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Thread: What was your game room like in 1995?

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    Default What was your game room like in 1995?

    I just recently got a blast to the past when I came across some old video footage I was digitizing for backup off one of my old camcorders in the 90s. I was able to freeze frame the footage and get a good look at my game room in 1995 and decipher where I was at. It was incredible to think I was pushing a 133MHz 16 MB RAM Packard Bell as my gaming computer. I have had computers before this but they were mainly for office use and not purchased with the intent of gaming. This computer was fully intended to be the gaming machine of the day and I am surprised how much has changed since then. From what I have researched the computer was the Ultimate Machine of it's time partnering with Microsoft. Can anyone remember what they were gaming with in 1995? I was just curious how these specs would compare to see if it was really that big of a deal.

    I posted the footage for anyone interested in seeing my setup back then in the link below.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRokeIzEpEw

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    I had the same computer around the same time. Got it Christmas of 94 I believe. The specs sound about right as well. I still have it actually. I remember it came with the Jurassic Park game which we loved and played all the time. I think it was the only actual "real" game we had for a couple years until updating it with a multimedia CD-ROM and SoundBlaster upgrade kit, which came with a bunch of games. No game room to speak of, at the time we had everything set up off to the side of the dining room.
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    Hmm...1995. I was rocking a Packard Bell 486 SX at 25 MHz and 4 MB of RAM. I was playing Tie Fighter heavily at the time. Otherwise I would be playing on a Super Nintendo as I think I sold my Turo Grafix 16 with CD by then.

    I was then just out on my own in a mobile home by myself. I did not have a dedicated "gaming room" but more of a computer room and video games would be connected in the living room. My NES collection was small and in a rolling wire rack with wire shelves. A year later and I'd be married to my first wife.

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    I was a HS senior then. Not playing a ton of games, and it all would have been on a PC. Not sure the details, but my dad worked for IBM, so all our computers were IBM, and we would have had some sort of Aptiva. They were trying the whole multimedia PC thing then, with mediocre results. No game room, the computer was just on a desk near the kitchen/dining room.

    Not sure what games I would have been playing, probably a later Quest for Glory. I was using the modem a lot at that time, playing games like S.R.E. and B.R.E. on a couple local BBSs. Our local library had free dial-up internet access called Orion, so I used that for stuff. Pretty sure I downloaded Mortal Kombat using Usenet (? is that right? something where you downloaded many files and then assembled them back together) and played that a bit. Oh yeah, I definitely hauled the computer and monitor to a friend's house fairly regularly to play Command and Conquer linked with a serial or parallel cable(?).

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    I didn't have a computer yet at that point in time. All I had was a small TV in my bedroom that only had RF input. The only home console I had was my SNES, and I'm guessing I had fewer than ten games for it. I got Donkey Kong Country on its launch day near the end of '94, and it was, if I remember correctly, my fourth or fifth SNES game. I know I was still playing it in '95 because I was having a hell of a time with the bee boss and ending up taking a break from the game for a few months before I resumed and finally cleared that part. I was also playing Donkey Kong Country 2 at the very end of '95, since I got that for Christmas. Between those, I can't recall what, if any, other SNES games I got. I'm sure most of '95 was just replaying my small collection ad nauseam. I probably already had or received my Game Boy in '95, so I was probably playing Tetris and Wario Blast and such as well.

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    My gameroom was my bedroom, and it was pretty basic. I had a large wooden entertainment center cabinet like most did in the 90s, with a 27" Emerson television which was the first set I'd ever purchased for myself before learning what a shit brand Emerson was. I did have a video selector box to swap between all of my game consoles on the fly, and I had a Commodore monitor for secondary screen, which I later would take with me to game on when I worked off shore.

    I didn't have a PC then. In '95 I had a SEGA Master System, the original model Genesis with the SEGA CD (model 2, I think), an SNES that a friend convinced me to snip the region protection tab out of, a Vectrex with about half dozen games, a Panasonic REAL 3DO, an Atari Jaguar (I believe), and an Atari 2600 kicking around somewhere that I didn't play anymore.

