That Weird 90s Game Console | Nostalgia Nerd

[@NoSkates]

I grew up with this! My grandparents had it at their place, so when they looked after my brother and I during the school holidays and when we were sick we would play this. This would be around 96-97, I was 6-7. We had the first version since we were able to hook up Commodore controllers to it. We knew it was hopelessly outdated but it's all we had. We eventually got a Sega Master System 2 as an upgrade. Was always a bit behind on console gaming. Really appreciate this video. This was a fond memory.

[@GeoNeilUK]

Expect Souljaboy to launch this as the SouljaGame Retro!

[@xxdarktrickgamingxx2531]

Lol

[@findantu]

Lol

[@joezar33]

Yeah, but the Soulja Boy console, would be better then this Poor Man's Atari 2600 plug n play 😅

[@gloomyblackfur399]

I love the British "not in service" message. "The number you dialed _does_ _not_ _exist_ "

[@Turtle1948]

twilight zone music starts playing

[@pustulioyo]

I'm told the British tend to not sugarcoat things.

[@RolyWestYT]

God I totally forgot about this! I loved mine back in the day what a nice trip down memory lane

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

Yeah, this looks nice.

[@sl9sl9]

''It sounds like a Master System in horrific pain'' LOL

[@MotokoAramaki93]

I remember my dad having this when i was 3 or 4. This silly little machine sparked my love of video games

[@gaara221212]

I remember owning and playing this monstrosity, can't remember if I got it from Woolworths or Argos. Most of the time it was played by my mother as she only played it for space invaders.

[@MzCJ]

My mum bought me this and got completely addicted to Space Invaders too! What is it about that game and ladies of a certain age?! lol She was also addicted to Tetris.

[@ZeroWind2014]

The tvboy ii music reminded me of my siblings small toy guitar with piano that had lullaby songs, and it made me cry for some reason.

[@dykodesigns]

I do remember the 9 pin joystick port. It’s funny how most of the copyrights where removed from the games. A classic example of hong kong video game piracy. A large toy store chain in the netherlands sold these around late 1995. I still remember the advertisement and how it was depicted next to a PS1 which was just released at the time.

[@the.internet]

I had this from Argos some time in the 90s. Can't remember if it was the 1 or 2 but was identical to yours. I don't remember that much about it, but I almost certainly still have it in my family attic if I look hard enough! You've really brought back some memories here though, not so much with the TV boy, but with Systema. I'd love to see a video on this company some time. Their products were as much my early childhood as Sega were and of course they were portable so came to school with me! Everybody had a Systema product. I had the little red and black racing game you used in this video, along with the yellow and black thing too. Were they also responsible for the Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles handhelds too?! These were really popular. Great vid as ever!

[@RWL2012]

The Internet hey, desktop icon from Windows 95 :)

[@MikeJeavons]

I still have one of these bad boys :D

[@ThePandaAgenda]

Fancy seein you here, m8. Even if I noticed 2 years too l8.

[@MontieMongoose]

So basically it's a cheap plug and play Atari 2600 from the early 90s. Cool.

[@owllymannstein7113]

It is pretty ahead of it's time when you think about it, the current crop of atari plug and plays have fewer games.

[@Toonrick12]

@@owllymannstein7113 And has the orginal hardware to boot!

[@wisteela]

@@Toonrick12 Hacking item?

[@Andros2709]

The bad thing is that all games play with altered colors, because the game ROMs are NTSC versions played on a PAL console.

[@RetroDawn]

@@Andros2709 I saw at least one PAL game in this review.

[@3Dparallax]

I have two! My original from the day and one I randomly found in a pawn shop, for a whole $2 about 6 months ago. The original's plastics degraded, it got old and started crumbling away. Awesome seeing you cover one. I recall "Pitfall" was referred to as "Teeth Brush" yes, seriously!

[@Lukethefox]

This was technically my first ever Games Console. I got it for Christmas in '97 when I was 11 years old and I remember liking the games. I had no idea they were Atari 2600 games back then. One game in Particular I liked was a platformer where you are a little Elf boy trying to get back home. Also I personally liked the menu theme.

