Retro Gamer forum

Not sure if this has been done on another thread...what is your own evolution of gaming? i.e. what machines have you had and in what order? (multi-game machines - not stand-alone)?

Mine starts way back in the distant past (cue wavey lines)........

- ZX Spectrum 48k (not the rubber-keyed one, the plastic one)
- ZX Spectrum 128K+ (the dark grey one)
- Nintendo ES
- Sega Game Gear
- Super Nintendo
- PC
- Sony Playstation
- Nintendo GameBoy Pocket
- Nintendo GameBoy Advance (original)
- Sony PS2
- Apple iMac
- Nintendo Gamecube
- Mobile phone (Sony Ericsson)
- another PC
- Mobile Phone (LG Viewty)
- Sony PSP
- Nintendo GameBoy Micro
- Mobile Phone (Apple iPhone)
- Nintendo Wii
- Apple MacBook Pro
- Nintendo 64 (only just bought)

I'm surprised the amount of Nintendo that's in there!

And I'm quite surprised to see I've owned three Sony machines (plus one Sony mobile phone) - yet I wouldn't say I've had any affinity to them. Only when it's written down here have I really appreciated the impact they've had on me.

Favourite? Almost impossible - but the Spectrum(s) is the granddaddy, so I'll go with that.

I remember I once (circa 1987) found a copied and unmarked tape near our local field that had a load of Speccy games on it. It was like finding buried treasure! In a way, for me that sums up gaming of yore!

My parents had a Commodore 16 when I was little but it wasn't until I picked up a NES that I really started gaming.

So list looks like this:

Commodore 16
NES
GameBoy
SNES
N64
Dreamcast
Spectrum (cannot remember which version it is)
Wii
NDS
GameCube
GBA
GBC
GameBoy Micro
GameBoy Pocket
X-Box 360
Commodore Amiga 500

Bit mixed in the order that I picked stuff up.

Good thread!

Okay so this is how I went through my games machines. I don't know exact dates though.
Spectrum 48k (rubber)
Spectrum +2b
Commodore Amiga 500+
Sony PlayStation
PC
Sony PlayStation2
Microsoft Xbox
Microsoft Xbox 360
Nintendo DS Lite
Nintendo Wii
And, I don't know if it counts but three Android phones in a row (T-Mobile G1, G2 and Samsung Galaxy S - my current phone).

It surprises me actually how few systems I've actually had. However, when you add in games I've played on emulated systems you could add NES, SNES, Master System, Megadrive, Atari 2600, Dreamcast, Commodore 64, etc) on there.

I'll leave off the machines I've bought since starting to collect, so main machines would be:

Spectrum 128
Master System
Mega Drive
PC (97)
PC (99)* First machine I ever bought myself, and the reason I got a Job in the first place.
Dreamcast
PC (03)
PS2
Xbox
Xbox 360
PC
PSP
Wii
DS
PS3

Sort of like this...

GameBoy Classic
PC
Nintendo 64
PS1
PS2
Wii
PS3
iPhone / iPad

Amstrad CPC-464
Master Sytem II
Game Boy
Mega Drive II
PC
Playstation
Playstation 2
Playstation 3
PSP
360
GameCube
Dreamcast
N64
Saturn
X-Box

All those since the 360, my friend used to own (growing up, we arranged to not buy the same consoles so as to cover all the bases!), but I owned a few games for them so figured I might as well buy my own consoles.

Misc Nintendo Game+Watches, LCD games of all shapes/sizes-ZX81-Atari 2600-Atari 800Xl-C64-Atari ST-Sega Game Gear-Sega MD-Atari Lynx (mk 2)-Atari Jaguar-Sony Playstation-Lynx (Mk1)-Sega Dreamcast-Snes-Atari 600-Sega Saturn-GBA (started getting into Retro)-Playstation 2 (won mine)-MS Xbox-PSP-PS3-360.