    I got my Jaguar at a retail expo called the 'Super Sale' that they used to have every year in the New Orleans Super Dome. I think it was '95, when I got my 3DO, but it could have been '96.

    I had about a dozen Master System games, several dozen Genesis games, about a dozen SNES games, I think, a pretty decent number of SEGA CD titles, and an impressive number of 3DO games interestingly enough. They were being liquidated by the end of the year at EB and they used to have 4 packs of 3DO games for like $9.99 - $14.99 in the preowned bin. It was crazy how a year after the console launched I could find dirt cheap titles for it. I've never owned more than 4 Jaguar games, ever.

    I had about three of these cool, black wall-mountable Genesis game case holders. I would keep all of the game carts in a canvas audio cassette storage case. My SNES carts fit into a cool wooden cassette store crate from 'Peaches Records and Tapes' (that I wish I still had), and I had this super snazzy disc Rolodex style thingie that I stored disc media in for easy access. I stored all the cases and boxes for SEGA CD and 3DO games in the side cabinet of my entertainment center.
    Last edited by Emperor Megas; 04-19-2018 at 10:29 PM.

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    Haha I had an Emerson TV for my consoles with only an RF on it and it was 13 inch so to say the least I am very impressed you had a 27 inch in your room for the day. You must of saved a serious amount of cash for that back then.

    As for consoles I had my model 1 Genesis on life support with a Sega CD and 32X along with a neglected NES. All I have to say is playing DOOM on my Packard Bell was an incredible experience after beating it on my 32X prior.

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    In 1995, we would've had the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis (and maybe the V-Tech Socrates as well) hooked up to our 19" Zenith TV in the den. Our only home computer at the time (also in the den) was a hand-me-down Apple IIe, complete with green-screen monitor, two Disk II 5.25" disk drives, and an Apple Dot-Matrix Printer. It was old, but it worked, and I typed up my homework using good ol' BankStreet Writer, played games from the "Beagle Bag" and "Snøggle" (Pac-Man clone) disks, and typed in BASIC programs from the AppleSoft manual. We didn't get our first PC until two years later (another hand-me-down, a 486 miditower), and didn't make the jump past 16-bit video game systems until the N64 came out.
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    shitty tube TV hooked up to RF for NES and SNES and that was about it

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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    shitty tube TV hooked up to RF for NES and SNES and that was about it
    I wonder how many people actually had the knowledge and the option of composite back then.

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    Quote Originally Posted by KWKBOX View Post
    I wonder how many people actually had the knowledge and the option of composite back then.
    mine just had RF and at the time (6 years old) I didn't even realize that composite RCA cables gave better signal quality than coax

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    Quote Originally Posted by KWKBOX View Post
    Haha I had an Emerson TV for my consoles with only an RF on it and it was 13 inch so to say the least I am very impressed you had a 27 inch in your room for the day. You must of saved a serious amount of cash for that back then.
    Heh, I honestly don't remember what I paid for it. What's funny is it was a consolation purchase. I actually wanted this neat little gold 13" television that had a matching gold VCR that was in Macy's a year or so earlier., back when they still had an electronics section. I had a much smaller room then, so it would have been nice. I couldn't afford it at the time and it wasn't available anymore by the time I was in the position to afford a new set.

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    Quote Originally Posted by KWKBOX View Post
    I wonder how many people actually had the knowledge and the option of composite back then.
    It had to be fairly commonplace by 1995 considering the PS1 and N64 didn't even come packaged with an RF cable. (I don't know about the Saturn since I never got one new.) I had to drop an extra $20 apiece to buy the official RF cables for each (real nice to pay more for a lower quality picture). It was especially frustrating with my N64. I got it the day before the official launch date in September of '96, and I was just about bursting at the seams to play this brand new system, only to discover when I brought it home that I couldn't even hook it up to my TV. When I got my PS1, at least I knew I had to check what kind of cable was included and not assume it'd have what I'd need.

