Old Consoles Brought Back to Life.

Back in I think 1991, my parents bought me a SNES for my birthday, if I am not mistaken it was a "launch" SNES. I played the shit out of that console, in the heyday of Square and Enix playing some of my favorite RPGs, FFII(IV), FFIII(VI), Secret of Mana, Secret of Evermore, Earthbound. I had many other games, but those five games were the games I kept. After that SNES served me for about 8 or 9 years, it one day decided it didn't want to display any images anymore. I think the normal thing to do would have been to throw it away, but I didn't. That console had some sentimental value to me. I kept it. Through 13 or 14 years and 4 moves, that console always ended up in a box in my closet.

I had forgotten I had it. But I found it today when I was trying to get an old PS2 to work. The (slim) PS2 apparently just didn't like the default AV connector that came with it, and using a universal Component cable I have for my Wii, it worked beautifully, unfortunately my launch PS2 with the HDD gets disk read errors on every disk I insert.

Anyway, back to the SNES, like I said, I found it when I was rummaging through my closet looking for my PS2 power cord, and I just figured I'd give it a shot and see if I could get it to work. Using the AV cable from my Gamecube, I turned on the SNES in hope of seeing and hearing the opening for Secret of Mana. The black screen, my old enemy, greeted me. I was about to throw in the towel, but then it occurred to me that I could search on the internet to see if I could fix the AV issue with my SNES. I knew it wasn't the cord, because my Gamecube worked perfectly fine with it. Turns out he easiest and quickest troubleshooting step was to clean the connector slot in the SNES. My games have stayed in pristine shape, so it never dawned on me that maybe the issue was the connector in my SNES. A little rubbing alcohol on a t-shirt wrapped around an ID, and the slot was clean.

I turned on the SNES, and I was greeted by this...

I cannot put into words the elation I felt at bringing back to life my old SNES after what seems a lifetime, and to be able to recover two old consoles, one of which I have an extensive library for, was one of the greatest feelings I have felt in a very long time.

Now if I could only get my NES working again, but alas, that won't happen until I tear it apart and rebuild it, possibly in a toaster.

Oh man, Square and Enix as separate entities, what a time. Also, the toaster idea is great, then you can reenact all your favorite AVGN moments!

Last year just for the hell of it I bought a PS2 for $60, came with everything but games, which are also super cheap. It's my first console ever and I think it's a great console, objectively I would say the most successful console to date (?).

I actually dumped the BIOS and have been trying to play on an emulator because I don't have access to a TV right now and I'm having a hell of a time getting any games to run in a playable state.

@vuud: It takes one hell of a CPU to run PS2 games. I got my hands on an Intel i7 4790 3.6Ghz processor, and I still can dip under 60 in a lot of games. Especially the faster paced ones.

I've messed with a GC/Wii emulator a bit, ripping ISOs of my games to force them into 1080p (they look amazing btw), and I usually get far better framerates than PS2 games. I just use my PS2 instead most of the time. CPU is an Intel i5 3570k clocked to 4.3Ghz. Unless you've got imports to play, or as above have no TV, it's not really worth dumping the BIOS to emulate.

Fun experience, duder!

Hello, old friend

@vuud: Was it easy to dump the BIOS?

I have a i7 2700K and I've never really had issues with it. A good video card is necessary as well.

If your NES has the problem that all toaster NES's tend to have (the connector pins need replacing) it is a super easy job. Even if you're super mechanically inept it shouldn't take more than a half hour at most.

@sgtsphynx: It involves a little bit of trickery, but my PS2 slim has a USB right on the front (don't know about other models), so basically you side load this program that dumps the BIOS to a flash drive, and I think you had to boot it with the door open. Anyway, check youtube there are a bunch of tutorials for it.