[@anophelesnow3957]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pJmugIp7pNWriq8

[@therestorationofdrwho1865]

I like how it describes having retro games, when the thing itself is now retro.

[@GameplayandTalk]

Very cool. I've seen these on and off over the years but had no idea they were 2600 clones.

[@doomstasche5768]

Yeah, I didn't know the TV Boy had Atari 2600 games on it either.

[@CarbyGuuGuu]

I've heard of Famiclones, but never was aware the Atari VCS had bootlegs of its own.

[@supakusuta]

Actually the VCS used parts that were common back in the late 70s

[@wolftickets1969]

The Atari Flashback was in fact a Famiclone.

[@supakusuta]

@@wolftickets1969 yeah, that uses recreations of the games, rather than the actual 2600 ROMs

[@ZakTDuck]

Now that's a blast from the past! I had a TVBoy (in fact I think I've still got it somewhere, probably in the loft) and that it did have the extra joystick port on the side. I seem to remember having "fun" playing Frogs and Flies, Combat and Gunslinger with my kid brother on that thing with a Master System joypad hooked up.

[@wilhelmbittrich88]

HAHA! I can’t believe you covered this! I grew up in a poor family in New Zealand in the 90s, and we couldn’t afford a PlayStation or Nintendo. So my mum got us one of these exact same TV Boys. As kids though, my brother and I got hours of fun from it, even if it wasn’t a flash console of the times. I still remember playing some of the games that you played in this video. Thank you for bringing back some childhood memories!

[@chriswathen9612]

Probably still one of the cheapest ways going (apart from emulation) to get into the Atari 2600 scene though

[@Larry]

An Argos staple for years! I swear they reused the case for an Intellevision model as well.

[@Thekalistor]

Found you! On to the next video....

[@madden8021]

All hail Larry o7

[@1st_ProCactus]

Shark Shark FTW!

[@faketablet5215]

Larry on his promo tour again...

[@blakegriplingph]

There's an Intellivision clone?

[@PixelsLtd]

YES I specifically remember staring suspiciously at this thing in the Argos/Index catalogues with its bargain price and loads of games - it always seemed "too good to be true", my instincts were the same as yours. This is the first clone style "x-in-1" console I ever saw in a "real shop" rather than a market or as a ticket prize in a seaside arcade. Amazing you actually got one after all these years! Interesting that whilst most of these type of systems are Famiclones, this is a 2600 clone instead. Though I like to collect them for the box art and historic value, I'm not a huge fan of 2600 games save the odd few, so I'm glad I didn't buy it at the time. A Famiclone with Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong et all would have been a far more exciting prospect for me at the time.

[@BobMonkeypimp]

Interestingly he said in the video it was an Atari clone.

[@PixelsLtd]

@@BobMonkeypimp I never said he didn't. I just pointed out its interesting that most of these type of systems are famiclones, but this is a 2600 clone.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

Pixels Ltd And this one has the original hardware as well, unlike most Famiclones!

[@PixelsLtd]

Yeah! That's erally cool

[@resonantconsciousness9248]

I remember in the 80-90's i also used to search the Laminated book of dreams, awaiting birthdays and xmas's making my lists.....

[@wisteela]

Good ole Bill Bailey

[@MinecrafterPictures]

Fun fact: The original TV Boy is not probably the very first plug & play console ever, but also it, Alongside TV Boy II and Super TV Boy are all emulated in MAME

[@AntiBunnyStudio]

So basically an Atari Flashback before there was a Flashback. Being one that runs on real hardware instead of being an emulator box though is interesting in its own right.

[@flatfingertuning727]

The FlashBack 1 was an NES on a chip, but the FlashBack 2 was a functional recreation of the 2600 hardware, running the original code, and I think the additional sequels were as well.