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    It was actually fairly commonplace, but a lot of people just didn't know that those newfangled things were unless they also had stereo equipment. My family had a TV that was a decade old at that point and had at least two input and at least one output hookup sets for composite, plus some fairly esoteric ones I can't remember; it was a commercial RCA with JC Penny labels. The first console that I used composite was the PS1, since one of the input sets was in the front of the TV.

    Back to the main point, I didn't really have a game room as such yet. The NES was in the bedroom that my brother and I shared or the living room, whichever was more convenient at the time, plus a Commodore 128 that we jury-rigged to an ancient TV in my parent's room that I futzed around on once in a while. I think it 1995 is more-or-less when I got a SNES and that bounced around the same way the NES did.
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    Yeah, by that point it was typically just the budget TV's that only had RF inputs, and even then you could usually connect composite through a VCR. Higher end TV's, even in the late 80's/early 90's, often had S-Video in addition to composite and RF. But even low to mid range TV's usually had composite...though at the time I don't think I really knew or cared that there was a difference in quality, or that going through the VCR wasn't so great either. Just that it let me hook up the newer systems.
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    I remember routing my Dreamcast through a VCR hooked up via RF to my mom's TV that had to be from the early or mid 80s, haha. I don't remember if the Dreamcast even had RF cables available or if I was just fed up with spending extra. My own personal TV was from '91 or '92. Since I had no game systems at that point in time, it was bought solely with the intention of me watching TV on it, so I guess any other inputs would be seen as unnecessary. Plus the average family probably wouldn't splurge on a set for a 10-year-old, so it probably was a budget TV.

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    Quote Originally Posted by KWKBOX View Post
    I wonder how many people actually had the knowledge and the option of composite back then.
    Few gamers had, at least in Mexico ... many CRTs were sold with RF. Many sony's CRTs had composite and the deluxe one had s-video, which was really something impressive on the day.

    Europe had RGB through scart connectors ... wish we had that luck
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    The Zenith TV I mentioned in my post only had an RF input. We had a chain of RF switches connected to it for all three (four?) systems, and it worked. It may not have been perfect, but it was good enough for us, at least as long as all the F connectors were nice and tight. When I got an NES to use with the B&W TV in my own bedroom, I used its RF output there, too (not like I had any choice, of course). I didn't start experimenting with using the A/V outputs on the side of the NES until I got the crazy idea to try hooking my NES to the green-screen monitor which went with the Apple IIe. Man, did The Legend of Zelda look weird in monochrome..........
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    Quote Originally Posted by jb143 View Post
    Yeah, by that point it was typically just the budget TV's that only had RF inputs, and even then you could usually connect composite through a VCR. Higher end TV's, even in the late 80's/early 90's, often had S-Video in addition to composite and RF. But even low to mid range TV's usually had composite...though at the time I don't think I really knew or cared that there was a difference in quality, or that going through the VCR wasn't so great either. Just that it let me hook up the newer systems.
    By about 1995 most TVs save for maybe some 13" or smaller sets had composite cables. Stereo was available for most sets. I worked at Sears in the Home Electronics/Home Office section so I worked with all sorts of makes and models of TV. When I wotked at Wal-Mart the year prior I don't recall a TV 20" or higher that just had RF.

    This was also a time when "home theater" was starting to get pushed. Surround sound was appearing at more attractive prices (my then fiancee bought a Sony rack system with two two speakers, surround, powered subwoofer, dual tape deck, 5 disc carousel CD player and tuner for $999). Stereo VCRs were coming down in price as well.

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    1995...didnt have much..I had the SNES and ...i dont believe i had ps1 yet...believe i got that in 1996 with my first job... didnt have a lot of games..i had madden 95/96, mortal kombat 2, nhl stanley cup, nba jam, ncaa basketball, batman returns, mario world..thats honestly about it...we used to rent a lot of games back then...only time i got games was christmas and birthdays..that was it

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