It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Show off your (old) gear, win shiny new (ROCCAT) gear!

As you know, the GOG.com catalog spans many titles dating back as far as 1980 (, we're looking at you!), in times when computers kind of looked like modern-day [url=http://prepare.icttrends.com/images/2012/06/IBM_PC.jpg]microwaves sat on top of a console, and the first portable computer, the Osborne I, was put on the market in all the glory of its 24 pounds of weight and a steep $1,795 price tag.

We don't expect you to have gear that's quite as old, but we are curious as to what treasures you might be keeping in a box stored away in the basement or deep in an attic drawer. So show us your oldest gear and be greatly rewarded with the some of the newest on the market, courtesy of gaming gear creator and producer ROCCAT!

THE RULES:

- Your entry should consist of 1 or 2 pictures of your old gear and a description of up to 100 words telling us what it is, where you got it, what you used it for or any other fond memories you have with it. Maybe it was your first joystick? Maybe an old Atari controller you kept as a memento? We want to hear about it!
- You can only post one entry per person. If you post more, only the first one will be counted.
- You may not edit your post.
- Use your own photos of your own gear - we do know how to do a reverse image search!

Post your entry in the comments below before the deadline - you have a week, until March 6th, at 1:59 PM GMT. We aim to judge your entries and pick winners by Thursday, March 12th - we'll announce them in the contest forum thread and via PM to the winners themselves.

THE PRIZES:

1st place prize: a ROCCAT Isku, gaming keyboard with blue-tinted illumination, secondary programmable Shift function, and Thumbster Macro Keys below the spacebar to maximise gaming effectiveness

2nd place prize: a ROCCAT Savu, mid-size hybrid gaming mouse with an adjustable, 400-4000 DPI optical sensor, secondary programmable function, customizable illumination, and a powerful driver suite

3rd place prize: a ROCCAT Sense, mousepad with friction-reducing microcrystalline coating for greater mouse speed and precision

All winners will also get GOG.com gift codes to use on games of their choice to test out their new gear!

Honorable mentions: We expect there to be many great-quality entries, so we're reserving the right to give out honorable mentions to all those we find did a brilliant job, but didn't quite make the podium cut. They'll get GOG.com gift codes to use on titles available in our catalog.

Should you be one of our top three winners, we will need some mailing data (name, address, phone number) to ship your prize to you. If the ROCCAT Marketing Team ends up sending the prizes directly to you, we will need to share your mailing information with them. We will not share it with anyone that doesn't need it!

Please note that this contest is also being held on the French and German GOG.com forum - winners will be chosen, regardless of language, from across all three contest topics. :)
high rated
This is my original 1972 Magnavox Odyssey. Before Pong. I got it from my Aunt when I was a kid. It has the manual, all the overlays, cards, accessories, controllers that came in the box. Even has a card reminding you to register your Odyssey. I've been a fan of old video games and computers since they were new, and this is definitely the oldest computer I own. Might be the oldest computer out there as far as home products go.
Attachments:
mvo1.jpg (497 Kb)
mvo2.jpg (487 Kb)
This a Sega Mega Drive II. It was my first console and it was a gift from a friend. He had bought a Play Station and he decided to give me his old console, so when I got my hands on it, the console had already five years old at least! But I spent so much fun time, playing with my brother!

It will always be my first console.
Attachments:
megadrive.jpg (299 Kb)
Behold my first Logitech mouse in all of its three button and "Hi-REZ" glory!

I could use a new mouse too ;-)
Attachments:
This is my first computer. A 486dx2, memory modules in the motherboard, a Cirrus Logic VGA card and what can tell, an extension card to add a serial and a parallel port. Also pictured a Keytronic clone of the classic IBM Model 1 keyboard which I used with this computer back in the day.

All of this still works perfectly! Some years ago I put this together with a PSU and an old floppy disk drive and it still boots DOS and runs quite fine.
Attachments:
dsc_0757.jpg (433 Kb)
Ok, I just wrote whole story about my companion disk, and just to be sure, I went to check rules again, when I saw that 100 words is limit. I have 500 -.-
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Miljac
avatar
GOG.com: We don't expect you to have gear that's quite as old, *giggles*

THE RULES:

- Your entry should consist of 1 or 2 pictures of your old gear and a description of up to 100 words telling us what it is, where you got it, what you used it for or any other fond memories you have with it.
Hmmm, would three pics be allowed, too?

