5 Consoles That Could Be Upgraded Into Home Computers

[@baroncalamityplus]

I had an Adam and it must have been one of the golden units. Had zero issues with it and it was a great computer for 3 years. Its printer was letter quality and it made all my school work look great. Better than those with dot matrix printers. As for gaming, thanks to the video game crash and Adam's failure, I was able to get many games and software for the price of lunch.

[@johnathanstevens8436]

I replaced the super hot linear power supply with a smaller modern switched power supply on mine and it's still working

[@alexxbaudwhyn7572]

​@@johnathanstevens8436 Yip. I was a CV fanboi, getting one at release August 82, then following all the developments of the Super Game Module, which became the Adam. Got an Adam around early 84. No issues with mine. Talked neighbor into getting one, and of course theirs had tape drive issues. I believe they had the CV add on vs my standalone Adam. May have sold my Cv to them prior to their Adam add on. Lesson learned about getting too involved with others buying decisions, got blamed for bad advice. 😮 That said, the Adam was the Ford Pinto of the 8 bit computers in North America, ie a lot of bad press over some early failure issues, but many worked fine and still work to this day. And the hardware design was excellent, and gearheads loved them, again similar to the Pinto. Biggest design issue was the power supply in the printer decision, and printer noise, though that was the nature if daisy wheels of the day. Was cool having multiple fonts by changing the wheels, which could be found in bargain bins at office supplies stores for a buck or two, as the Adam printer used a common standard font wheel. But price drops on Atari 8bit and the C64 and their disk drives through 84, coupled with the Adam's launch issues bankrupting Coleco, killed the Adam by the early 85 in North America. By Winter Ces 85 I was planning fir an Atari ST, getting one by Fall 85 😊

[@tancar2004]

I had the XEGS. Got it for Christmas the year it came out and eventually got a disk drive for it. It was months before I realized missile command was built in. Became a huge fan of Microprose games especially F-15, Silent service, and Crusade in Europe. It was my computer until 1993 when I could afford a 486.

[@MuckyPup115]

Better days.

[@paulmurgatroyd6372]

I love the design of the Atari XE game system... much more appealing than all the black boxes.

[@TheLairdsLair]

One of my favourite looking consoles, it screams 80s!

[@AngryCalvin]

It's really cool to see an Atari XE hooked up to a disk drive, monitor, printer, mouse and keyboard and on a desk. Yeah it looks too wild for an office computer, I mean it looks too cool to be a gaming console. I had a couple of friends with one. People still recognized and used it as a computer. It was also very affordable. It was a fun system despite being dated. We had a lot of fun with it back then.

[@davidblankenship7985]

I never had an Amiga CD32 but I had an A1200. It was truly a 16 bit machine with 32 bits

[@emmettturner9452]

Never say never! The day he put this up (Saturday, November 2nd, 2024) I found my US NTSC model at a Bremen, Georgia, USA flea market. Now I’m a proud Commodore Amiga CD32 owner of two whole days. :)

[@juhanipolvi4729]

Technically 32/24 bits. The 68020EC CPU used in both A1200 and CD32 had 32-bit address and data registers and 32-bit data bus, but only 24 bit address bus, so it could only access 16 MBs of memory.

[@klax2919]

my uncle gave me his coleco adam (the all in one unit) back in 1992 & it still works to this day. this was the first "retro" game system i ever got & it is what started me collecting retro systems. now i want to get an atari xegs

[@davidmylchreest3306]

My family had a Daewoo Hi-fi back in the day. What a random memory this video has unlocked.

[@nicksmith8557]

Great content as usual, thanks for posting!

[@danehenry895]

I had the pleasure of owning one of these in my childhood.. A christmas present my mom tried to hide, managed to get it in November. My mates had C64's and Speccy's. The XE had some games that were graphically superior (which they all would admit in the playground) but sadly let down by the limited library. My spectrum zx mates would get ripped into the most for those 7 blocky colours but his argument was he had the better games (which was undoubtedly true)... Love this machine!!

[@chriskutz7144]

The Atari XEGS and the TRS-80 Color Computer were both Awesome.

