top 100 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 93 points 1 year ago (37 children)

The game gear had two major issues:

-It was too far ahead of its time (something SEGA unfortunately did multiple times, cfr Dreamcast's online gaming capabilities)

-Battery life sucked major donkey cock

It was also somewhat pricey, but the former point was paramount.

  • source
  • hideshow 37 child comments
  • [–] 53 points 1 year ago (21 children)

    The battery life was hilariously bad, it was almost the defining trait. It was made especially prominent since it was being compared to the OG Game Boy which could go 20 hours on four AA batteries. The GG could only go about five, if you were lucky, on six AA. Mine basically lived plugged into the wall with a long extension code so I could use it from anywhere in my bedroom.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 21 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (19 children)

    The GG could only go about five, if you were lucky, on six AA

    Which, while of course requiring exponentially more power, the Switch 2 only goes for about 6 hours on less demanding games, funny how battery life hasn't really changed much for advanced handhelds.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 19 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

    Sure but the switch 2 has a rechargeable battery unlike the game gear which had to be supplied with new batteries every time which cost money.

    I’m not sure if rechargeable AA were common in those days.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Rechargeable batteries were common, but in my experience they tended to not hold up as long as normal batteries and took 6-8 hours to recharge. At that time they also degraded quickly, were expensive, and overall just a massive hassle to try and manage.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The IBM thinkpad that runs on windows 95 that I have still has a vaguely functional battery. The battery can last a whole 5 minutes still, damned battery was probably more expensive to produce than the entire rest of the laptop.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • Ha, I still have my IBM ThinkPad but it has never had a working battery in its life with me. The hinge on one side is also still cracked and I could never properly close it.

    Was my first laptop in the mid-2000’s running Windows 95. I got a USB 1.0 Ethernet adapter so I could surf the web on the DSL line we had at home before we finally upgraded to a wireless router.

    Good times. On MySpace, ripping music to the 4GB IDE HDD I had into MusicMatch (before I learned about iTunes), checking news for Halo 3, trying to play games…

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    The biggest problem with rechargeable dry cells is that each one supports 1.2 volts, while alkaline are 1.5. Some devices wouldn't even run, most run more poorly and run out of battery even faster.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Fwiw, should you need it, there are AA lithium batteries with a usbc slot for charging and they deliver 1.5v. I bought a pack out of curiosity and was very pleasantly surprised.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Make sure to get some that mimic battery power loss at the end. Some models just shut off when they are empty and others slowly reduce the voltage so that battery indicators on devices are able to pick that and display a warning to change batteries soon.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    This is also why I have never considered the Switch a portable system. It was a hybrid that was never quite a "real" console or a handheld, and thus made compromises on both ends. I personally never used the Switch undocked, I'd have rather they sold a fixed model with no screen or joycons that just plugged in.

    The real reason that Game Gear was so power hungry is that it was just a Sega Master System crammed into a handheld. This is why it felt wildly better and more advanced then the Game Boy. Sega did the same thing years later with the Sega Nomad aka a Genesis crammed into a handheld.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    the real reason it was such a bitch for power is that it had a compact flourescent tube for the backlight.

    when you remove that and replace it with a LED backlight suddenly the battery life explodes.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (3 children)

    I figured the backlight was a big part of it. crazy that people actually modded a game gear

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    You would not believe the amount of mods the GameGear has, my dude.

    and they are expensive as fuck, lol

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Game Gear "services" are quite common now - you can get them recapped to solve the infamously troublesome sound dropouts, and most will change the screen to a far more power efficient LCD display as well to let you play at night.

    It still eats batteries, but at a much slower rate.

    I'm just gutted I left mine in the garage in storage where the damp air fucked it for good

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    How bad is it? You would be amazed how salvageable they are with the right chemical soak and solder reflow.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Honestly I never opened it. I have a Master System II and in fairness, the difference in game ports are negligible for the most part, so I never really looked at repairing it.

    Speaking more broadly, I wouldn't mind learning how to solder - my skills have mostly been in software rather than hardware. Things like fucking about with a Raspberry Pi and their expansion boards sounds like a right laugh.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    if the board is completely fucked, people have made reproduction boards to move the components to, too.

    soldering isnt hard, it just takes common sense, a modicum of thought, and a little bit of patience and carefulness.

    If you are on a extreme budget, try to find a used Weller soldering station at a pawn store/garage sale/thrift store/etc and just take some dead electronic device you have and practic desoldering and resoldering the components on it.

    if you have a bit of money to spend, pick up a Hakko FX-888d station and beginners soldering project (You can get radios, various LED projects, and some lead solder etc etc, all for pretty cheap, and by the time you've done one you'll be well on your way to basic soldering skills on most non-micro components.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    That's very kind of you, thank you for the crash course - some great pointers!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    np, good luck with it, if you try to pick it up.

