Peripherals

[Gunstar Hero]

Everyone knows that classic game systems had a plethora of peripherals and add-ons... So let's try to make some lists! Any system before PS2 is accepted, and odd, rare peripherals are welcomed and actually preferred. I just found out about the Game Doctor today for the SNES, and I thought, what other peripherals may exist?

Game Doctor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXulI2jqhYs

[Steve W]

The Atari 2600 had the Arcadia/Starpath Supercharger, which you could load games off cassette tapes and it had extra memory to get past the Atari's 4K memory limit. There was also Magic Card, which was a similar device put out by Commavid but was only sold by mail order and they are incredibly rare, unlike the Supercharger. The Atari also had a keyboard add-on to turn it into a very limited home computer. A couple other companies were working on similar items, Atari itself was one of them, but they didn't make it out. Milton Bradley was also planning on putting out a voice synthesis/voice recognition module similar to the Milton Bradley Expansion System for the TI-99/4A they had put out, but again the market crashed before it was released. The 2600 also saw the Joyboard, a square controller you were supposed to stand on like a surfboard or skateboard. I believe Sansui put out something fairly similar, although it was round. There was the GameLine module, which had a built-in modem that let you download games from their service.

The Intellivision had the PlayCable module that let you attach to your local cable TV line and download games. They also had the ECS, a cheap computer module add-on that made it an extremely limited home computer, and then you could plug in a synthesizer keyboard that only worked with one game. Before the ECS, they put out a computer device you'd insert your whole game console into and would turn it into a pretty full featured computer, with (if I remember right) both a 6502 and a Z80 processor in it. But it cost a fortune and didn't sell in it's limited run, so now it's crazy rare. And of course, the Intellivision had a speech synthesizer.

[Jack7]

do arcade sticks count?

[Steve W]

Well, pretty much most systems have arcade sticks available for them, so I'd have to say no. I think he's talking about more oddball stuff. Like the Pachinko controller for the Famicom, that sort of thing.

[Gunstar Hero]

Well, pretty much most systems have arcade sticks available for them, so I'd have to say no. I think he's talking about more oddball stuff. Like the Pachinko controller for the Famicom, that sort of thing.

Exactly I am talking about more "oddball" stuff.

[Shulamana]

"accepted" means allowed, "excepted" means not allowed, I think you meant "accepted"?

[nusilver]

Everyone knows that classic game systems had a plethora of peripherals and add-ons... So let's try to make some lists! Any system before PS2 is accepted, and odd, rare peripherals are welcomed and actually preferred. I just found out about the Game Doctor today for the SNES, and I thought, what other peripherals may exist?

Game Doctor

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXulI2jqhYs

heh. i just chucked my game doctor (professor sf, is the one i had) into the trash. It stopped working mere seconds after my Super Everdrive arrived. I kept the power adapter though. That thing's gonna power my Famicom!