[@gstcomputing65]

My parents bought the family an Adam computer for Christmas of 1985 because they were practically giving them away for $199.00 at Toys R Us due to their recent "orphaned" status. The Adam had its fair share of problems, but it kickstarted my career when I was just 11 years old.

[@alexxbaudwhyn7572]

You sure it was Christmas 1985 vs 84? Just trying to get the timeline of the Adam's demise straight. I am, was in North America, and assume you were too

[@delscoville]

lol @ that XE ad... Better sound than a Commodore 64? No way. Even the Atari ST didn't have better sound. Although it was close, different waveforms, but lacjing filters. The XE had Pokey sound from 1979, only square waves. The reason why I moved from Atari 800 to the Commodore 64 is the SID chip.

[@TheLairdsLair]

Well it does have more sound channels, so there is that.

[@nickpalance3622]

I think “more is better” is at play. I didn’t understand what the SID could do. But in a world of conformity the SID was too good. Like having a sports car that is driven in NYC. You don’t get to go fast or eat up curves. And the pot holes will do low profile wheels no favors. Ditto ground effects. The sound of many games was meant to be simple and similar (we’ll forget PC and to a degree Apple ][ as well). And what developer was going to use all those octaves and filters? Not that it never happened but due to market forces “git’er done” was the way. Some Atari games either looked or sounded better. Other times opposite. Friends and a cousin had the C64. I had the 800XL. I liked what I saw on the new and cheap 800XL and it had experienced development as the new C64 had at the time a new VIC-II chip and SID chip so it wasn’t being pushed to let it shine. ✨ I loved my 5200 and that factored in too. I got to see the same games on both systems. Funny how some versions could be so much better on one vs the other and at other times both decently the same. I’ve been of the opinion that if Atari released the XEGS in 1983 (along side the XL line so maybe call it XLGS?) or better still in 1982 instead of the 5200, things would have turned out differently.

[@alexxbaudwhyn7572]

​@@TheLairdsLairSo if the ad said "Better graphics, more colors, more sound channels" it would have been spot on 😅 Pretty incredible for hardware designed 10 years prior to the ad vs the C64 😊

[@franklintang1014]

Good old Lori Loughlin in the Coleco Adam commercial. Haha😂 1:51

[@martinbay7006]

I still want to own a Coleco Adam. I had a Colecovision-System back in time (and still have) and the Adam was my first choice. Until I heard about the price, 3.000 Deutschmark and some of the problems, the Hardware had. But I still like the system and idea behind it.

[@super-gerald]

I remember the Adam. The power supply for the whole system was in the printer. The printer was also the first component in the system to fail.

[@drno-xc1yt]

The Atari XE is an interesting system. You have to give to Atari for taking what was in effect 10 year old hardware and making a modestly successful game system - it speaks to just how good and how far ahead of their time the Atari 8--bit computers were. That said, I wonder if there was a massive missed opportunity. Given that the Atari 5200 was little more than an Atari 8-bit computer in a big fancy shell, and given that there was a push to have game systems that could also be computers, I wonder if introducing the 5200 as an XE-like system would have been a success - take an Atari 800, strip it down to a game system, and let owners of the system add peripherals if they decided later that they wanted to upgrade the system to a proper computer.

[@TheLairdsLair]

I've long said that the XEGS is the machine that the 5200 should have been. Had the 5200 been like the XE I bet it would have been a lot more successful.

[@johnathanstevens8436]

There was apparently a rivalry between the video game and home computer divisions of Atari. Hence why there were different cartridges for 5200 and Atari 400. The memory addresses were also slightly different, likely on purpose

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yeah, it's all a bit mad really, they very much cut their own nose off to spite their face.

[@Nor-tc8vz]

Classic case of a house divided.

[@Sarcophagus74]

I would love to play around with one of those machines for the weekend.

[@marccaselle8108]

I saw the Atari XEGS game system at a babysitter's house in the 80s when I was little. I never saw it anywhere else. The pastel buttons were a nice touch and it looked like the Easter Bunny exploded lol.

