Longest living console?


My oldest would be the Atari 2600, but it doesn't get used... The oldest one that still sees regular use would be the NES.
 
Two Amiga 500's in regular use. One Amiga 1200 in regular use. Three Commodore 64's, one in regular use. All still fully operational. Not to mention all my other systems that see some use, and are still fully operational.
 
A lot of my old consoles still work though emulation has killed it for them as far as regular use goes. My oldest working console would probably be the ColecoVision.
 
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Atari 2600 here (woodgrain sixer for the win :) (image, looks like one of these: http://www.retrogamingcollector.com/Vintage-Consoles/AtariHeavySix.jpg )


Still running a stack of Atari STs (doing development on them still, woot .. hell, I've got Linux running on one..), though they're circa 1986.


Galaxian arcade machine is 1979 I think, so the 2600 predates it a bit.


But yeah, don't get some of us started.. theres a lot of nutjob old collectors here ;)


jeff


I'm with ED.. a lot of the old geart lasts longer by far; I'll tell you why ..


i) More primitive.. traces the width of your finger on the motherboards, with the motherboards as large as a surfboard :)


ii) Fewer breakable bits -- fuses? who needs fuses in 1970's electronics ... they just explode or live forever.. no inbetween :)


iii) Made hard; they didn't mess around back then.. real parts, no cheap imitations (and the cheap imitations were made well!), and heavy duty since a lto of it was new.


iv) but okay, they used first gen nicd batteries and melted half of everything...


My Atari 2600s run perfect and theyu're from what, 1977? 87, 97, 2007, 2012 .. thats like 35 years old (chriust, now I feel old..) and still chugging. My arcade CRTs are built with half inch thick heavy glass on the front, so drunk folks smacking them wonmt' hurt them.. running fine! (degaussed now and again of course..)


Sheeeeeit, I'm turning 40 in a few days. Now I need whisky.
 
The only console I still have that works is my Amiga 1200, it's not being used on a regular base though. One of the reasons is I have only one working controller left and I can't seem to find an original replacement (Suzo Arcade, the one with one firebutton). They died more often then my Amiga's.
 
When I was a manager for Chips, our warehouse guys found a box of unopened Atari lynx, all with a bunch of games each too, still sealed, so I just had to buy one.


I do still have a game boy with a few dead pixels and I got that for my 7th birthday :) and a game gear in perfect working order :)
 
I've "lost" my older hardware... the oldest console I still have is a nice gameboy pocket that I use as an oscilloscope... and yes I'm very jaleous when I see theses collections...
 
Got a Pong that still fires up, several VCS too (all the variants) a few C64s (one still new, I just periodically test it!), a couple of ZX81s, quite a few ZX Spectrums (1 still new) all working, only one needed a new membrane (I stocked up on those). Amiga A500s, CDTV, Colecovision, many more. I do give many of them an outing a few times a year but I guess none of them would get 'regular' use!
 
Asmo, do you mean a Pong arcade machine or a Pong TV console? I guess a Pong TV console, if so which one?
 
Sounds like lots of people here have some nice old consoles. There should be a 'show your collection' thread. Similar to the handhelds one :)
 
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I'd be up for that but most of my collection is either being sold or packed for a big move, I'll certainly share what I have left after.


A game boy as an oscilloscope? That's intriguing, did you have Space War on it? :)
 
dgame said:
Asmo, do you mean a Pong arcade machine or a Pong TV console? I guess a Pong TV console, if so which one?
Click to expand...

Yeah, Home Version - Atari Pong. It's probably well preserved because it's an NTSC/110v unit that was given to me by someone who brought it back from the States, expecting it to work in a Pal /220v territory. I think it was only first used in the mid 80s, when I discovered you could get an NTSC image on some Pal TVs by adjusting the vertical sync drastically! Back when TVs had a bunch of such dials and knobs on them.
 
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Asmo said:
dgame said:
Asmo, do you mean a Pong arcade machine or a Pong TV console? I guess a Pong TV console, if so which one?
Click to expand...

Yeah, Home Version - Atari Pong. It's probably well preserved because it's an NTSC/110v unit that was given to me by someone who brought it back from the States, expecting it to work in a Pal /220v territory. I think it was only first used in the mid 80s, when I discovered you could get an NTSC image on some Pal TVs by adjusting the vertical sync drastically! Back when TVs had a bunch of such dials and knobs on them.
Click to expand...
I used to love playing with those knobs on our old TV. Incidentally, my parents hated me playing with those knobs on our old TV.
 
^


I had to fix a broken TV to get my own when I was young.. Also had to buy my own Video game systems too.. My dad didn't approve of them, but believed I can do what I want with my Money.. Think of it now, it's odd that my that my Parents had no issue at all with a 9 year old playing around with the back of a TV especially with those high voltage flyback transformers. Although I knew how to build circuits from schematics and had fairly good soldering skills by that age.
 
TrashyMG said:
Think of it now, it's odd that my that my Parents had no issue at all with a 9 year old playing around with the back of a TV especially with those high voltage flyback transformers.
Click to expand...

In the Spectrum days a lot of the 'affordable' portable TVs most users ended up with as monitors had really skewed displays - you would only notice this with a computer hooked up, the display could be at a pretty steep angle. Wearing only rubber washing gloves I used to correct this problem on my own and friends displays by taking the back off and rotating the bits on the back of the CRT tube in the appropriate direction. Nothing bad ever happened, but I'd honestly think twice about doing it now!
 
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