• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

nostaliga porn/90s kids/etc: what were the most sought-after electronics as a kid

Status
Not open for further replies.

Krejlooc

Banned
Rich/divorced parents?

nope and nope

I just got really, really good grades all the time as a kid. My parents would make deals with my siblings and I - every time we'd make straight A's, we'd get a present. My brother and sisters were slackers and never seemed to put in the work, but me? I didn't make a B until senior year of highschool, ever. That meant every 6 weeks I basically got some sort of awesome gift. Usually it was something like a video game or an RC car. But they'd sweeten the deal for holidays - if I could go an entire year of straight A's, then they'd get me a new piece of hardware for christmas. Hence how I was able to get both a Sega CD and 32X and game gear and so forth - I was busting my ass making straight A's at a magnet school.

I remember working so, so fucking hard for Sonic & Knuckles. I was in the 4th grade, and during this time I was in a local NASA co-op program where they'd take me out of elementary school to a local university to take advanced math courses. Math has always been my Achilles heel. That particular 6-week period revolved around trigonometry, and I remember we were learning about arc sin, arc tangent, and arc cosine, and it was sooooo fucking hard to grasp. The day I got my reportcard I did flips because I knew it meant I was going to get Sonic & Knuckles. SOHCAHTOA - I still remember (and use) it to this day. Funnily enough, what made me actually grasp and understand those concepts was applying it to Sonic the Hedgehog itself and coming to understand how to move through a loop using trig.

Also, I used to mow lawns around the neighborhood starting at age 11, and funcoland let me really take my money far.
 

dpunk3

Member
I read the title of this as "90's porn is nostalgic."

Music always gets me. Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, even shit like Nsync and Backstreet Boys. There isn't a lot of physical items per se that remind me of my childhood, maybe some older games consoles.
 

dpunk3

Member
Speaking of Mountain Dew, the "Livewire" flavor was easily the best thing the brand ever did, and blew their "Code Red" out of the water. I'm flabbergasted that it never came to fruition as a standard flavor.

I literally developed diabetes from that shit.

Livewire is in stores everywhere.
 

x3sphere

Member
Tiger%20Game.com.jpg


Game.com

I remember wanting it so bad because RE2 was coming out for it, lol.
 
90s kids are the last generation of kids to go through the darkness, we're grown up and buy these consoles for ourselves, our parents saw no need to buy them especially if it meant spending the cash on something else. What's the new rich kid thing now?
 

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
I had Crossfire. I wanted it so badly and finally got one for Christmas. I probably played it twice and it sat in my closet for over a decade.
 

Cody_D165

Banned
Speaking of Mountain Dew, the "Livewire" flavor was easily the best thing the brand ever did, and blew their "Code Red" out of the water. I'm flabbergasted that it never came to fruition as a standard flavor.

I literally developed diabetes from that shit.

wait what? I can literally go down the street to my gas station and buy Livewire right now
 
I had this:

It was SO fucking awesome.

The battery only lasted about 20 minutes (giant lithium battery pack), but it charged pretty fast in like 2-3 hours.


This sticker does not lie, it spun so fast , it was really fast (for a toy remote control car), much faster than any other remote control car I had before.

Only 4 of the 6 wheels were powered though

I played with this thing for months until eventually I broke off one of the front wheels hitting a curb for the millionth time. Then I played with it some more.

edit: here's the commercial they played on tv for it:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwpapacs-G8

Also had got one of these from my grandpa a few years earlier:

idk if it was this exact one but it was very similar if not this (I remember the smiley face headlights and the remote being the same)



I had one of these too, that's from the 80s though isn't it? I think I was like 4 or something when I had this.

I had this when I was 12:

getuserimage.asp


The version I had didn't have the Japanese text, it was one that was just like this that was sold in NA by hobby shops. It used a rechargeable battery and the wheels could be removed with an allen wrench.

This was totally bad ass though, but sadly I burned out the electronics by running it through mud puddles in the rain :(
 
Sega channel worked on the same technology as pay-per-view. You'd rent this cartridge from your cable company every month that looked like this:

APg5DUR.jpg


And you'd run a coax cable to your Sega Genesis using this cart. Every month, they'd select 50 games out of the Sega Genesis library and broadcast them in a loop across your cable provider. When you turned on this cartridge you'd get this menu:

pZhaUqF.jpg


which let you select between the games being broadcast every month. For $15 a month, you got unlimited play of all 50 games.

It was like blockbuster video directly in your house. 50 fucking games a month for $15, and many of the games on Sega Channel either came early, like when they released Mortal Kombat 3 like 6 weeks before it shipped, or were outright sega channel exclusive, like Mega Man: The Wily Wars and Alien Soldier.