[@20windfisch11]

Looking at the German advert for the 130XE, I never knew that the in-store demo existed in German. And add-ons that turned the CD32 into an A1200 actually were sold right at the start of the console in Germany. I saw them presented at World of Commodore 1993 in Cologne, and they were offered via mail order from Amiga magazines. A bit later there were even bundles of the CD32 with the SX32 module, a black keyboard and an external disk drive. That was before the remaining stock was sold. But I can imagine that this was limited to Germany where the CD32 did have some success.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

It seems like a no-brainer of a good idea to have keyboard (and other add-ons) available to extend the usefulness of various consoles, but for some reason there have been few successes in this idea. I REALLY wanted the Adam add-on for the Colecovision but I couldn't talk my parents into it. Eventually they ended up severely discounted but by that time I had moved onto other computers, namely the Commodore 64. And no regrets.

[@byronarvanitis1189]

Always an interesting topic for a video by the Lair ❤🎉😊

[@tsuikagura]

I loved the video, and am yet again confronted with the wanting of some of these... but on an unrelated question... ... what was the last game shown in the video? :D The boxing one. I can't remember the title T~T

[@TheLairdsLair]

Fight Night

[@tsuikagura]

@@TheLairdsLair Thanks!!

[@kevinstrade2752]

Oh man, just about every second generation console had some sort of computer expansion no matter how crude. I have a compumate for my 2600 even though it died on me, common. I also have the intellivision computer expansion, my Astrocade can be programmed. Etc, it was the dream back then to have an all in one expandable system. Some were more practical than others but none panned out.

[@danboid]

The Uzebox is another. I've got a PS/2 keyboard adapter, mouse and a Uzenet WiFi adapter for my Uzebox. It has a port of CP/M (Uzebox PC) that allows you to run telnet amongst other stuff.

[@kenwheeler3637]

I remember the extended release time of the ADAM and then when it did finally release discovering the questionable design choices; relying on cassette tapes which most people, here in the US, had moved on from to disks and also placing the PSU inside the printer, made it pretty much doomed from the onset. Especially when it was discovered that the device emitted an emp that would ruin any tape left in the unit when powered up.

[@Mrshoujo]

The ADAM used specially formatted Data PAKs. Much faster than Cassettes. The early units would zap tapes but later revisions cured that problem. As for the power supply, Shelby at Tech Tangents came up with a replacement which doesn't need the printer anymore.

[@ChrisDreher]

0:55 The video says "Keyboard Component" but it shows the ECS. Those are 2 very different computer upgrades for the Intellivision. The KC had a full version of Microsoft's BASIC (similar to Apple and Commodore) and a software controlled tape drive for formatted tapes with sectors (not tapes for home cassette players) and added a 2nd CPU to the setup. The ECS, on the other hand, was a very stripped down computer add-on (no fancy tape drive, no 2nd CPU, had unusual BASIC, merely added 2KB RAM).

[@TheLairdsLair]

Did that on purpose so both get a mention. I am aware of the differences, I have given both some in-depth coverage on the channel before.

[@ChrisDreher]

@TheLairdsLair I'll check out the other Intellivision videos. As for the KC vs ECS, there are other folks who have mixed them up and this video appeared like another case of that. Thanks for mentioning both the KC and ECS since it is rare either gets mentioned.

[@borchen0]

To my knowledge the Amiga chipset itself was developed to be used in a console. But when the videogame-crash happened, it was decided to use it in a (home)computer.

[@TheLairdsLair]

It was going to be both, a new 16-bit console and a replacement for the Atari XL.

[@visitperaiagreece]

I had a Sega Master System, but I always thought the XE was a cool-looking machine!

[@jasonz7788]

THANKS!!

[@elnoel1220]

Better sound than a C64? That ad hasn’t aged well!

[@TheLairdsLair]

Depends how you look at it, the Atari 8-bit can do 5 channel sound, the C64 can only do 3.

[@elnoel1220]

@ using that logic it must also have better sound than an Amiga with its paltry four channels. Just sayin’!

[@werpu12]

Yeah was a huge Atari fan back then, but that ad... really....

[@thiscouldntblowmore]

Really good video, first of yours ive ever seen, just had it as suggestion on home page, im thinking im going to subscribe for this!

[@TheLairdsLair]

You should check out my "Story of" playlist then because there are loads more like this!