Think that's how it went, throw in a GB ,N64,Game Cube, GB Player N-Gauge, Neo-Geo Colour/Pocket, Amiga 1200 etc along the way.Bought so many systems over the years, lost track of what i bought an when.

ive never botherd with pc gaming until fairly recently and i never even saw any of the 8 bit micros let alone played on them my evolution is solely console based
gameboy classic
nes
megadrive
game gear
atari lynx
atari jaguar
snes ( yes i was late with the snes )
n64
ps 1 (as wel as the ps 1 )
saturn
dreamcast
ps2
cube
xbox
xbox 360
wii
ps 3 ( briefly had it for 2 weeks )

Cripes, let see if I can remember them all. I think I've done this list a few times and it always comes out different each time I do it!

So, in roughly chronological order:

Commodore 64 - Not mine really, but some (rich) family friends had one and I spent more time playing it than they did!
Donkey Kong Jr - One of those portable folding ones.
IBM XT - Monochrome graphics, 640k RAM, 5.25" 360k floppies. I know this must have cost my parents a fortune, but damn was it slow. I had this PC for years - well into the 386/486 era. I eventually got an EGA card and colour monitor on it, which allowed me to play games like Golden Axe in colour and very, very slowly.
NES - Well it was more of a Famiclone really.
Gameboy - I only ever had a couple of games for this - luckily one of them was a 64 in 1 (or something like that).
Megadrive - Traded my NES in for it. What a console!
SNES - which I stupidly sold for:
386 DX PC - Had this PC for ages. Added a CD-ROM drive (single speed caddy loaded!) and sound card (amazingly, my first one). Still regret trading my SNES in for this.
486 SX PC - Eventually swapped the 386 and motherboard for a 486 one. The nice thing about PCs being I got to keep the graphics card, sound card, etc from the 386.
Sony Playstation - Choice between this and the Saturn. One look at Wipeout for the Saturn convinced me to get the PS.
Pentium MMX - At this point I finally got a job, which meant I could afford to get a current spec PC. Eventually upgraded it with a stunning 3dfx card.
Nintendo 64 - The first console I bought on launch day. Mario 64 was amazing.
Another SNES - The last one in the shop.
Gameboy Colour - Got this purely for Link's Awakening DX.
Dreamcast - Remember trying to get online on launch day? That was fun...
iMac DV - Mmmmm, lime. After a few years of working with Windows I decided to get a Mac. Played loads of amazing games on this machine. Who says Macs can't do games?
Playstation 2 - Waited ages to get one, ordered one, but the stock fell through! I think that Christmas the supply ship sank or something.
Gamecube - While waiting for the bloody PS2 to arrive I walked into the old videogame shop in Salisbury (can't remember the name of it) and they had an imported modded Japanese cube. Bought it with the intention of sending the PS2 back when it arrived, but ended up keeping both.
Xbox - Didn't really like it to start with (it was too "PC" to be a console with the hard drive noise), but it certainly grew on me. Especially after I modded it. The one and only time I've used a soldering iron, scary!
Gameboy Advance - Picked this up from an EB in the US. Had an afterburner installed at that game store who's name I still can't remember.
Xbox 360 - I guess? There was such a massive gap between the GBA and the 360. I don't think I'm forgetting something. This one is now dead (RROD).
Nintendo DS - The original fat one. Sadly stolen
Wii - Man, the New Years Eve after I got the Wii was fun. Many videos were made of what looked like people furiously wanking.
PS3 - Great console. Pity about all the censored surrounding it though.
Atari VCS - The start of my journey into retro gaming. Someone at work was throwing this out! It turned out to be a perfectly working 2600, plus two working controllers and 6 or so boxed games (including Pitfall and my fave, Combat).
NES - Picked up a boxed console in Crack Converters. I'd never owned an official NES. The cart loading mechanism certainly is..novel.
Another Megadrive + Mega CD - Could never afford a MegaCD back in the day, so I picked a boxed on up off of eBay.
Gamegear - Again, never had one as a kid. The screen is horrible.
DS Lite - Replacement for my original one. The DS cart slot is buggered in this one.
Core i5 uber PC - After years of running exclusively Macs, I was drawn back to Windows by The Orange Box. Which introduced me to Steam. I now have more PC games than I'll ever get a chance to play.
Xbox 360 Slim + Kinect - A Christmas present. Still, Kinect Adventures is quite fun.
Nintendo 3DS - My new shiny.
Panasonic 3DO - My latest retro console.