[@BeyondTheScanlines]

Sadly the Flashback 3 onwards are all software emulation. Which is a shame. The hackability of the Flashback 2 was such an amazing development - being incredibly easy to just solder on a 2600 cartridge connector to play real carts. It's a shame there's not been anything more modern in the same vein… because well, there are some rad modern releases in 2600 land, and playing them on an emulator just ain't the same…

[@AntiBunnyStudio]

If it helps the Retron77 is an emulator in a box, but it does have a cartridge slot for playing real cartridges and will work with a number of flash carts. Original ataris are also still fairly affordable. Lastly there is rumor that the Flashback 9 will feature an SD card slot, so it may be able to load homebrew.

[@MattMcIrvin]

Yup, the thing was a more authentic clone of the Atari 2600 than every Flashback other than the Flashback 2. Blatantly illegal, but authentic.

[@97channel]

A weird anomaly of this console, or at least on the redesigned Super TV Boy version I had, was with the menu music. That tune played LOUD! The times I'd accidentally blasted it out at like 3am and scrambled for the remote to urgently turn it down. But here's the thing... Every CRT I ever played it on, maybe half a dozen, you could never fully mute it. Whether you simply hit the mute button or turned the volume slider down to zero, it was always still clearly audible. I wonder if anyone knows what was going on here? How did it bypass the mute volume level on CRT's? My best, and only, and likely, guess would be that the sets never actually fully disengaged audio to the speakers when muted. Rather turned the volume very very very low. On most content, you'd never notice. But because that TV Boy tune was so loud, having such a high tone and pitch, it exposed the fact that the audio was still minutely present in the speakers. That surely must have been what was going on, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who could confidently confirm that to be the case. We had my Super TV Boy hooked up to the telly when I shared a house, and it became a running joke as to how that tune was easily the loudest thing in video game history.

[@Thineseedbearerhaspassed]

I have one of these an and being in Australia, there is such minimal info on this! Thank you for this video!

[@nokiot9]

This looks like the awful thing your dad would rent you at holiday inn because it’s raining.

[@mrsadrobot]

The spirit of these old many in one consoles lives on, definitely. For my birthday my kids went to Argos or Hawkins Bazaar, the kind of place you go when you don't know what to get someone for a birthday. I got a Red5 Desktop Arcade Machine (Argos number 668/2240 if you're tempted!)... And, well, it's awful. The casing is okay, the controls are okay. Battery life is okay. But there are 200 Atari 8bit - era clone games on there and not one worth playing for more than a few minutes. The games on the TVBoy look much better. Still, I bet Argos sells boat loads of them this Christmas.

[@adamsanter9385]

I got one as a Christmas present back in 1996

[@eval_is_evil]

Oh man, I feel for you

[@FIXTREME]

@@eval_is_evil It's not *that* bad, real Atari games and all.

[@TheBeardGaming]

Amazing! I still have my TVBoy 2 and have fond memories playing Dentist game!

[@korky7775]

Well it was well worth its money just for "Atari 2600 Demon Attack"...loved that game..

[@danielsmith1647]

I was bought this for Christmas when I was young talk about a blast from past

[@DaVince21]

This thing was a big part of part of my childhood. That intro music drove everyone in the house crazy.

[@combatking0]

An Atari 2600 clone without Combat? *BLASPHEMY!*

[@Andros2709]

You couldn't have played it anyway, because this was a single player console, while Combat was a two players game.

[@mrmimeisfunny]

@@Andros2709 Ah, back when plug and play manufacturers cared about compatibility. Ah, yes. Here's a portable mini LCD famiclone without a controller port or video output. It has Duck Hunt in it... Good luck playing it.

[@trippydrew8492]

I still have one of these in the loft somewhere! I used to have loads of fun with it!

[@DJRyanWalker]

I always wanted one of these as a kid lol I even remember browsing that exact Index catalogue too!

[@arccrenshaw8391]

@0:50 those $30 ankle breakers to the left look sick AF as well...

