Brand new old-school Set-up

There’s no point in having a whole bunch of classic videogame systems if you’re not willing to break them out to play them. Due to limited space I’m not a gaming packrat like some of my friends, but I’ve made it a goal to get my comparatively small collection out of storage and into normal rotation as cheaply and with as little clutter as humanly possible.

Today, I’m nearly 100 percent there.

Now, I could have simply hooked these systems up to my living room HDTV, but anyone can tell you that anything running in a composite or RF signal looks like complete and utter ass on an LCD or Plasma. CRT really the only way to go, and luckily I had a bunch of Sony 13 inch Trinitrons laying around from a extracurricular project I was working on in my final days at IGN.

I picked the best of the bunch and brought it out of the garage to be my gaming television. I recycled the rest because I didn’t get a single bite on Craigslist trying to sell these things.

Now comes the fun part: where to host the games. It all starts with a trip to Ikea. I found the Micke desk perfect for my little project. Not only does it have a little gutter underneath to move cables out of the way, there’s a compartment that can hold either a tower computer case or three shelving units.

Two hours of Swedish-style construction later, I was ready to rock. Television? Check. Systems? Now out of storage and ready to roll.

In the bottom compartment I put a six-outlet power strip. Years ago, SEGA put out a licensed strip that had its outlets spread out to accommodate the wider power packs of the then-current generation game systems. This was very helpful in getting all the systems plugged into the same strip.

Now, this desk isn’t super ideal for certain systems. The classic Genesis, for example, doesn’t fit inside the compartment in its natural orientation, so I had to stuff it in sideways. Considering I’ll be keeping the door closed on the cubby area it doesn’t really matter which direction it’s facing. I also put the Saturn and the Dreamcast on the same shelf, so I’ll admit all the systems aren’t super accessible.

To get all the systems hooked up to a single television, you’ll need a switchbox. Composite switchers are still surprisingly pricey, about 20 bucks for a four input/one output box. But I quickly ran out of plugs, even with my top-loading NES system hooked up to the television RF (the system lacks composite output, removed to make the unit cheaper). I found a very cheap secondary switcher at Big Lots. This unit takes three inputs and outputs once and uses a really cheezy slider switch. But it’s good enough to plug three systems into one of the inputs of my original switchbox. These switchers are mounted on the side of the desk, hidden from view and keeping things looking neat when it’s anything but. Just don’t look directly into the spaghetti and you’ll be fine.

To keep any additional clutter down, I’m putting the controllers away when not in use. The wide slide-out drawer of this Ikea desk does that job quite nicely. The secondary drawer is used for games in my regular gaming rotation, but it’s quite small so I’ll have to find a secondary storage bin.

All told, I have my NES, Super NES, Genesis, Saturn, Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast all hooked up and ready to play, all in a tidy out of the way 42×20 footprint. Like I said, it’s nothing like what you’re going to find in some ubercollector’s house, but it’s my little gaming nook and I’m proud of it. There’s still room for improvement, but now I can go back to playing Pilotwings 64 and the original Star Fox the way they were meant to be played.