Luke_T Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) Ok, so the school is going to be doing a module on history of gaming, consoles, game design, etc ... and we have a £1000 grant to spend purely on consoles & games ... so we need your help to get a nice selection. Suggestions of: - Which Consoles / Handhelds (ideally those that were iconic/game changing) - Games (ideally those that were iconic/game changing / particularly suited to the console) - Where best to get hold of them online (excluding eBay) So far we have the following possibilities: Consoles: - atari joystick - atari 2600 - NES - Master System - Megadrive - SNES - Sega Saturn - n64 - playstation - dreamcast - gamecube - playstation 2 - xbox - wii - playstation 3 - xbox 360 Handhelds: - Gameboy - Game Gear - Lynx - N Gage - DS - PSP Please help :-) We will of course have to thoroughly test all this old equipment on the 32" Plasma in the office before we can let them be used in the classroom. Edited January 25, 2011 by Luke_T
FN-GM Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 you have game boy twice The ones i remeber you already have, might need some of the old folk to help 1
SYNACK Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Pffft, 32" plasma.... use a projector, you have got to do real usage testing with at least a 100" screen size
FN-GM Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 have you seen these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(first_generation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(second_generation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(third_generation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(fourth_generation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(fifth_generation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(sixth_generation) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_(seventh_generation)
LosOjos Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) I think you definitely need to go with NES and Mega Drive (first commercially successful 8-bit and 16-bit consoles respectively), and I'd get the Atari 2600 too (mainly because I had one and loved it!) I've purchased a few games from Warners Retro Corner (website: Warners Retro Corner,Video games , consoles, nintendo, sega, atari, modding,homebrew , Turbografx,3DO,) but via their eBay shop, never had any problem with them and I believe they also have consoles. GameStation is usually a good one to pick up retro consoles too, but you'll have to go out to a shop and have a look around, I don't think their online stock reflects store stock. eBay would be your best option: why are you against using it? EDIT: also worth noting that these retro consoles don't always play nice with LCD screens, you can get a lot of flicker issues, may be worth picking up a CRT to get a nicer picture, plus it'll add to the retro feel light gun games, in case you didn't know, will not work on anything but a CRT screen Edited January 25, 2011 by LosOjos 1
SYNACK Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 you have game boy twice The ones i remeber you already have, might need some of the old folk to help Of course, you need two and the link cable to experience the first portable multiplayer system (Gameboy Advance). And hey, you kids get off my lawn 1
Admiral208 Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Do you need a hand with the testing? Im free and can be in Oxford in about an hour... could always bring a zx spectrum with a collection of Dizzy games. Might even have a Chucky Egg lying around somewhere...
dwhyte85 Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Ok, so the school is going to be doing a module on history of gaming, consoles, game design, etc ... and we have a £1000 grant to spend purely on consoles & games ... so we need your help to get a nice selection. You can have my old master system, megadrive and my old GB colour if you really want, not sure i have all ouputs though. 1
FN-GM Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Of course, you need two and the link cable to experience the first portable multiplayer system (Gameboy Advance). You could use the cable with the original gameboy. I did i usted to play pokemon with the cable and the original one. And hey, you kids get off my lawn
Popular Post mattx Posted January 25, 2011 Popular Post Posted January 25, 2011 Sorry to be blunt but what a waste of money - [ my own opinion etc ] - hire a coach and take them to bletchley park for some proper education. Is this Tax Payers money out of interest ? 6
dwhyte85 Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Sorry to be blunt but what a waste of money - [ my own opinion etc ] - hire a coach and take them to bletchley park for some proper education. Is this Tax Payers money out of interest ? Shock, horror! A school wasting tax payer money! 1
Luke_T Posted January 25, 2011 Author Posted January 25, 2011 - 1 Gameboy now - Not a wind up - Will definitely be going on a projector at some point - Wikipedia was my friend in compiling the list above, will probably pick 1 or 2 from each generation - eBay blocked in school (urgh), but similar marketplaces are fine, much easier if can be bought online from within school, otherwise claiming stuff back ... etc ... - good call on the link cable & gameboy - moved to St Albans, Herts now, but you're welcome anytime after 3:30pm :-) (profile sorted) - @ dwhyte85 = if it's a serious offer then would love to take them off your hands! I'll PM you - @ mattx = my thoughts initially as well but turns out it's a grant based on the fact their doing a strange course not sure of the exact details.