[@Ro55stw]

I had one of these back in the day and can remember throwing it in the bin. Great video

[@slothmandela]

oh my days! not seen this since I was a kid when I had one 😁 brings back so many memories 👍🏻 unsure as to why my parents got me this as it was after my Atari and c64 days 😁, think my dad may of had a say In it as me and him used to play Atari 2600 all the time together 😁 great video buddy 👌🏻 although I distinctly remember my tv boy had extra controller port 👌🏻

[@davidt-rex2062]

As someone who is currently writing documentation I can feel an affinity for the person who got bored towards the end of the list - you start off with lots of detail and ideas and as the deadline approaches you just get the basics into the document with the intention of padding it out later :)

[@stefanavic6630]

0:31 Forget the TV Boy, check out those trendy stilts! Now there's some 90s level trouble brewing there.

[@SE09uk]

Did i take the first high score screenshot i took one of river raid in 1983 using an old film camera people used to sy "why would you do that take a photo of your game and its score" how times have changed

[@zeusapollo8688]

Did you send it in and get the belt buckle?

[@Code7Unltd]

The thing is that the entire Atari VCS No-Intro set is about 30mb, and 52mb for the goodset at most. The entire Atari VCS library can be stored on a 2gb flash drive and leave room to spare.

[@PunkNDisorderlyGamer]

The Gakken TV boy only had a handful of games released on cartridge. I don’t think it was related to this console at all.

[@amoroboshi116]

Yep, it's not. It came out in the early 80s.

[@scottmarshall456]

Whew. Talk about a nostalgia trip - I used to play one of these on a tiny black and white TV every weekend at my grandparent's, stuffing my face with penny sweets, Beano comic at my side.

[@HansJoachimMaier]

That sounds like a nice little thing, Thank you for the review. I enjoyed it :)

[@vaporwave2345]

Wonderfully informative and well produced. You're a pretty cool lad, cheers sir.

[@DerTheDuke]

What a weird coincidence! I used to have the exact same thing when I was a child... I don't remember any of the games - but I do still recall being very underwhelmed with the whole thing - even as a child ^^

[@sorrows_touch]

I used to have one of these, hearing that menu music again has took me right back!

[@insearthanamesaheera5712]

I had one of these as a kid. It came with an antenna for cordless tv connection. And it worked well. It was awesome.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

It’s the videos like these that I really love.

[@VinceR3000]

I remember changinging color palettes as a feature in early home computer games. It was to give you the best experience for your particular black and white tv.

[@MattMcIrvin]

I see the whole modern "retro plug 'n' play" category as basically the legit (and sometimes still not legit) response to these old pirate gadgets. Though I suppose in spirit they're not too different from the old 1970s dedicated pong machines.

[@Asobitech]

Great to see some "Dragon Treasure" Dragonfire action, really was one of my favourite games back in the day.

[@terribletelevision6980]

This would have been the most amazing thing to me when I was a kid. It’s shitty now that I am approaching 100 years old and you see such amazing products but you are immediately sceptical. I miss that innocent hope that the cheap junk may just be an amazing machine. Oh to be in my 60s again...

[@Totgehoert]

I had one of those! Finally I found someone talking about this. Thanks for that piece of nostalgia 🙂

[@mibri]

still got mine, bought for me for christmas from the argos catalogue around the mid 90s!

[@costa_marco]

What? The LGR guy on that game at 6:52? Nice shout out! ;)

[@cornsyruptrucker]

Liked for "you can tell the person got bored while writing these". Always my favourite thing on these guides. Also, "God, it sounds like a Master System in pain". 10/10, there.

[@AussieDreadsGaming]

Love finding retro consoles ive never seen before good work and thank u 4 the retro gaming knowledge

[@twoheadedthingies5000]

This thing always had me curiouse when seeing it in catalogues too... A mate I used to work with brought me her Super TV Boy from the attic a few years ago, we set it up at mine and her favourite/most-played-as-a-kid game on it was its version of Keystone Kops. And then last year, I saved a boxed TV Boy II from a skip (fully working!), so really it only took 25 years of mild curiosity till I finally found out what was going on with that thing.