    Its a great skillset to have, even at a basic beginner level.. Once you get comfortable with a soldering iron, so many dead electronics suddenly can be repaired for cheap instead of replaced... You have no idea how many TVs I've saved just from the dump just with capacitor replacements alone.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    The best mod would be changing it from batteries to a cell phone style rechargeable battery. At least then I wouldn't care as much of how quick it dies since im not replacing a ton of batteries every day. Even rechargeable ones, you still gotta take them out and put them back, which is annoying as well.

    I miss mine as well. I remember as a kid our grandmother got me and a few cousins it for Xmas one year. I also remember breaking it the following year during a parent kid picnic at school where it got crushed. I still remember it, which says a lot because I have very few memories from way back then!

    Edit: of course they made this mod! If I ever find one for cheap I would love to do this just as a hobby.

    https://handheldlegend.com/products/cleanjuice-game-gear-rechargeable-battery-module

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Being too ahead of its time was kind of Sega's thing when it came to hardware. They beat Nintendo to market with 16-bit graphics by like 2 years, Sony to 3D GPU and CD-ROM by a year, the Game Gear absolutely blew every other portable out of the water for as long as it was on the market...

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    yeah the battery life was horrible. it would eat 6 AA batteries like they were candy. I only ever used mine when it was either plugged into the wall or plugged in the cars cigarette lighter which my dad hated cause he smoked.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Hear hear. The Game Gear was basically a portable Sega Master System only better. Can you imagine Nintendo putting out a whole-ass portable NES? They didn’t have the balls.

    To this day, one of my favorite gifts I ever received, way back in Christmas of checks notes 360 B.C.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    So many batteries. Car trips more than an hour (when we really wanted games) took a while pack of batteries. And the little brothers really got screwed because they would be stuck with the second turn, and about to die batteries.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    That was one of the reasons I wanted to have one.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    One kid on my bus had it, we were all SUPER jealous and kicked his seat

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I never saw a game gear last 5 hours. The one guy I knew who owned one seemed to have it run out of battery everyday on the school bus which was only like a 45 minute ride.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago

    I got one for xmas one year, probably it's last year when Sega was clearing inventory, because I didn't ask for it. All I ever had was the pack-in Sonic title. I wish I kept it so that I could modernize it, but who would have seen that coming? I remember playing it and then seeing the battery light flash and I was like, "I wonder what that means, that can't mean a low battery since I've not been playing it all that long!" Yep, it was a low battery :(

    It probably wouldn't have been a big deal IF Sega bundled a damn AC adapter with it instead of charging separately for it. It was hard to convince my parents to get me video game stuff as a kid.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I have several game gears so have some first hand experience.

    90s batteries didn't last long. Regular batteries are 1.5V, rechargeable are 1.2V. When freshly charged they can be around 1.4V, but the game gear will quickly "detect" the voltage dropping and start indicating low battery.

    Older batteries didn't hold as much charge as modern batteries do. You can go hours now with rechargeable batteries, but it used to be different.

    As a kid, I had a game gear fanny pack that held the device, some games and all the batteries I could cram in there, which was a lot.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    I had that thing! It was really cool to watch a football match while camping!

    And I gave it to my father when he was in the hospital... Eurocup was at the time.

  • source
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    That was great to watch TV for exactly 8 minutes.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago

    Yep!

    An every time I was in Toy r Us, Babbage's, Children's Palace or looking througu the JC Penny's Christmas catalog, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and oh so desperately wanted it....despite not owning a Game Gear...😅

  • source
  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    It wasn’t that good. The system already drained AA batteries like virgin sacrifices but imagine fm radio dials to sync for tv channels… That being said.. chefs kiss…

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    they really did have it all on uhf

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    You get to drink from the fire hose!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Open wide!

    One of my favourite movies of all time. I love the spoof type movies this was up there. Probably not as good as say Mel Brooks but hard to beat his movies and always enjoyed Wierd Al.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    i still love emo phillips face mocking weird al when he says "table saw"

    and rip trinidad silva; fuck drunk drivers

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Haha I think of that look more often than is probably needed, like an elementary school kid mocking someone. Which for the movie was great and at the time fit well for that time. Nowadays who'd ever to think of doing similar on tv? Except maybe someone without shame.

