Atari 2600. Got in a few years ago from my in laws. Still hook it up and play berzerk from time to time.

I disagree with my mah and old man a lot. But, when I was having hard times as a kid, giving them headaches and heartaches, and when I struggled as an adult they were there to tell me they loved me, hug me, feed me regardless of what I believed. They have always loved me unconditionally.

If it ain’t illegal. I’ll host it for them, no questions asked. If I ever needed anything, those are two people I know will be there every time, without fail. It’s the least I can do to try and pay them back, even if I know I never could.

I didn’t own this console when it was released, but I remember being totally enamored with it. I thought everything about it was just so cool. The boot screen, the console shape and look, the games on it. It was just so cool. I have since purchased one as an adult and it is one of my favorite consoles of all time. There is a timeline where this came out and competed against the ps1 and not the PS2 and we live in a world where Sega is in Sony’s place.

If that is the case, I would go with your favorite library of games, and if not that, then go with the console that has your favorite game. I recommend the NES not only because it has an amazing original library, but there are also still some small niche studios making games for the NES today and it is amazing what they have learned to squeeze out of that hardware.

My personal preference is NES -> Master System -> Atari due to the game libraries.

With that said, do you have any favorite games that are exclusive to either console? That might help make the decision. Are you able to gettl the games? I would argue without games to play, it probably isn’t worth it. Do you have the means and ability to repair or make needed upgrades? These systems are getting on in years and I find myself repairing my consoles more frequently as the years go on.

I really liked pop for years. But my most recent install was using an obsurd amount of ram and performed like crap. So I switched to fedora KDE and so far so good.

Host is Proxmox, with Ubuntu LTS VMs.

My daughter’s drawings are held on my fridge with old HDD magnets.