[@StudioKelpie1993]

Imagine if PC Gaming became the most popular system rather than consoles? Probably wouldn't have things like the Switch, but we would have seen a massive leap in graphics with companies being able to release systems based on their use case and reducing the price of their parts. Though, I'm happy consoles are still around, the Switch is such a neat device and is a great companion to my PC and Mac Mini

[@stevendobbins2826]

Graphics would probably be as good as they are now or a bit worse because developers want to target the widest possible base of players; craptops and toasters massively outnumber beastly battle stations. Just look at the gaming scenes in China or Eastern Europe for example.

[@MisterXiado]

I bought an XE GS years back, and over time, bought a keyboard, new power supply, and some software. Imagine my surprise when it experienced ROM failure when I tried using a BASIC cartridge to investigate why the system halted when you pressed RETURN in the BASIC environment. I'm hesitant to re-socket the ROM chips and add heat sinks to the RAM and processors, because if it's still dead after all of that work, I have a .44 Magnum waiting to turn it into shrapnel.

[@TheLairdsLair]

I had a friend who had this problem and it drove him crazy trying to fix the issue. I think in the end he bought a XEGS motherboard from My Atari (they used to have loads of them for some reason) and just swapped it over.

[@stillbuyvhs]

14:24 Atari Corp had a ton of old 8-bit computer stuff they needed to clear out, & retailers were more interested in a game system than a cheap computer.

[@simonoleary9264]

I have owned an Amiga 500, an Amiga 4000/030 and an Amiga CD32 (bought from a computer fair around '98). The CD32 was ok, but the controller was awful. I gave my CD32 to our local Computer Museum around 2010.

[@superjuca55]

The Atari 8 bits systems were incredible for their time. I used to think that the Amiga was the most 'ahead of it's time' machine. Then I learned what the C64 was capable of and that it had been launched in 1982. More recently I learned what the Atari 8bits are capable of and that they had been launched in 1979. Jay Miner was a genius, it's a mystery why his machines didn't save the american video-game market.

[@TheLairdsLair]

The C64 wasn't particularly revolutionary other than the sound chip, the Atari 8-bit though, that was a HUGE evolution over the Apple II and TRS-80. And you want another system that was really ahead of its time? The Atari Lynx! Now look who designed it . . . . . .

[@petersatarigames2821]

It is hard to argue that the XEGS is a game console because it was shipped with keyboard, and had Basic built in. Maybe Atari should had done that back in 1981 instead of doing the 5200, and made their whole 8-bit game library available on cartridge for this console.

[@TheLairdsLair]

As I explained in the video, only the Deluxe version came with the keyboard, the standard pack didn't. But yes, as I said elsewhere, the XEGS was exactly what the 5200 should have been.

[@8_Bit]

It's rich that the 65XE advert claims better graphics and especially better sound than the Commodore 64. "Better colours" is mentioned separately, so that one true category can't boost up the "better graphics" claim. Commodore was much more honest in their advertising than most of the other companies.

[@TheLairdsLair]

Not sure about that, Commodore claimed the CD32 was the world's first 32-bit console, when it most definitely wasn't.

[@8_Bit]

@@TheLairdsLair What 32-bit consoles were released before the CD32?

[@TheLairdsLair]

FM Towns Marty

[@8_Bit]

@@TheLairdsLair FM Towns Marty has a 386sx CPU which is 32-bit internally, but only a 16-bit data bus. That's exactly the same as the 68000 CPU which also has 32-bit internally but 16-bit external. So by that reckoning the Genesis/Megadrive is the first 32-bit console. The CD32 (and 68020) has a 32-bit data bus.

[@TheLairdsLair]

It's not the same, the Motorola 68000 has an internal 16-bit data bus, the Marty uses an external data bus and it can be upgraded. The 386SX is a 32-bit CPU, the M68K isn't for that reason. By your logic the SNES is 8-bit, because that has an 8-bit data bus. Fujitstu marketed the Marty as the world's first 32-bit console, then Commodore tried to do the same, which was an outright lie.

[@TygonBC]

Hi Kieran, when will your Master System book be available?