[@justsomemincedgarlic]

Wow this thing brought back memories that I didn’t even know that i had. Great content 👌

[@UrJustSick]

Massive nostalgia trip. I had one of these but couldn't remember what it was called. I remember the the toothpaste, submarine and one shot galaga style games the most. Didn't realise they were all 2600 games. Although a clone, not emulation? Ordered one on eBay, thank you sir.

[@zoasvideogamesarcadetours5336]

Thankyou Nostalgia Nerd for all your content.

[@CrispyDemonDuck]

I had one of these as a kid and I loved it. Looking back on it I have no idea why!

[@sjake333]

I remember seeing his in the Argos catalogue back in the day and being amazed! Really wanted one but was never going to end up getting one.

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

I had a Super TV Boy! I bought it for maybe £5-10 in a car boot sale in the late 90s. I'd been raised on a Mega Drive (and a BBC Micro), and already owned a Saturn by this point, but I still had a lot of fun with the Super TV Boy. Even though I didn't even have the original manual, so I just had to remember the numbers of games I liked.

[@blacksunshine7485]

I had one. And acknowledged my desires in the Argos catalogue likewise lol

[@krillarbran]

Wow. This is something I had completely forgotten about. As a 8 year old kid with a broken mega drive this was the best alternative. I don't ever want to touch one again even though this gave me many hours of entertainment.

[@shadowpresident4203]

"The Birds: When They Attack, Kill Them!" sounds like the title of a modern day "re-imagining" of Hitchcock's classic film.

[@stav8inhd268]

I had this bad boy growing up. I absolutely loved it and it worked very well for the time.

[@FlamRackett]

This was my FIRST ever console! Didn't have much growing up but this thing was awesome to me. Always remember it fondly

[@mattbeavis9105]

I still think about this most weeks

[@grayfoxv]

Pretty sure my dad bought me one of these from Argos back in the day- my first ever games console! Thanks for all the memories 😁

[@peterparker6584]

even with the copyright issues. I'm surprised nobody's ever made one of these pieces of crap that contains the entire Atari library from one system or the other. Can you imagine little handheld like this crammed with the entire 500 game library for the 2600. Hard to believe that system had 500 games. Not all consoles were nearly that lucky or fortunate.

[@garybrocklehurst6784]

yeah it does have a massive library but that isn't really surprising when you consider it was being sold in retail outlets for so long 1977-1992. :O

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Nowadays I could expect somebody doing it with a sd card slot. So you have to provide the games yourself and they don't fear any copyright issues with the games, only the hardware.

[@colinjohnston8519]

Not really. It was the only counsel available and in those days one person could write a game in a few months. Now you need a team and 7 years for games like GTA 6

[@kfcnyancat]

@@colinjohnston8519 Only console available? I get it was the most popular by far, but it was also competing against Intelivision, ColecoVision, Odyssey2, and home computers just to name a few.

[@eval_is_evil]

@@HappyBeezerStudios no ,thats facilitating piracy. If anyone released something like this ,they would get sued to kingdom come or get an injunction or something. That's why stuff like flashcarts cant be legaly sold in shops.

[@MorrisseyMuse]

I got one of these for Christmas as a kid and still have it to this very day I believe! :) It's an awesome system, a mixed bag of games but great fun :)

[@extremawesomazing]

Great video. Love the obscure knockoffs and their histories.

[@1st_ProCactus]

My Systema lunchbox don't do any of those things. But it fits 8 unbroken sausages.

[@tomkrawec]

Pure art.

[@bom6330]

Sounds like a normal Friday night for me.

[@strebornayr]

I had one of these as a kid. I was obsessed with the Billiards game!

[@Magnymbus]

I had something like this with an atari paddle. 1st player had a massive paddle that housed literally everything except the second player, and even had two more ports for up to 4 players, though the only game I remember that could do this was an upscale version of warlords with a crown and Darth Vader helmet as each corners core.

