I’d have to go with the wood grain Atari 2600, I’m a sucker for 70’s designed electronics.
I’m very partial to the IMSAI 8080!
Incredible. This might be my new favorite.
I built a replica one that a dude in Australia designed. Its really fun to mess with. I played Zork on it the day I finished it.
That’s awesome. Very 1960s Star Trek, in a good way.
This scratches an itch I didn’t know I had.
gorgeous, had never heard of this.
You can build a replica from this dude!
That’s so cool!
The 2600 depicted in the article thumbnail, was absolutely a beauty in its native environment of the late 1970’s:
Nintendo’s GameCube. It’s cubical. Cubical!
It came with a beat carry handle and drug-hiding compartments!
Game Boy Advance. Actually all 3 variants (GBA, SP & Micro) are beautiful consoles.
I love how the SP looks. The original feels better in the hand but the clamshell looks so good and it feels great to open and close.
I’m tempted to get a foldable as my next phone because I miss that design.
Oh yeah right… the Gameboy advance can legally be considered as a retro console…
Good pick!
while not necessarily the prettiest console by any means but i always thought the Og xbox home menu went way harder than it needed to, now that’s presentation!
They said retro, the Xbox can’t be retro, its only been around for- oh. Oh no.
Technically neither a console nor a PC (in the IBM-compatible sense), but the Commodore PET has a certain kind of 70s futurism about it.
Note the integrated tape deck for all your storage needs.
The keyboard pictured, while interesting looking, is a complete POS. Later PETs had a more usable keyboard with a better layout.
Edit: I don’t think that red button at the bottom right is stock. It’s almost certainly a hardware reset button, which on the Commodore machines is typically done by shorting a couple pins on a user expansion port.
The Mega Drive is the best looking retro console, I mean look at it
This one looks a little naked. Needs more “High Definition Graphics” or whatever it says
Best looking and best name.
PC Engine. Not only does it look like a prop from the set of TNG, but it is delightfully tiny. The cartridges are little cards that you slot in the front. There is literally nothing bad about a PC Engine. (Except for maybe that it’s only got one controller port)
+1.
Also it can be turned into a coolest spaceship, with its CDRom attachment, a very first in 1988!
Also the HuCard format for its games is unbeatable!
Speaking of spaceships…
Not the most practical PC engine model, because it lacked the extra oomph of the SuperGrafx and you couldn’t attach a CD-ROM² - but just look at it
The PC Engine/Turbagragix 16 also had a handheld (PC Engine GT/TurboExpress) that was way ahead of its time. It had the same power as the home console, was color, had a backlit display, and even had a TV tuner attachment. And it was released in 1990. The Sega Nomad basically copied these features in 1995, and Nintendo didn’t have a colored, backlit handheld until 1998.
I loved mine.
This but the mark III with the FM sound adapter
I never understood the choice to put a flowchart on the front of this one. 😆
Very sciencey, not a toy. Hilariously, Nintendo fought hard to get their competing “Entertainment System” recognized as a toy and not a computer, for import tax purposes.
The Sega Saturn, especially the Japan version:
Although I never owned this model myself, I recently picked up an 8bitdo replica (M30 bluetooth) of the Japan controller and it looks and feels great, although not strictly a direct copy of the original.
The Dreamcast is up there too imo!
I ended up getting a Japanese Model 1 years ago, but I always wanted the Model 2.
Wow
I never liked the side-by-side Mega CD.
The stacked one looked better. Like an old hifi system.
Intelligang represent!
Intellevision may not have the best controller design out there, but the versatility with the different card inserts made playing games easier when I was a kid. Basically a guide in the palm of your hands for each game you owned. Losing them did blow however.
BAM THERE IT IS !!!
We had both this one and the 2nd gen gray one! Plus the voice synthesizer addon. My dad would replace the touch pad inserts so we didn’t have to buy new controllers.
Amazing console way ahead of it’s time.
Remember having one of these at school in the late '70s / early '80s
OH MY GOD! I had one of those! I haven’t seen a picture of one since.
The keyboard was so awful. I don’t remember getting it as a birthday or other gift so it must have been a hand me down from a family friend or something.
Membrane keyboards are really the worst. I completely understand wanting to cost-cut to get units into schools and into the hands of kids, but that’s too much. It’s like someone saw a speak-and-spell and said “that’s the ticket.”
Humm, for PCs I’d have to say iMac
For game consoles it’s a hard debate between the GameBoy Pocket or the GameBoy Micro. One is the essence of a GameBoy shrunken down to a power efficent and usable design. While the other is the smallest you can make a console while still having it usable.
I still have that GBA micro laying around somewhere. An ex GF stole my reloadable cartridge though. :(
Mine has a black face plate.
Apparently, the Micro was the last Game Boy product that Nintendo made.
Very elegant.
I would say the cutoff is Game Boy Advance SP and Micro is a poseur, because Micro can’t play original Game Boy or Color games. If one is counting GBA, then the DS and DS Lite could still play those.
Edit: Get a flash cart and you can unofficially play old GB on any GBA-compatible using Goomba Color. Micro is awesome at what it does, I just hate that it has the Game Boy name yet can’t play GB games and had yet another different link cable and charging port because Nintendo!
I got my start with atari 2600 but I think the GameCube was the best looking in both form and function. Best looking computer is an IBM Aptiva S