I've also briefly owned an Amiga 600 and a spectrum. Both of which I took back to Cash Converters after playing them for a week or so. Retro consoles are so much easier to collect for and use than retro computers.

Ah, also forgot to mention the PSP I briefly owned. Got tired of it running out of juice.

I like these threads.

Commdore 64 - first machine I played on at home, must have been 1984. I shared it with my older brother. I got my own a C64c model in about 1987.
Sega Mega Drive - Crimbo 1991
Commodore Amiga 500+ - 1994
Cyrix 586 100Mhz 16MB PC - 1996 - First computer bought with my own money.
PlayStation - 1998 - First console bought with my own money
Pentium III 400MHz 64MB PC with a 3DFX Voodoo graphics card, once I had this I ditched the PlayStation.
Upgraded above PC to a AMD 800Hhz, 128MB Ram and a GeForce II graphics card - 2000

Third PC - 2001 - A Pentium 4 1.7Ghz, 512MB and a GeForce III graphics card.
Fourth PC - 2003 - A Pentium 4 3Ghz 1Gb with a Geforce V. This was the first machine I built myself, I was very proud at the time. It had quite a few upgrades too.

PSP - 2005
Original Xbox - 2005
Fifth PC - 2006 to present. An AMD 2.2GHz Dual Core, 3GB Ram and a Geforce 8800GT. It used to be a great rig, but its a bit old now.
Xbox 360 - 2006 - Still have this, it's had about three repairs, so It's not the same machine I bought, but I still love it.
2009 - I decided I also wanted a PS3 to go along with my Xbox 360.
2009 - Added a Nintendo DS to my collection.
2010 - Upgraded my old PSP to a PSP 3000, I hardly use it though.

1978 Merlin handheld
1982 Grandstand electronic tabletop Scramble
1982 Donkey Kong Nintendo Game & Watch
1983 ZX Spectrum 48K
1997 Playstation
1998 Nintendo N64 (Goldeneye box with gold pad)
14/10/99 Sega Dreamcast
24/11/00 Sony PS2
20/6/01 Nintendo GBA
15/10/01 Sega Megadrive
6/11/01 Sega Victor Saturn (JAP)
15/1/02 Neo Geo Pocket Colour
15/3/02 Microsoft Xbox
3/5/02 Nintendo Gamecube (PAL)
15/8/02 Nintendo Gamecube (US)
25/12/04 Nintendo Ltd Edition Gold SP with Minnish Cap
21/04/05 Nintendo DS
1/09/05 Sony PSP
23/06/06 Nintendo DS Lite
10/08/07 Sony PS3
14/09/2007 Nintendo Wii
03/04/2009 Nintendo DSi
23/06/2009 iPod Touch
12/01/2010 Xbox 360 Elite 120GB

Morkin I'm impressed that you know the specific dates you bought consoles! Unless you're taking the p*** of course!

greenberet79 wrote:Morkin I'm impressed that you know the specific dates you bought consoles! Unless you're taking the p*** of course!

maybe he stil has the receipts ?

From 1997 onwards I kept a record & all the receipts of my console purchases & the older stuff was worked out using the internet & family photos!

Tricky to remember them all, though it's not as long a list as some...

Pocketeers - Yay for handhelds!
Grandstand TV Game - Haha you could shoot the ball in Tennis with the light gun, and wedge the switch between Soccer and Squash to play Soccer with 3 players on one team and 2 on the other. Since this trick works on so many old TV games, they must have been copying each other's circuits.
ZX Spectrum 48K - later a ZX Spectrum+ when it got its replacment keyboard.
Toshiba MSX - second hand, didn't play much other than Green Beret from a cartridge.
Atari 520STFM - first machine I saved up and bought myself.
Nintendo GameBoy - whilst working in London and living in a hostel in a break from Uni.
Sony Playstation - when I got my first job. Bought my first PC a year or two later.
Microsoft XBox - since the Playstation II looked crap.
Nintendo 64 - someone insisted I get one to play Zelda.
Nintendo Wii - since Microsoft came up with a new machine and decided the best way to promote it was to cr@p all over the fun I was having with my XBox.
Nintendo GB Micro - and he shall have Space Harrier wherever he goes.