The cart also had SRAM so you could save your games. I played through soooooo many genesis games that way, like Shining Force II, Beyond Oasis, Phantasy Star IV, etc.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMRLZcBiN-k

Keep in mind, this was 1995.

This I loved it, my Mom bought me a Genesis then realized I already had one at my Dad's house. So she did not like to go out, at all, so she got the Sega channel.......So freaking awesome! This game made me take my savings and go out and buy Beyond Oasis once it was off the channel. Besides the NHL series Beyond Oasis is my absolute favorite Genesis game. The channel also got my Mom to fall in love with Columns. This last year I bought her a laptop, a game-pad, loaded up all my genesis roms and pointed her to where Columns is...Let's just say she liked that better than all of the other crap I bought for her over the years...
 
When people talk about the game gear, they almost always were doing it wrong. Because they always talk about it eating batteries, which meant they didn't have this:

plhjsJI.jpg


You clipped this bitch to your acid wash jeans and it let you rock your game gear for like 8 hours at a time on a single charge. And if you needed more power, you just plugged it into the cigarette port in your mom's aerostar and it'd fill back up with power.

Second, most kids did not have a Sega Master System prior to getting their game gear, meaning they didn't get to use this:

AKrg5k8.jpg


The master gear converter made the game gear flat out amazing. I had about 20 SMS titles when I got my game gear, and this baby is precisely why I went out of my way to get the game gear. Thing thing felt like it came from god himself. Being able to play your console games ON THE FUCKING GO?? Holy shit my game gear made so many car trips and family reunions tolerable. Hundreds and hundreds of hours playing stuff like Fantasy Zone or Wonderboy III on the go with that baby.

Had these for my GameGear, did not get to use them much. Let's just say I got grounded from the GameGear, a lot, my step-mom liked to play Sonic on it, and Tetris on my GameBoy........
 
I always wanted a SEGA Nomad because the idea of a portable Genesis was amazing to me as a kid.

51KQlhPKZYL.jpg


Of course, you can have that entire generation of consoles and games in a portable now, so we're way better off today.

Yeah these were terrible. Anything with scrolling was near unplayable. Battery life was embarrassing too.

Did you notice the Dpad on the box is twisted as to be broken? Bothered me straight away when I got mine in 97.
 

siddx

Magnificent Eager Mighty Brilliantly Erect Registereduser
I guess this is 80's kid thing more than 90's, but all I know is many a friendship was forced in the name of the NES and later the SNES. Kids would get manipulative and fake as fuck for a chance to go over to someone's house who had one or had specific games. Plus, I was living overseas in a place where stuff like that wasn't available, so the ratio of kids with Nintendo's was very low. When I finally got one I suddenly had way more friends overnight.
 
This thread.....

You guys had some cool shit. Most of my toys for like the first 3/4 of my childhood came from garage sales. Like my dad bought this bigass box of 80s action figures at a garage sale once, and it was like the happiest moment of my life up to that point. Oh, and true story. My mom used to draw power rangers on paper, cut them out, and my brother and I used to play with them lol. Living that strugglefigure life.

Shit got better once I hit 4th grade though, and at least I had legos.
 
reb1.jpg


A kid in my neighborhood had one of these. Made me super jealous. He never let anyone else play with it either.

This one time he bounced it off a curb and hit my friend Carlos in the balls.

Oh man, these were great....

I had almost ten of these TYCO remote controls cars as a kid....fuck I was spoiled, LOL. The one that spit out water as a snake was fucking awesome. I still have them and display them in my room....I'll never get rid of 'em, especially Python.

$_3.JPG
 
I had this when I was 12:

getuserimage.asp


The version I had didn't have the Japanese text, it was one that was just like this that was sold in NA by hobby shops. It used a rechargeable battery and the wheels could be removed with an allen wrench.

This was totally bad ass though, but sadly I burned out the electronics by running it through mud puddles in the rain :(

Just a pet peeve of mine.

I hated the steering wheel controllers for RC cars. 8 way or bust.
 

butzopower

proud of his butz
None of my friends had cable when I grew up, but my gramps worked for the phone company so we had some non legit hook up.

I remember watching the Sega Channel infomercial. I probably watched it 30 times in a row. I didn't have a Genesis, but it was all I ever wanted after that.
 

george_us

Member
Sega CD. At the time I wanted one so badly just to play Sonic CD.
man I didn't even want to bring fashion into it but my older sister got a starter jacket and then when my moment came I got her handmedown. at least it was the bulls.
I begged my parents every Christmas for a pair of Jordans.
 

Mohonky

Member
Not from the 90's, but when I was a kid the Omnibot seemed like the coolest thing in the world.


I had to settle for the dinky little Verbot.

