Gaming's Red-Headed Step Children (and other tech)

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Every once in a while, I get bored and contemplate buying things I think are way neat, but are way too expensive for what they are. Which is mostly footnotes in the history of our little hobby.
I was thinking about the Zodiac Tapwave today. I've owned games for it since the local CompUSA closed in 2007 and I couldn't pass up any game that was brand new for $.25. So I have Zpak Adventure, Tony Hawk, and Spyhunter, but still don't have a Tapwave to play them on.

I have (and really like) an N-Gage QD and a sizable library for it.
I also want a Gizmondo, because I'm dumb.
But I like goofy things like this. It's why I own Playdia and Pippin. And Virtual Boy. and Xbox One.
I did some surfing and ended up at this page.
http://www.cnet.com/pictures/the-dec...-flops-photos/

There's so many things here that I'd forgotten about and even more that I never knew about.
I'm fighting the urge to buy dumb but cute things like a G4 Mac Cube

Or the Sony VAIO VGN-UX280P

There's one on Ebay for $145 and I've already clicked "buy it now" twice, only to close the page when told to press the commit button. I just don't have the money to waste on these things, and even if I did, I acknowledge it would still be a waste.
I know I'm not the only one here that likes quirk.
Discuss yours.

[YellerDog]

One of my old roommates was obsessed with 'mechanical' handheld games, kind of the precursors to the Tiger LCD stuff. Mostly just mechanical dots moving around, but there are TONS of the things in the space between Pong and Game & Watch.





Handheld Museum has a ton of these things to check out: http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Misc/index.html

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

I remember Blip! My brother had it, broke it, then gave it me. Because that's just how he is.

[YellerDog]

It's pretty fun! The roomate in question was finding a goldmine of these things on Shopgoodwill for cheap, I got to hear about them every other week when a new crate of 'em would show up. The arcade ports were the weirdest.

[Low]

Toted one of those around since I was a kid:



Often think about selling the Supergrafx for lack of exclusives but at least it plays Hucards.

[mollipen]

I find the title of this thread offensive.


I wanted a Mac Cube so much it was stupid. Still love the look of the machine, and feel like it'd do far better these days than it did back when it came out. (Though, I'm a laptop-only person now, so I probably still wouldn't get one.)

Not sure if it counts or not, but I utterly loved my MiniDisc player. Helped me survive living in Japan, even as I kept looking longingly at that fancy new iPod thing that had just come out. Hell, I even had an in-dash MiniDisc player in my car! Well, I did until someone broke into my car and stole it. I've also wanted some of the various other stupid Sony things over time, like DCC (Why? No idea!) or the little Mylo thing (back before we all had smartphones) or one of those little portable computers like you posted above.

I think one thing for me was that I was always obsessed with having that "do everything" pocket tech machine that you always saw in sci-fi movies and stories and whatnot, so I wanted to try a lot of the solutions that came out over time that might fill that role. Like, lord, I had a handful of those little Casio or other organizer things back in the day, and always thought they were amazing. Thankfully, the iPhone finally came along and satisfied that dream.

[YellerDog]

Seeing a computer lab full of G4 Mac Cubes back in 2001 convinced me to go to SCAD. Not really, but really.

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

re: Low
What up Bird?

(it's sitting in my store on top of one my display cases with a couple of other old mechanical/lcd games).

re: Shidoshi
I never had a mini disc player, but I've almost bought one a hundred times. I love outdated/under appreciated media. Hence the large RCA CED and Laserdisc collection I used to maintain (Also had a Beta, but only 30 or so movies for it). Also: the 100 or so HD DVDs I still watch.
I'd never heard of Mylo until I went through that link in the OP. There's a lot of stuff in there that was just a few years too soon.

[mollipen]

I have a CED! I found the original Star Wars on CED at a garage sale or something one day, and it blew my mind, because I'd never in my life heard of or seen the format. I bought the disc, and did some reading up on it. I never bought a player, but I still have the disc.

And LD, oh man. That was life. I was engaged when I was 19, and my fiancé's father had an LD player that I was so envious of. I finally convinced her to let me get a machine, and my life was then filled with anime wonderments. I can choose between dub and sub for my Japanese cartoons! And they look beautiful compared to that crummy old VHS! That was the time when Pioneer was still doing anime and they were really trying to push it on LD here in the States, so it was glorious. Plus, of course, getting to feel like a cool videophile or something as you went and browsed the LD sections (or even dedicated stores) instead of slumming it with the commoners.

[YellerDog]

The first Laserdisc I ever watched was "The Story of O", I borrowed the player from a friend one summer to watch Blade Runner and the Aliens SE and his parents had left it in the drive by accident.