[@TheLairdsLair]

It's available now, went live yesterday! www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DLNMNS15

[@electryc03]

Gotta ask at your intro, It sounds like the PC game Warlords by SSG, voice welcome,,, maybe I'm incorrect lol

[@TheLairdsLair]

Totally incorrect lol. It's the intro to the Atari Lynx port of STUN Runner - "Welcome STUN Runner!"

[@protox07]

I like your videos

[@IsaacKuo]

The Coleco Adam boasted that its BASIC was almost entirely compatible with Apple ][ BASIC, which was a big deal because there was a lot of Apple ][ BASIC software and because it was heavily used in school computer labs. This gave the impression that the underlying hardware was similar to the Apple ][, but in fact it was very different - different CPU, vastly different graphics hardware.

[@johneygd]

Well i do own an atari xe since march 2024. I throught to be already happy with my atari 400 but i just couldn’t resist the low price for it and so i bought it along with my favorite games for it as well🤣

[@AngryCalvin]

The Famicom did have a disk system and basic. It would have been cool to see it do more. I'm surprised not to see more from the modding community on that system.

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yeah, I mentioned that in the video.

[@SyntheToonz]

The XE isn't so much a videogame that can be upgraded to a home computer -- it's a home computer repackaged as a video game. This is how Warner Atari should have released the Atari 400.

[@aleksazunjic9672]

If you could develop games on a console for that same console, then you could call it a computer. For example, you could develop games for C64 on C64, but you could not develop games for NES on NES even if you bought various add-ons . Thus, C64 is a computer, NES is not.

[@Moremjd]

You could develop games on the Famicom BASIC: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom_Data_Recorder

[@MuckyPup115]

I’ll never forget feeling suckered after asking my parents for an Atari XE instead of Nintendo and spending hours typing out code to hear a 60 second song. 😂

[@TheLairdsLair]

I'd choose an XE over an NES any day, far more games for a start and you can do more with it!

[@dazsly]

Crazy to think that the Sega Megadrive came out in 1989 in Japan. While US and Europe has XE

[@TheLairdsLair]

It's crazier to think that the XEGS came out in the US the same year as the PC Engine arrived in Japan.

[@vardekpetrovic9716]

What do you mean "wheter it was released or not" It was all over the papers in sweden, i have one. in fact most of my friends had one. It was seen as better than the playstation, since you could also use it with a keyboard and print school stuff. Yeah the doom and Aikiko and all that, but we all upgraded the machine with the cheap 68020 upgrade slot on and plyed the hell out of doom and alien versus predator. To this day you can upgrade it to 144x the original 7mhz 68k cpu and it also has proper ide headers. It is a boosted amiga 1200 but lacks the same expansion possibilities. My favourite amiga is the 3000T As it is compatible with everything written for amigaos, then i pair it with a vampire with a 68080 fpga get the best scream out of the needed 68k, then i add a mediator or g-rex depending on preference, then add a voodoo5 5500 pci, and a aureal vortex2 sound card with a dreamblaster for midi sound. Then to finish it off i get a Killer NIC card and thus get powerPC cpu as well that can be used by games like quake3 amd Shogo.

[@TheLairdsLair]

I'm talking about the keyboard add-on, not the CD32 console . . . . . .

[@vardekpetrovic9716]

@@TheLairdsLair cool, it was not criticism.

[@vardekpetrovic9716]

@@TheLairdsLair My amiga 4000 is probably the second fastest in the world. There is however a first place with g4 boards as upgrades. I think they were 1.8ghz sonnet boards with a zif to pci board. I never got my hand of those. And instead bought a X100 and then a X5000, but neither is very good at 68k stuff so i always go back to my 3000T

[@darkknite2k11]

Was that Lori Loughlin in the ADAM ad? 🤔

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yep!

[@Serpsss]

I have an atari xe-gs deluxe in the loft but they didn't actually come with the 5.25 floppy drive & I never found one so I never spent much time coding on it as I had no way of saving. I mainly used it to play the bundled games & 2600 carts that I found in charity shops as they were compatible too. I should probably get it down & re-cap it but I never had much love for it because I preferred my master system 😅. It's probably dead now & the bits are separated. Aside from the keyboard the controls also downright sucked. The lightgun never worked properly & the joystick had a horrible resistance that felt like you were pushing against a high density rubber ring... that is until you got near the limit & then suddenly there was almost none.