    I don't know Emo Philips at all but him just willing to do that bit and the good Christian joke flood bit that I've read and made me think he was cool. Like what God cares if we do one tiny bit differently? Mean maybe murder but that's not up for debate...well a few examples stick out unless he's a real hardass about it. Hah I'd love to defend that line if there were a pearly gates.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    That would have been so baller back in the day.

  • source
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    I have this. It's been on my wishlist ever since I was little and now that i have some disposable income I bought it. Unfortunately the analog signal has been disabled for years, but there's a jack on the tuner that allows you to connect composite video (with a special cable to go from the yellow, red and white to a single 3.5mm jack).

    I played some Xbox on it, for the novelty. The screen is small, the resolution is low, the lcd isn't very clear in some cases, ... I love it.

    There are special kits to replace the screen with a modern crisp led screen, but they are not compatible with the tuner, something to keep in mind.

  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    You know the devices that take audio and convert it to a radio signal for your car?

    We need the same thing but for old analog tv signals.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

    Plenty of those exist. They were given out like mad when the analog to digital switch was happening. Little boxes that would convert digital TV signals to analog for viewing on old TV's.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Digital converter boxes output their signal over cable (coax or HDMI, etc) NOT air. - some old (small) tv devices were antenna only.

    I mean, the old devices could be modified, but you don't always wanna do that.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Do you happen to remember any of the brands/types?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    They were referred to as DTA's - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_adapter

    You'll still require a means of amplifying and broadcasting the converted signal if you need true OTA but this gets you an analog RF signal (NTSC in the US) from a DTV broadcast.

    I wouldn't be surprised if you could take the output of the DTA and feed it to signal booster/amplifier with an antenna on the output and get short range OTA broadcast. Just know your laws on allowed output power.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I think it was pretty rare, at least after the first year or so. I had a Game Gear maybe a year after it launched, and I desperately wanted this as a kid so I could watch TV in my bedroom or on car trips. I searched everywhere, called stores, etc. but never did find one.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    I got a GameGear from a garage sale that had a bunch of accessories including this... It was definitely rad for car trips, but it would chew through 6 AAs in about 2.5-3 hours, and my parents shut that down pretty fast.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago
    [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    I gotta get my gamegear fixed. It’s too bad we switched over to digital OTA signal because I would love to mess around with this tuner.

  • source
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    Yes! I remember wanting one and envying the kid on the bus with his!

  • source
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I wonder whether it digitised the video signal and sent digital RGB data over the connector, or whether there were analogue video channels provided for such a device.

    Also, in any case, whether any hobbyist hackers have built adapters to use their Game Gear as a monitor for anything else through the same mechanism. (A HDMI in adapter would be cool, if slightly ridiculous.)

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    This is the handsomest piece of analog gear I have ever seen. Absolute peak max sexiness, holy shite

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    Bubble-economy Japan led the way for an insane amount of features, aesthetics, and innovation for personal electronics. Most of it was dead-sexy stuff.

    One of my favorite examples, the Sony MSX HitBit F1XD:

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Is this a computer in a keyboard ? Staggering beauty. Magnificient arrow keys

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • Is this a computer in a keyboard ? Staggering beauty.

    Indeed! That's how it was done in the 80's.

    The trend was built around keeping the cost down. That and a screen (TV) could cost as much as the whole unit and you probably already had one of those. Nowadays we don't think twice about our laptops coming with a screen, but if I could somehow keep the screen but replace the rest, I'd welcome the price cut that comes with it.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    It was incredibly high tech at the time. SciFi Stuff. Unfortunately the Game gear also had incredibly bad battery life, and back then, batteries life literally meant "Battery", not "rechargeable Battery"

  • source
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    My Dad took 16 rechargeable AAs and ran a small circuit board to them with an adapter cable coming out. The zipper cases they made for GGs had a large cavity behind the storage area that was perfect for hiding them. I could play for an extra 16 hours with those things. Had to recharge them with a huge wall wort but it was the best gift my Dad ever made for me. I loved that damn system.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Time to get 4 double As, gonna play Sonic for 15 minutes

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I thought it was 8 when I said that and thought, no, that's absurd and under shot.

    I don't remember ever picking that thing up and not needing a LOT of batteries

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I wish I didn’t lose my gamegear

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    There was one for the Gameboy Advance too! Loved that thing.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    I had one. And a TV sender (totally illegal where I was) to broadcast my cable internally to the game gear. I even played my mega drive (genesis) on the small screen.

    What a waste of money, but at least I have memories!

  • source
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    I had a cdx with an x32 attachment. It was not recommended but it worked

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Had a Game Gear and really wanted one of these as a kid.

    Still have that Game Gear and still really want one.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments
    view more: next ›