Retrogaming heaven

The folks at my wife’s office decided to replace their 36” Mitsibushi tube television sets with 60” LCD TVs.

The question, of course, is what does one do with a huge, outdated television? The Mitsubishi in question, after all, weighs around 200 pounds and isn’t exactly state of the art. The thing is bulky and can’t touch it’s HDTV counterparts in this day and age where high definition rules the airwaves.

So, anyway – what does one do with a huge television set? You give it to someone who loves vintage video game systems, of course. My wife’s employers decided the Mitsubishis were worthless and decided to give them away for free to anyone willing to haul them out of the building. My wife grabbed one and – with quite a bit of help – managed to cram it in the back of her GMC Terrain (it barely fit because the thing is simply massive).

The television is outstanding for classic video games, so I’m glad to have it. I’ve got quite a few vintage systems around here – an Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Sega Genesis, Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo and Playstation 1. They all look terrible on the HDTV sets we have (well, the Atari 2600 looks OK, but not great). Those systems have pretty well remained in a closet for the past few years for want of a suitable television set. Yes, our Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, Sega Dreamcast (with a VGA box) and that piece of crap Xbox 360 all look great on HDTV sets, but I’ve truly missed my older systems.

So, there’s a lesson here – if you’re a fan of vintage video games and find them unplayable on an HDTV set, the chances are good you can find a tube television for next to nothing (or, maybe even for free).