[@TheSpectreN8]

I owned this as a child! The version I had thou had 2 gamepad sockets on the bottom of the console that you could plug master system/mega drive pads in for two player gaming. Forest Walk is the one I remember the most

[@chrisc9421]

oooh, I had one of those. From Index too. Playing all those games was fun when you had no idea what the controls were

[@seany84uk]

Brings back so much memories i got my tv boy from index. It was good for what it is/was

[@7ten]

Awesome. Finally subscribed. Great stuff!

[@kyle8952]

Still got this! Menu music burned into my memory forever.

[@RichardPlaysStuff]

We still own our Super TV Boy! It was quite fun as a family huddling around the console and playing some bowling or the seemingly endless space shooters. I have no clue where it even came from (I assume Argos) and have no clue if it still works but yeah, it was a pretty neat little thing.

[@rxl223]

Can't wait to play "Holy Ghost" and "Factory Test Game" this Christmas.

[@DissociatedWomenIncorporated]

I had a Super TV Boy in the late 90s, picked it up at a car boot sale for something like £5-10. I didn't even have the manual with it, so I just had to remember the numbers of games I liked, after going through to see what each game was.

[@Omegamario]

I remember one of these and just seeing it again brings back questions of why XD. Definitely one of those Plug and Plays that wasn't worth the asking price at all, preferred to pool a bit more money and buy a Donkey Kong Country title for the SNES instead. Great video though dude

[@YOLKFOLK]

Got this tv boy in my loft.. great video!

[@SomeInterestingName]

I still have mine! Since it was my first experience with Atari 2600 games, it wasn't until many years later I realised some games had been palette-swapped, like the TV Boy version of Pitfall. It's hard to see the proper versions as being "correct" after playing the TV Boy so much. Also didn't realise that some of the games had the company logos erased, like one game that still had the placeholder where "Activision" used to be, but the letters taken off. For years I wondered why that shape was on the bottom of the screen, then saw the real version.

[@Kilen81]

I have the one with the antenna and atari joystick port lying around, the antenna can be removed and you can plug in a regular composite cable to tv. There is also no on-screen game selection, instead you flip through the games one by one...

[@MrMortull]

I thought I recognised this as something a family friend owned sometime in the early 'oughts, but actually watching the video I realise it's an indirect ancestor of the 'console' I messed about with in 2003 (his was a clone/knockoff of a somewhat later 8bit machine). Nice to know that the theft, redesign and repackaging of classic machines as legally-dubious budget toys survived at least that long. These things are fascinating! It's like those bootleg carts but on a much grander scale.

[@adamphillip5305]

I completely forgot this thing existed, what a nostalgia trip. I got one of these things for Christmas (i think from my Nan). Another thing that brought back memories was that WCW lcd game, i didnt have it but i defo remember playing it at school.

[@shannonbriggs100]

I got something similar to this as young kid in the early 2000s... I don’t remember much about it but I remember getting bored of it pretty quickly because it was all mostly space games. Looking back now, the controller was really similar to the N64's controller but without the joystick.

[@bl3ivids]

I'm glad someone else remembers this. I still have mine (sans battery cover), and it was from Argos.

[@AGuinnessDrinkerFromTheUK]

I know I've got a Super TV Boy in a box of similar junk stuffed under the bed. I must dig it out for a laugh. Cheers for a great video.

[@txcforever]

Were there any other similar systems like this? A cousin of mine had something like that and I am almost certain it had more buttons on it and on the back of the box I think it advertised NES games. What I am sure is that it had similar shape to the TV Boy and an aerial for connecting to the TV wirelessly. I would remember more of it, but I never got it to work on our TV back then. It could just as well be a TV Boy variant with the antenna but I think I would remember if it only had one button on it.

[@ErNicoh]

In Chile was known as "Mega Boy", the rf antenna of a Nes or Snes works pretty good in this piece of pirate goodness. Man, what a sweet memories.