My game room is a weird place. Folks don’t understand it when they walk in, but they love it once they start playing. When people walk in, they’re surrounded by a myriad of tube TVs from every decade. You see, I have this little obsession where I not only want to play all of my classic games on the original hardware (no ROMS or Virtual Console here), but I also want to play them on only the best TV set that was available in the year of that console’s release. Is being a TV collector taking it a little too far? Perhaps, but when you see the results, the nostalgic overload is overwhelming.
As a nostalgic horder and child of the late 80s/90s, I start my TV walkthrough with the NES. For my 8-bit goodness, I’ve got the original toaster oven Nintendo 8-bit beast hooked up to a crappy old 1983 Panasonic TV set. This sucker is so old that it doesn’t even have composite hookups. Just a traditional static ridden, distorted, off-color RF signal is the best you’re going to get. It looks like shit, yes, but it also looks like how most kids enjoyed the NES back in 1986. If a family had two TV sets in the house, usually the parents made the kid hook the NES up on the “spare”, often in their room. I found this old TV set when a local church was selling off their old stuff before closing down. It’s a little faded, but it immediately captures the magic of playing 8-bit games in 1986.
Then we move to the 16-bit stuff. For that, I’ve grabbed a 28” RCA tube. The colors are a little off, but it gives about the best average picture you could expect in August 1991 for a Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis. It’s just blurry enough to hide the imperfections, and just big enough to feel important. Now, for Nintendo 64, Saturn, and PlayStation, I’ve got another Panasonic. This time it’s a 27” flat screen. Probably the best picture you could ever hope to get on a tube. All the consoles are hooked to it on S-Video. I also use this TV for Superguns (arcade boards hooked to a TV set).
Finally, we have the big one. In the center of the game room is a 36” monster Sony WEGA tube TV. This bastard weighs in at a hefty 245 pounds. Imagine hauling this thing up a flight of stairs. Tube TVs actually went up to 42”, and I know somebody who had one of those in an apartment. It fell off the TV stand and almost went through the floor. This monster 36” flat panel CRT houses the GameCube Smash Bros. Melee station, Xbox, PS2, and Wii all hooked up via component. Now the Wii may be current gen hardware, but I refuse to hook it up to the HDTV with the PS3/360. I tried that for a year or so and the picture was disgusting. If it’s an SD console, it stays on an SDTV. The PS3 and 360 are wired to a 55” Sony LCD.
There’s a TV for every generation since the 8-bit era. It’s quite the nostalgia trip. You can find old tube TVs anywhere. People will regularly try to sell them at garage sales after upgrading to HD, but fail to unload it then just set it on the curb. I wound up with like 13 at one point for less than $40. It may seem like a pain, but the joy of playing Tecmo Super Bowl the way it was seen new is priceless. No jaggies, no pixels, and no progressive scan.
Of course, when your eyes start bleeding from the radiation, Uncharted 2 is always there in all its 1080p glory.
Popularity: 1% [?]
