A look at my games console collectionSo you just wanted to play games without any of those complicated BASIC commands or that loading from cassette nonsense that would take F O R E V E R? A games console was just perfect for you. Imagine just inserting a cartridge*, switching on, and immediately being in the game ready to play.Absolute heaven *Cartridges sold separately There are 34 games consoles in the museum
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Yet another carboot sale find, The seller wants £10, I paid £8 but he wouldn't let me have the super scope but would let me have the related cartridge. Never understood why. This one suffered from intermittent sound before losing it completely, shame as I love Super Mario.However I recently purchased another console, and that one works fine, but has had a bad retrobright experience
Swapped a TV for this, it suffered with the usual bad PSU connections, once soldered it worked perfectly.Clockwork Knight and Sega Rally were my most played games.The Saturn was incapable of using pirated discs for quite a while as the disc protection data was written outside the TOC (Table Of Contents). If you observe the disc loading and checking routine, you can see the laser read the TOC at the inside edge and then move almost to the outside edge of the disc, read 'something' and then return back to load the game. Normal disc copying software only copies what it can see, ie, what's in the TOC.Maybe that's one reason the original Playstation was so popular???
Paid £17 from Game Station when they existed and were a decent retro games retailer. I'd been fancying one of these for a while, just to play Shenmue, and to burn emulator discs as these machines did not need a modchip to play homebrew games. This one needed the lid sensor cleaning out and the common PSU pins problem fixing.Four player ChuChu rocket is insane!I did get quite a few accessories for this console as you can see in the picture. Keyboard, mouse, VMU's and rumble packs. I managed to connect it to the internet after receiving the update disc in the post from Sega themselves.The House of the Dead with two light guns and Virtua Fighter 2 kept me entertained for quite a while.
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The Master System II was donated to me and it does work although I never really played on it. However the wife has fond memories of playing Miracle Warriors from her childhood, so I bought it.
Then I was donated another Master System II
I paid £5 for a box of four Mega Drives and some other unrelated stuff, No powerpack between them and I didn't have anything suitable, so I've no idea if they actually work, maybe I'll put a Raspberry Pi in one..?
Another carboot sale find, Goldeneye and Super Mario 64 were epic! The World's first true 64 bit console, The Atari Jaguar claimed to be, but it used 2 x 32Bit (GPU and DSP) and the Motarola 68000 (32bit internal processing with a 16bit external data bus, same chip as used in the Amiga A500) as the controller, with a 64bit data path between them.
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I bought this for the kids, we didn't really use it that much. We all know the story of why Sony entered the console market, however many years before they produced a MSX clone so the Playstation wasn't Sony's first venture into the world of gaming, as many people think.
Somebody gave this to me, in the wrong box of course. This only has a 60GB hard disk, but it seems to work ok.I wondered if it's possible to run Linux on it???Update: I acquired another Xbox 360 with 120GB hard drive, and an Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive
Sega Mega Drive (US: Sega Genesis) (X2)
I already have four Mega Drive 2's, (but no power supply), but it's always nice to have the original, which only outputted mono sound from the rear video socket, if you wanted stereo, you had to use headphones, or make a custom video cable.
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Again, I already have the updated version, but the original is also very nice to have, I don't have the video cable, does the cable from the updated version I have above fit? Update... Yes it does
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
I spotted this for sale on eBay, and had to have it. To delay the inevitable row with the wife, I'll decline to say how much it cost, but it was a lot cheaper than we've previously seen them for sale for. It came with no games, and as the NES doesn't boot with no cartridge inserted, I couldn't test it for an agonizing 24 hours until I "acquired" some games. Happily after some fiddling with the cartridge and 72 pin connector, it does work.
I bought this as "not working" off someone on eBay, but after some fiddling, it does work, and it works well. In fact, all three of them work, one only outputs in black and white, that may be a dirty or broken switch. And then there was five as the short rainbow version has joined the party, followed shortly after by another long rainbow
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Sega Master System / Power Base
Again, I was left unsupervised and found this, it works perfectly and has the game Hang-On built in
I used to have the silver version of this, but I believe one of my kids has it, so I bought one for myself while everyone else was squabbling over toilet roll. This one is the later SCPH-50003 with the built in IR port. I later acquired two more working PS2s, these are earlier versions without the IR port
I have wanted one of these for a while, and was looking at one in my local games exchange shop, but then this boxed one fell into my lap at a good price, so obviously I had to have it, I was then donated another working one
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Saw a box at a car boot sale with an Xbox on top, I have been looking at buying one for a while, so took a chance for £25 and it turns out to be a modded xbox with several games installed, that's a win in anyone's book, the second one works, but the crystal doesn't work, it has Error 12 on the screen, which means issues with the DVD drive. The fourth one is currently untested
NURSE! NURSE! It's happened again, I somehow accidentally bought stuff from Ebay. Anyway enough of that, here I have two Atari 7800s, they both work, but one has a slightly fuzzy RF output, maybe this one will get composite video and audio modded..?
During my self imposed retro hardware fasting month, I failed and picked up a CD32, it was just the console, and it was "untested", so we all know what that means, but I have one in my collection, and that's all that matters for now
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Well I got one, it's quite small, smaller than you'd expect, and it works
Untested as no PSU, and the PSU from my PSone is different, but it's very pink, and very small. No sniggering at the back!
Not working, suffers from the YLOD, which could mean anything, and I have no controllers
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I saw this on a household items sale post on Facebook Marketplace, I got it for only £45 with two controllers and a few games included. Stupidly forgot to take pictures of it working. Damn you Portal 2
I needed a Wii, so I went and got one, no games yet, but it does play Gamecube games.
I now have games, and an additional four Wii's bought by chance from a local car boot sale on a rainy day
Another car boot sale find, isn't too bad for a kids games console, weird controller though
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Picked this up for free from Retro Gamez HQ in Swindon, Think Mad Dog McCree but much much worse, this is incomplete
Another surprise find in Southend on Sea, so obviously purchased immediately. Not very common in the UK
VTech V Smile TV Learning System (Blue)
Bought as a job lot for £2 from a car boot sale much to the other half's annoyance. This one has a microphone included for superstar performances
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VTech V Smile TV Learning System (Pink)
Bought as a job lot for £2 from a car boot sale much to the other half's annoyance. It's very pink, stop laughing
VTech V Smile Motion Active Learning System
Bought as a job lot for £2 from a car boot sale much to the other half's annoyance. Wireless controllers but only mono audio
Found in a local recycling shop for only £20, came with three controllers
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Found in Retro Bristol. A console from the second generation of video game consoles which included the Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision, Magnavox Odyssey 2 (Philips Videopac G7000)
Grandstand Video Entertainment Computer (Fairchild Channel F)
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The dark area
I hope you all find this as interesting and as nostalgic as I do.
And if you do, why not check out the next page in my retro museum... Controllers
Or to quicky jump to another room of the museum, click or tap on Rooms at the bottom of this screen
Special thanks to my long-suffering partner Denise for putting up with all this "nonsense".
No cats were unnecessarily annoyed during the creation of this site
Well, maybe Coco was slightly displeased with the lack of availability of wet food at 4 o'clock in the morning because the human wouldn't get up at that time as it was a late night keeping up with the Commodore...
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Found in Retro Bristol, this is the UK version of the Fairchild Channel F, or Channel FUN. This was the first console from the second generation of video game consoles
Found in Retro Bristol. I have been after one of these for years, but when they come up they are expensive. However, due to a missing keyboard, this one wasn't
Another clone of the Radofin 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System like the Acetronic MPU 1000 above
CATS!
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