 4 inch color lcd monitor, but I can't butcher it-the wife would shoot me! It's for our travel entertainment system. Hmm, the screen is 'bout right though...

Hi folks! I bought one of these. While it is not quite what I expected, it is a great little toy at ten bucks. Curious about what is inside, I decided to dissect it. What I found was rather simplistic and SMALL. I took some photos and made a few observations (nothing earth shattering.) You can view them on a rather hastily assembled page courtesy of AOL (I know, don't say it!) Here is the link: Games of Yesteryear

Give this site a try: http://www.classicgaming.com/o2home/ It is Odyssey 2 oriented, but you may something useful there. This is Videopac oriented: http://crash.grafisis.nl/videopac/ This one: http://www.videopac.com/ is mostly label variations, etc. A techie oriented Videopac/Odyssey 2 site: http://www.chez.com/cmpi/paleo/consoles/ph...ps/vdopac_e.htm And, finally, go here: http://www.classicgaming.com/museum/o2/ to read more about the O2 and grab some ROM's. Hope you can find some of what you are looking for. Happy hunting!

My first gaming experience was an Odyssey. Yep, the original. We also got, a little later, a Unisonic 4 game console. I remember how exciting it was to play ALL THOSE games on the Odyssey...Tennis, Hockey, 'football', Sub hunt...Oh what realism! What color! I'm being a little sarcastic about the machines capabilities, but still, I COULD play games on TV. When I got the Odyssey 2, I was in hog heaven...

quote: Originally posted by Marco: 1. Atari 2600 2. Atari 2600 3. Atari 2600 4. Atari 2600 5. Atari 2600 6. Atari 2600 7. Atari 2600 8. Atari 2600 9. Atari 2600 10. Atari 2600 Cheers, Marco That's, er, quite a variety!

NE146...Man, you hit it on head! Playing those games on tv is great. I have an older AMD K6/2-300 machine connected to my rather large screen set. I use an ATI All-In-Wonder PRO ('cause ya don't need much more than this) to pipe the output directly to the set. MAME, Stella (yeah! Awesome emulator) and INTY Rocks! all run fantastic on this rather limited machine. For what it is used for, it's great. Oh, and the Intel wireless controllers are fantasic! Now I can play Pitfall like I did 20+ years ago! For what it is worth: The Activision 10 in 1 hand held console includes the real Pitfall. Complete with chirpy sounds! 10 bucks via Wal-mart website. (Search for 'toymax')

Reading the '10 best' thread made me remember some really obscure consoles. The Apf Imagination Machine, the VideoBrain, RCA Studio 2, The Bally Astrocade (or whatever it was called) and such. Most of these machines lived from 1977 through 1984. It's no wonder the market crashed and burned. I recall one console that could play Colecovision, some Intellivision and Atari 2600 games. If I recall, there was a box that plugged into the console's cartridge slot for each system. I don't remember if there were carts specific to the console. It was fairly large, black with the requisite wood grain stickers on each side, had two fairly large controllers, and a really weird stick type controller...sort of like the controllers from the Fairchild Channel F (in fact, this console looked like a fat version of Channel F.) Anyone have any idea of what this might be? Even though it could play most of the 'big three' games of the day, it obviously was not popular. I don't recall a manufacturer but I think it could be purchased at Montgomery Ward, Sears and Woolco (remember them?) Or was am I dreaming this?

ummm...sorry, friend, but the Dragon was a clone of the CoCo. CoCo was developed in 1979 and cloned a couple of years later. I am not sure when the CoCo actually hit the market, but it was well before the Dragon. There were three major revisions to CoCo with the last being the most impressive. It had a smaller sibling-MC 10-designed to compete with the Sinclair line, the dead on arrival TI machine (not the TI 99/44, but the little brother to it) and such machines. They also released a 'home terminal' which included wireless controllers for lights; a thermometer I believe; and other home automation gizmos. They also had a dumb terminal based on the original CoCo. Great little machine. Not a great game console, though. Of course, this was 20+ years ago...my memory COULD be faulty...

Well, the Emerson may have been crap, but I have a few good memories of it. Cat Trax, even now, is addictive. The emulators are dead on. I guess I should have included the N64 at least as an honorable mention. My 4 year old loves. But, it just does not excite. I notice the SNES has been overlooked too. Never owned one, but I still played it quite a bit. I worked at a video chain for awhile and could 'rent' it free. Why buy one? decent console that suffered the fate as the N64: little to get excited about. I noticed someone included the Tandy CoCo. I have to agree, it was not a great game machine. It was, however, a nifty computer. I had four of them myself. As for Playstation 2...'nuff said. Does anyone remember the VideoBrain?

Boy, what an interesting topic. Let's see... 10. Atari 2600 9. Intellivision 8. NES 7. Vectrex 6. Sega Genesis 5. NeoGeo 4. Sega Master System 3. Nintendo GameCube 2. Nintendo GameBoy Advance 1. Any modern PC emulating any of the above I know my #1 may be a cop out, but hey...name a console that can play virtually any of the classic consoles PLUS the latest greatest PC games. My honorable mentions: Emerson Arcadia-I had one of these breifly. I don't recall how much I like the thing when I had it, I do remember being hooked on Cat Trax. The emulator is fantastic. Odyssey 2-yeah, graphics sucked but the gameplay was decent. It was my first real programmable game console How about the lamest consoles? I would include... Game.com handheld Microvision (even though I loved it at the time) Apf Imagination Machine Mattell Aquarius 'computer' Atari XGE Virtual Boy RCA Studio II-Lame as a console, interesting as a small hobby computer. Amazing what can be done in 512 bytes of ram and the most lame? The Fairchild Channel F. It may have been the first programmable, but boy was it horrible.

Wal Mart has this nifty device on clearance for 10 bucks. I ordered mine throught the Wal Mart web site. It took about three days to receive. Nice little device, the controls are a bit awkward. It comes with 10 classic games including Atlantis, Pitfall, Spider Fighter, River Raid and more. Brings back many, many fond memories and it looks and plays like the old 2600 games. The big difference I see is the copyright date-at least on Pitfall-is 2001. It is very portable, has a long cord with video and audio (mono, of course.) It is powered by four AA batteries. Great for that long road trip or just to relive those old memories without having to worry about emulating them (I'm a huge fan of emulation, though.)