My history doesn't match up with the generations, and I think that if you added consoles to your life/collection later on, it should count as your history. Some people are going to take this route, rather than making it a retail gaming history. So for my list, I will put them in the order in which I had them.
1.
Sega Master System: The first console I had regular access to was the SMS. Which is one of those things where I was given it as a christmas present, but it couldn't take it home. It was from a my step-grandparents and of course, I could only play it when I was there. I remember that it had Hang On / Safari Hunt, After Burner and Great Football. I probably only got to play it a few times because they decided to get rid of it when I had a bad report card. :\ Also a funny thing about this is my father always referred to it as the "Sega Vision" which is an interesting story in
itself.
2.
NES: And another christmas present for an item that I didn't get to take home. However this time it would stay at my dad's house, so I would get to use it every other weekend. During this period, I was primarily relying on playing other kid's NES at their house. Near the end of the life of this NES I was able to play other kid's Sega Genesis, but IIRC I had only ever played a SNES at one kid's house at some party my Grandma took me to, and the demo unit at Silo. It is extremely annoying that I have no recollection as to where the games I had for this NES went. I had a lot of good games and it would be super expensive to rebuy them today.
3.
Game Boy: The first thing I got to actually have at my own house. This was the green Play It Loud model that came in the clear plastic case. I had Tetris and Super Mario Land, but not anything else that I can remember. I think it phased out because the games were not real exciting, not being able to get new games, and the cost of battery replacement. When I had this, I didn't know anyone else who had one, so I couldn't borrow or trade games with anyone. I knew a few kids with Game Gears, one had a Lynx (I didn't like it) and one had the portable Turbo Grafx but I never played it.
4.
Apple IIc: Some strange gift situation where my mother was given an IBM XT and I got an Apple IIc. We never had any games for the IBM, so it doesn't get counted. The Apple II didn't really have any either, but I was able to make copies of the educational games from school. I mostly used the word processor disk for this.
5.
IBM PS/2 Model 80-041: Some point later I had acquired this giant computer. It had Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Being a PC, there was a wider variety of games I could get for it. I remember playing Commander Keen on it, and Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego. It had a 16 MB hard disk and I remember I could never find any upgrades for it. I remember calling Radio Shack to find out how much the RAM cost to upgrade and they didn't have any information! Turns out it used proprietary memory type and used Microchannel for expansion. Here is the specs of it:
http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/alf/ps2_80041/6.
"Crystal City"/"Hive City": I had saved up my money to buy a surplus Windows 95 computer from a local company for $200. It had been through a lot and I had used it for many years. This was the PC I first played Major League Manager on, and my friend would come over and we would play the demo for GTA for hours. I made my first MP3 on this computer and remember that it took about 50 minutes to make it. I used a 14.4Kbps modem I found in the garbage that connected at 128Kbps for some reason. It suffered damage due to a lightning strike and limped along for quite a while before I was able to replace the motherboard and get a video card (Intergraph Voodoo 6 MB PCI) which is when it became Hive City.
7.
Sega Saturn: There was a Saturn for sale at Blockbuster (rental unit) for either $40 or $60 (can't remember) and I bought it, along with a bunch of games. Hockey, baseball and some fighters like Virtua Fighter 2 and Fighters Megamix and Daytona USA CCE. This is the oldest part of gaming that I still own.
8.
Sega Game Gear: It was being sold at the local department store for $20. I had gotten it but do not remember what games. I do remember I had borrowed someone's copy of Zoom and pretty much played that exclusively.
9.
Sega Genesis: Purchased at the local department store with my first ever paycheck from working a job. It is a model 2 that came with Sonic 3 and Sub-Terrania. It became the family game system and I had eventually given it and all my games to my sister. Years later she gave it back to me and it still works to this day.
10.
Atari 2600: I do not recall where this system came from, it is possible that I had gotten it from a relative. I made this the video game that would just stay at my Grandparents house for when I went to visit. This system was the one I had rolled the score on Asteroids using the Sega Genesis 6 button controller.
11.
"Shiva": This is a Windows 98 computer I had built using parts from wherever I could find them. I believe the original system was another surplus system but as a barebones. It originally had a Pentium II that became a Pentium III I bought from a co-worker. It started with a Voodoo 2, then a Voodoo 3, then a GeForce MX and then a Voodoo 5. It has been through 4 motherboards and now has a board from a "future" system in this list, as well as a Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT. This instance still exists and will be downgraded soon into a new system.
12.
Sega Dreamcast: This is one I had bought at retail. Played some Sonic Adventure, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Elemental Gimmick Gear. The game availability was lower for me than with the Saturn, so this didn't last long for me. I remember at the time everyone I knew was into burning games for it, but I never got into it. This system eventually died and it was replaced with one from a friend before he deployed to the border.
13.
PlayStation 2: I remember having purchased a Gundam game on PS2 a month or so prior to buying the system. At the time, it was the cheapest DVD player on the market. I still have this system but I haven't used it in many years. Last I used it, it was having trouble reading some games.
14.
"Infocore": This is a Windows XP computer I had built using all brand new parts. It started with a Pentium 4 1.7 GHz and 256 MB RDRAM, some GeForce video card and a SoundBlaster Audigy Gold. I want to say that it cost just shy of $3000 at the time to make it. When the motherboard died, I had done benchmarks to test if I could tell the memory speed differences between RDRAM and DDR, and RDRAM was still clearly superior. So I was able to replace the board with another and had found enough RAM to get it up to 768 MB. After RDRAM disappeared from common use, the cost to buy additional sticks was very expensive. Like $800 for 2x 256. This system lasted long enough for RDRAM to become worthless. The hardware in this is currently in the "Shiva" computer from above. The sound card is in a future system.
15.
"Behemoth": This is a Windows 7 x86 computer. It started as a computer with DDR and currently has DDR2. I had managed to scavenge a board and CPU set that included a Q6600 quad core, but now it has a Q9300. It did have the Audigy Gold from the "Infocore" instance but that is moved on. This computer is my daily driver and is not only my
uptime champ but also has
high POT HDDs.
16.
PlayStation 3: Another purchase where it was for media reasons, being the then cheapest BluRay player on the market. I did play a decent amount of games on it, but the annoyances of updates relegated this to being a BD player only. These days I have BD players all over the place, so it hasn't really been used. Also, this system was where I found my original user name still existed within the Sony network, but couldn't be used because I had no access to the original email address.
17.
"Elite": This is a Windows 7 x64 computer. It is my current gaming and video streaming system. It has the SB Audigy Gold from the previous computers.
18.
Sega Saturn 2: My most recent console acquisition is a Japanese Sega Saturn so that I was finally able to play those cheap Japanese games I had been buying on Ebay over the years.
There are many other things I had acquired and tested if they worked, but did not really play much. So they are not included in this list.