[@TheLairdsLair]

They never came with disk drives, you had to buy them seperately. Also you are getting confused, the XEGS cannot play 2600 games, totally different system and different cartridges that don't even fit. The XEGS only played existing Atari 8-bit (400/800/XL/XE) cartridges. Never had any issues with the light gun, but you can use any Atari compatible joystick you like, I use a Quickshot Maverick with mine.

[@Serpsss]

@TheLairdsLair oh yeah you're right, just looked at my donkey kong cart & it actually says rx8031! For some reason I thought they were (I never owned an actual 2600, I had a c64 tape deck). Edit: I did also use a different joystick, I forget what one. It was a fighter plane style one in black with 2 red buttons on the base & trigger. I think it maybe had a button on the top of the stick too. It's been a long time !

[@TheLairdsLair]

That sounds like a Quickshot II

[@TheLairdsLair]

Both your comments are showing, but I have noticed a glitch with KZbin lately where it sometimes takes a few minutes for comments to show up. They seem to disappear after you post them and then come back, I'd imagine it's probably some sort of approval process or something to weed out spammers and abuse.

[@Serpsss]

@@TheLairdsLair now there's comment spam from me 😂 I'm sorry about that, I'll delete all the subsequent ones when they finally show (I can now see my first one).

[@heavysystemsinc.]

You missed PS2 and PS3, both of which had official Linux releases. :)

[@Moremjd]

Too modern for this channel, but yes, that was cool back then

[@Nor-tc8vz]

Maybe part 2.

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

Is there an arcade machine that could be made a home computer?

[@TheLairdsLair]

Yeah, quite a few. If we rule out newer arcade games that are just PCs there is stuff like the Exidy Max-A-Flex, which is based around an Atari 600XL, and the Arcadia, which is based around an Amiga board.

[@dallase1]

Where is Intellivision? It had a Computer Add On.

[@TheLairdsLair]

I am guessing you skipped the intro . . . . .

[@vt100music]

What no PlayStation 2 Linux package?

[@mattdysart4587]

Was going to buy the XE system as I had an800xl , went for the ST instead

[@guillepankeke2844]

The sound is bad, it is hard to make out the words.

[@TheLairdsLair]

Nobody seems to have a problem and it seems absolutely fine to me.

[@jinchoung]

minor quibble - japan isn't sega's homeland. sega's AMERICAN!

[@TheLairdsLair]

Originally yes, but at this time they were headquartered in Japan, the original American coin-op company having been sold to Bally/Midway.

[@ZylonBane]

Is he seriously pronounces XEGS as "zegs"?

[@TheLairdsLair]

People have been doing that years, you must be new to the internet. Or you're just the same Zylon Bane who used post idiotic shite on Atari Age all the time and are looking for a rise.

[@faenethlorhalien]

Bearing in mind that no one under 20 would use any 1980s or 1970s system for anything other than games, I fail to see the point other than trying to convince parents that "it will help the kids with their homework if they learn BASIC" or something like that. Yeah, we've all been there.

[@petewillson205]

In 1998 the atari xe-w/dot matrix printer and floppy disc drive...helped a guy get a scholarship to community College as the student counsel secretary he was responsible to type the weekly meetings. The atari provided the computer for free vs. 2k to purchase 1

[@f.k.b.16]

Our son was "behind" at school. Seeing him learn on the iPad so quickly made us get one of our own. Duhhhh... Now he's 150% addicted to everything but learning.

[@caseycu]

It was a marketing thing, I’m sure some parents fell for it.

[@8_Bit]

No one? Me and all my friends programmed our Commodore 64s as well as played games on them. And of course many of the games you played were created by people under 20 years old, or at least they were when they started programming.

[@madigorfkgoogle9349]

Im sorry but looks like I was exactly one of the weirdos. I got my ATARI 800XE at age of 14 and first I learned the Basic before playing first games. At 15 I already stepped up to MAC65 Assembler. At 16 I frequently used text editor for my school works and even made some money and also used VisiCalc to simplify math school assignments. Then I stepped up to ST. And yes, I did play games in between, but for me computer was way more then gaming console at that age already.