My Aunty had one. She passed away and we now have it in storage in the shed. Box and all.
 

nasax

Member
Can't forget having a stereo and patiently waiting for your song to play on the radio and immediately pressing the Record button so you could tape the song. Ah yes, the time before Napster and during the dark ages of $30 Sam Goody's CDs.

I had one of these.

18rapae9pcuavjpg.jpg


Yeah you can be jealous it's okay.
No, it wasn't really that fun.

I know they existed in the 90s too but I'll always associate that toy with the 80s. Probably because I was like five when I saw that thing and this was the late 80s.


None of my friends had cable when I grew up, but my gramps worked for the phone company so we had some non legit hook up.

Haha such a 90s thing too, knowing people with illegal hookups be it phone or cable which is why I posted a pic of that cable box earlier.
 

Akuun

Looking for meaning in GAF
I had one of these when I was a kid. But what I really wanted was the Super Soaker 200:

7365332_3CK01AGS9.jpg

I had a 50 too. I went to some kid's house who had a 200 once and I tried to one-hand it because I thought it would look cool.

When fully loaded, that thing was waaaaaaaaayyyy too freaking heavy for a kid to lift with one hand.
 

deim0s

Member
I had this when I was 12:

getuserimage.asp


The version I had didn't have the Japanese text, it was one that was just like this that was sold in NA by hobby shops. It used a rechargeable battery and the wheels could be removed with an allen wrench.

This was totally bad ass though, but sadly I burned out the electronics by running it through mud puddles in the rain :(

I wanted that so bad... but I got was the Mini version.

But I did have this:

5xOf3NP.jpg


and other Nikko RC stuff (Porsche Le Man, Black Fox) and a Tamiya Wild Willy and Grasshopper.
 
I used to have one of those TomyTronic 3D handheld things, shit was cool. Portable 3D gaming. Pretty sure some kid stole it from me, fucker.

My cousin had one of these, I loved borrowing it from her! It was some kind of space shooter game in the one I played.
 
What I remember the cool kids having was those big 2ft tall "robots" that were really popular in the mid 80s. They had a remote or talked or something.

I always remember wanting to see what they did but kids always would just say they were broken or didnt know how to work them. It made them kind of mysterious to me.

Some shit like this

a0e8a242f9de1cbb55d16c18f9b79e53.jpg
 

LeleSocho

Banned
nope and nope

I just got really, really good grades all the time as a kid. My parents would make deals with my siblings and I - every time we'd make straight A's, we'd get a present. My brother and sisters were slackers and never seemed to put in the work, but me? I didn't make a B until senior year of highschool, ever. That meant every 6 weeks I basically got some sort of awesome gift. Usually it was something like a video game or an RC car. But they'd sweeten the deal for holidays - if I could go an entire year of straight A's, then they'd get me a new piece of hardware for christmas. Hence how I was able to get both a Sega CD and 32X and game gear and so forth - I was busting my ass making straight A's at a magnet school.

I remember working so, so fucking hard for Sonic & Knuckles. I was in the 4th grade, and during this time I was in a local NASA co-op program where they'd take me out of elementary school to a local university to take advanced math courses. Math has always been my Achilles heel. That particular 6-week period revolved around trigonometry, and I remember we were learning about arc sin, arc tangent, and arc cosine, and it was sooooo fucking hard to grasp. The day I got my reportcard I did flips because I knew it meant I was going to get Sonic & Knuckles. SOHCAHTOA - I still remember (and use) it to this day. Funnily enough, what made me actually grasp and understand those concepts was applying it to Sonic the Hedgehog itself and coming to understand how to move through a loop using trig.

Also, I used to mow lawns around the neighborhood starting at age 11, and funcoland let me really take my money far.

4th grade learning about arc sin, arc tangent, and arc cosine? Welp you surely deserved what you got, i would have bought you what you wanted too if you were my son/daughter.
 
always wanted this.

latest


heard it doesn't work with card sleeves and damages your cards though lol.

I actually had one! Those things were the shit. I remember getting up to watch Saturday cartoons on the WB, putting on my Duel Disk and letting the thing change into duel form as the intro played. Shit was hype as fuck. I miss those days.
 
I had a GI Joe 15 eagle with full working wings, that was pretty sweet. As far as 'nostalgia porn', it was the local ethnic channel that would air Chinese movies during dusk on Saturdays. Could count on a consistent, and decent panty shot in those. *Oh the ANTICIPATION*. :p
 

Vanguard

Member

Only one of my friends had this in school, the paper was used up pretty damn fast because of that!

I was never able to get a tamagotchi, they were always sold out when I went to get one. Was pretty dissapointed.... then these came out (quite late for 90's, 97? 98?) and was bought one by a friend for my birthday. Though not this keychain type, was a round one for UK I think?

WOAwdyx.jpg


Think it was stolen (like many other of my things) I didn't have good friends growing up :< (Obviously not friends on hindsight)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom