Back In My Day ..................

[Lowgear]

I've always wanted a jukebox, in today's world it would simply be a hard drive full of MP3's, or whatever the current format is. I like having a dedicated device for things, I don't like trying to force a computer to do "non-computing" stuff. Can I play music on my desktop, sure, but it's not easy to access/find/get going. Can I play video games on the desktop, sure, but again, emulators are not created equal, especially when every game seems to need it's own emulator, still not as easy as turning on a console. For this reason, I would enjoy a jukebox and a game room with the various consoles for the games I like or am interested in. Unfortunately, I pretty much need one of every console ever made to play the one game on each of those systems I like, so there's that. While I do like arcade machines, and they do have their place for certain games that were originated and designed for machine play, but since console gaming has taken over, arcade machines really don't serve a good purpose.

There's always the consoles that have been developed which play the cartridges from various systems such as the RetroN or Retro Freak. Then there's the ones that come with a massive amount of games built-in such as the Game Box Hero.

I went with the Retro Freak myself as it's better than the RetroN but the tradeoff is it's a Japanese market item so there's some hurdles with it. It's also not as supported, and there was controversy with the emulator it uses being stolen code. There's also a long story why I went that route instead of getting something with the games built-in which I still might do down the road. Unfortunately, I've since found I don't really have the spare time necessary that would afford me the ability to play the video games from back in the day.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

Game Box Hero is awesome imo. Spring for the Platinum edition. Had a fest at my cousins a couple of weeks ago. They recently bought a few machines. They're really fun. Not quite full size but close. They have multiple games. That's a Joust machine just off camera.

[RC10th]

Anyone remember Nintendo TV? It was a paid subscription where your Nintendo was plugged into cable and you had access to all the games.

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

Anyone remember Nintendo TV? It was a paid subscription where your Nintendo was plugged into cable and you had access to all the games.

I've never heard of that. It would have been awesome. Pre internet?

[Halgar]

Costco had an arcade machine a few years back with all the late 80's arcade games on it. If memory serves, it was something like $1200 at the time, and scrolling through the menu it really didn't have any of the games I enjoyed. I've always been drawn to the "simple" yet difficult games, PacMan is a good example of this, though I wasn't a fan of PacMan specifically. Galaga ring any bells? Chopper Command was a good one. There was a driving one, that up to 4 people could play at once. There was no real control, you just flung the wheel in one direction or the other and hoped you could hold a line that wouldn't result in a crash. Fun, but frustrating to play.

[ZED32]

Costco had an arcade machine a few years back with all the late 80's arcade games on it. If memory serves, it was something like $1200 at the time, and scrolling through the menu it really didn't have any of the games I enjoyed. I've always been drawn to the "simple" yet difficult games, PacMan is a good example of this, though I wasn't a fan of PacMan specifically. Galaga ring any bells? Chopper Command was a good one. There was a driving one, that up to 4 people could play at once. There was no real control, you just flung the wheel in one direction or the other and hoped you could hold a line that wouldn't result in a crash. Fun, but frustrating to play.

There was a pizza shop I used to go to about 10 years ago that had an original Galaga cabinet. It was 25 cents per play but was so worn out you could just jiggle it and it would let you play for free. Also, there used to be a cool "retro" (proper) arcade that had Ivan Stewart Super Off Road. One of those fling the wheels and hope racers. I got so good at it I could play as long as I wanted for free because you got a free play as long as you won 1st.

1943 was another personal favorite of mine. Only beat it once.

[Halgar]

I was never any good at video games, mostly just fed quarters to the machines, however, I did and still do enjoy watching others who are good at them. I suppose I'm pretty good at Halo: Combat Evolved, but play it for 25 years and that's what happens. My Halo partner and I do speed runs to see how quickly we could get through the levels and we have amassed times that we can no longer beat. I have to stipulate that we play the game, we're not "cheating" by getting outside of the environment or using dubious tactics like killing the marines. We have found a few environmental cheats that will allow sidestepping whole sections of a level, but again, in our opinion, that is a dubious tactic that isn't following the game as it was meant to be played. Playing Coop we can work together as needed and split up as needed to cover more ground more quickly and maximize the environment and equipment available. We don't play the versus mode/levels, we only like the game play.

I could go on, but this is a nostalgia thread, not Halo 101.

[Halgar]

Thought these would be appreciated here.

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1739607173139.png (99.77 KiB) Viewed 2410 times

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

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IMG_20250223_195315.gif (389.63 KiB) Viewed 2399 times

[Lowgear]

The Frogger episode! I had a Frogger cab once that someone converted into a TNK III game: https://www.arcade-museum.com/Videogame/tnk-iii

Interesting story... I bought it, and the seller and I scheduled the morning of September 11, 2001 to pick it up at their storage unit. The location was about an hour outside of NYC. My father drove, and we were the only car on the highway headed towards NYC, and the other side going the opposite direction was gridlock traffic. It was an odd feeling for sure. I normally sleep into the afternoon, so if I didn't have to get up super early to go, I would have missed it all on TV as it was happening.

I believe I ended up parting it out, and cutting up the cab since it had water damage. I still have the marquee though!

[scr8p]

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giphy.gif (934.97 KiB) Viewed 2381 times

[Lowgear]

Awwww yeah. Spent many hours watching content in that format hoping for a boob or better. The best part was the discovery a cable box could be manipulated to unscramble things. There was a device that screwed in-between the coaxial cable and the box. It was a small silver cylindrical device made by something like Acom Labs if I'm remembering right. My friend had one that we would use during sleepovers to unscramble the Spice channel.

[RC10th]

[TRX-1-3]

........We pounded entire boxes of strip caps with a sledgehammer for the big boom

......we gutted shotgun shells, duct taped tacks to the primer and dropped them off the roof onto the concrete below

.....we dropped zinc coated nails into glass bottles full of hydrochloric acid and captured the hydrogen in a balloon stretched over the top. Then lit a string tied to it and KA-BWOOSH.

We melted zinc core pennies in the woodstove until the copper jackets burned bright green

We pirated video games on 5.5" floppies with a hole punch notch to unlock the B-side of the disc.

We hastily built model airplanes just to arrange them on the driveway, pack 'em with firecrackers, puddle and trail gasoline, then ring the neck of strike anywhere matches with a couple wraps of solder and toss them like lawn darts to simulate a "mortar strike" on an airfield. Or stuffed the matches down the barrel of the Daisy.

We shot BB guns down the edge of a plastic 5 gallon bucket and they'd go SHWIRRRR.

We reamed the top out of CO2 cartridges, filled them with black powder, then fuse them with the green woven ones outta "smoke bombs" and detonate them remotely with Estes rocket ignitors or snip-topped Christmas tree lights and a 9V battery.

We burned our trash and put milk jugs on a stick, get them all melty and burning, then fire bomb balls of dryer screen lint. Listen to the plastic drips go VRRRRIP.

Roach ants in the sun with a magnifying glass.

Got my fingers slammed in the door of a sky blue Pinto once too....after swim lessons at the "Y".

[1911Colt]

........We pouned entire boxes of strip caps with a sledgehammer for the big boom

......we gutted shotgun shells, duct taped tacks to the primer and dropped them off the roof onto the concrete below

.....we dropped zinc coated nails into glass bottles full of hydrochloric acid and captured the hydrogen in a balloon stretched over the top. Then lit a string tied to it and KA-BWOOSH.

We melted zinc core pennies in the woodstove until the copper jackets burned bright green

We pirated video games on 5.5" floppies with a hole punch notch to unlock the B-side of the disc.

We hastily built model airplanes just to arrange them on the driveway, pack 'em with firecrackers, puddle and trail gasoline, then ring the neck of strike anywhere matches with a couple wraps of solder and toss them like lawn darts to simulate a "mortar strike" on an airfield. Or stuffed the matches down the barrel of the Daisy.

We shot BB guns down the edge of a plastic 5 gallon bucket and they'd go SHWIRRRR.

We reamed the top out of CO2 cartridges, filled them with black powder, then fuse them with the green woven ones outta "smoke bombs" and detonate them remotely with Estes rocket ignitors or snip-topped Christmas tree lights and a 9V battery.

We burned our trash and put milk jugs on a stick, get them all melty and burning, then fire bomb balls of dryer screen lint. Listen to the plastic drips go VRRRRIP.

Roach ants in the sun with a magnifying glass.

Got my fingers slammed in the door of a sky blue Pinto once too....after swim lessons at the "Y".

Damn dude! I thought I had a pretty fun childhood but now I'm just jealous. Sounds like you were a bit of science guy.

My mom had a sky blue Pinto. Hers was a wagon. It was the first time I encountered AC. We didn't have it in school, at home, or in any other car before that.