Reflecting On An Old Console

My four-year olds had noticed my old SNES sitting in the back of my closet. I hadn't switched it on in a decade, it was about time I introduced them to a relic from my own past.

Getting it out of its box I had forgotten just how many cables there were. The wired controllers, the yellow, red and white AV cables and then there were those belonging to the HD up-scaler required to get it running on a modern television. Once it was all neatly assembled in-front of the TV I took one look at the controllers and gestured for everyone to get on the floor. The consoles of old weren't designed for couch play, and the length of the controller cables would've made that impossible anyway. My wife remarked that her mother had complained about her sitting too close to the TV, and then made the same comment.

With everyone crowded around the TV I inserted the Mario Kart cartridge and flipped the power switch on. We were immediately greeted with a "No Signal" message. My kids were about to get a lesson in rocket surgery, 90s style. I ejected the cartridge and then proceeded to blow on it. One of them took another cartridge and began to mirror me. With the game now working we were well and truly off to the races.

While tearing up the tracks of the faux-3D Mushroom Kingdom I couldn't help but notice the similarities between this, the first title in the series, and Mario Kart 8 which we play regularly in the evenings. All of the core game mechanics were established right here by what would've been a very small team (I later learned it was team of eight). While everything else evolves over time those same core mechanics have a way of enduring.

Comparing the experience to what we have now there's a lot that I miss. Being able to put the cartridge into the console and be playing in seconds - no menus to navigate, no updates to install, no online connectivity and no loading screens. The tactile feedback from the buttons is another, whether it be from the act of physically flipping a big switch to power on the console or the controllers themselves. Then there's the durability of the hardware. This was a console made in 1992, still working today after thirty-four years. I'm expecting this console may be in our family for many to come.