Ian_ICTDS Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Are you going to go as far back as Spectrum / Amstrad / Commodore? Games on tape, and waiting 20 mins for them to load would blow their mind. (Also, as above a trip to Bletchley Park would be cool too in my opinion). 1
dwhyte85 Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 It's a serious offer Luke_T, like i've said not sure about the outputs - i think they can be picked up very cheap though.
GrumbleDook Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 @mattx I would do the visit to Bletchley park *as well* ... but there is nothing wrong with looking at consoles, etc. @LukeT It might be an idea to look at what can be virtual or used on rotation with other schools doing the same project. Also look at BBC B emulation too for some old games too. Don't forget to also look at modern gaming construction using simple tools such as Scratch and Kodu. 1
mattx Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 I have quite a collection of old kit still - mainly in my mums loft - I have a boxed [ and working ] ZX80 - that's worth quite a bit - and really doing a seach for old kit emulators will aid instead of wasting money on the real equipment. If you really want to get nerdy some of the source code for the Atari 2600 games is avilable to look at. Just make sure your assembly language skills are up to scratch.
alexsanger Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Are you going to go as far back as Spectrum / Amstrad / Commodore? Games on tape, and waiting 20 mins for them to load would blow their mind. (Also, as above a trip to Bletchley Park would be cool too in my opinion). LOL! Now you're making me feel really old! One of the most ground breaking games had to be Elite, originally on the BBC Micro. Hours of my childhood went on trading between planets and dodging Thargoids and pirates. The genesis game for the sci-fi genre - the first where the game reacted to how you played. Will you be a trader, a pirate, a bounty hunter...? Ah, happy memories, and all with 16kb of RAM... 1
westleya Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 If you fancy giving all your students a nasty headache and permanent squint, get hold of some Virtual Boys 1
soveryapt Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Why do I suddenly feel a proposal coming on for the SLT here .. lol .. I already have an old Atari (well my dad does) of the Atari 800 & ST (and some other one from inbetween) varieties .. I used to love playing Donkey Kong, which is why I love the Wii I got just before Christmas as it came with the original Donkey Kong preloaded! lol .. http://www.retrogames.co.uk seems to be something coming up in the old Google Shopping thingy .. 1
mattx Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 I certainly hope this £1000 will involve showing the students how to actually properly code without the advantages of huge amounts of RAM, disk space and overall resources etc. Make them realise that the best programmers [ Eugene Jarvis etc ] wrote amazing games with gx, sound and gameplay on a ridiculously small amount of resources.
somabc Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Everything you want! Retro Games Museum Page - Information and FAQs on all retro games formats 1
Luke_T Posted January 25, 2011 Author Posted January 25, 2011 - grrr retrogames.co.uk & retro-games.co.uk/museum/museum.htm also blocked by The Grid aghrrr!!! - Trip to Bletchley Park is a great idea ... I haven't been there for about 10 years ... I'll ask if they can take some money out of the grant or if not just organise it as a trip - I don't think it;s a waste to get hold of the physical hardware ... so long as it's not ridiculously expensive ... emulators can step in if the cost is prohibitive.
Rydra Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 I think trying to buy one of each will mean you don't have enough scope for each generation. I'd go for: PC (HOW COULD YOU FORGET THIS!) Xbox 360 Wii PS2 Gamecube N64 SNES Megadrive Atari ZX80 Then DS N Gage GameBoy Gamegear. The Xbox/PS3 are essentially the same thing, with a small handful of titles unique to each. The dreamcast and the Saturn never took off as well as they should have, and all Playstation 1 games run on the PS2, all Xbox games on the 360... Handheld wise, the DS is way bigger and more influential than the PSP, which nowadays is just a portable DVD player and addon/cutdown version of the PS3. It's just not as big as it could be. My suggestions for early gaming consoles is mostly a pick of linear usage from memory, my first gaming was the NES/Megadrive with friends, and my first gaming machine was an Atari ST 1024, shortly followed by the Original Black and White(Yellow!) Gameboy. 1
MK-2 Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 how will buying a mega drive and playing through 10 levels of sonic help the kids evaluate the history of consoles and such? surely thats like studying exploitation of women and just buying tonnes of porn for "evaluation purposes and to help the kids learn" 1
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