Edit: are the 100 words a total, or per pic / item?
Post edited February 27, 2015 by BreOl72
I got my Commodore 64 back off my mother 2013, what you are seeing there is my original breadbin model from November 1985, I had to transfer it to a dead C64E case as the keyboard wasn't working and the case was cracked as my brother stood on it late 80's playing football inside the house.

You will also see my Spectrum +2A which I decided to get April 2013 which is sitting alongside my C64, tyhere is also my original VIC 1541 5" floppy disk drive.

Shelves holding all my original C64 and Spectrum cassettes (even more now)
Attachments:
dsc_0028.jpg (346 Kb)
dsc_0025.jpg (335 Kb)
Given the era some of these submissions are from, I suppose I can submit one thing, just to participate.

This is the oldest PC I grew up with which I still own. It's a 166MHz IBM ThinkPad 380ED with 80MiB of RAM, a 2.1GB hard drive, and an FRSTN display which we got to keep when my father's office upgraded. I remember playing many many games on this thanks to a PCMCIA SCSI card and an NEC MultiSpin 3Xp CDR-400 (we no longer own that but it looked like this).

I've also included a photo of a few of said games, just for fun. Anyone else find that really nostalgic?

(I just wish I still had the [url=http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:755C]ThinkPad 755C[/url] (75MHz 486 DX4) that we had before that. That one really has some memories... typically of struggling to fit both the games and the SB Clone audio drivers into conventional memory at the same time, but still... at least I'm still enjoying the sample MIDIs that came with it to this day. Does a copy of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring named SONG5.MID ring any bells for anyone? No? How about the SAMPLE6.MID file bundled with Jesse Dorland's QMIDI library for QBasic?)
Attachments:
laptop.jpg (442 Kb)
games.jpg (310 Kb)
Story begins back in the JBOD era.

As a kid I trained tae-kwon-do, and after one tournament, when I lost my first round, I got 80GB H.D.D..

When I installed Maxtor6Y080L0, I could finally install Midtown Madness 2 Demo! Eventually I ran out of space, he was Bioshocked!

But he still served his Call for Duty as secondary H.D.D. until it died and was dissasambled. One day when power outage broke, I ran out of bathroom, with shaving foam all over my face. And there he was. I found him purpose, he beacame my shaving mirror.
Attachments:
hdd.jpg (457 Kb)
My most unusual bit of old kit is a VFX1 virtual reality headset from 1995. I bought this on the cheap (relatively speaking) years after the fact mainly to play System Shock in 3D. It was definitely fun but has little snags like only having your mouse cursor on one eye. These days this spends its life sat on a shelf in the games room looking cool (at least in my opinion). It still gets a very occasional run out on games like Descent where I defy anyone to last more than a couple of levels before nausea sets in.
Attachments:
vfx1.jpg (161 Kb)
The first computer I bought, back in 83, was a Brazilian ZX-81 clone. A modified Atari joystick was a must for "serious" game. The first games I got for it where a PacMan clone and Chess.
Attachments:
tk82c_2.jpg (23 Kb)
joystick.jpg (30 Kb)
The story is not particularly happy one: the computer I am showing is my ZX-81, one of the first ever home computers, using a touch sensitive keyboard (pretty awful one), a Z-80 microprocessor, and CPU-generated B&W graphics. The sad part is, this is not the ZX-81 from my childhood. When I was a kid, I wanted one very badly, I practically dreamed of it, but my family's finances couldn't afford one. So I grew up, studied electronic engineering at university, worked, married, got a son... the usual stuff. One day I decided to get a ZX-81 from eBay, to satiate my old hunger. This is that computer, but sadly, that childhood passion is gone. I mean, I love this machine, but not the same way as when I was a kid.
Attachments:
zx81_side.jpg (251 Kb)
Not sure I'll make onto either 'winning' list, but what the hey! Here goes nothing:

Behold my mighty CH Flightstick Pro; bought from Amazon years ago to relive the glory of ye olde flight sims and even discover other new to me games like Freespace. Whether hunting space kittens, defending from rebel incursions, or countering alien invasions it couldn't be accomplished without it. The GOG release of Wing Commander Privateer was the tipping point of me acquiring it. Keyboard and/or mouse only just won't do for such a great game. Privateer may have aged considerably but remains my favorite in the entire genre. Still a blast! Take that, nostalgia, you (oftentimes) harsh mistress!
Attachments:
chfp1.jpg (351 Kb)
chfp2.jpg (401 Kb)
Hello. Even if this computer was not meant for playing games, it is a beautiful piece of old HP engineering. Holding an LCD screen, a Software-drawer filled with a nice DOS from 1985 and a RAM-drawer, 1 MB! in size, this machine could be used as a text editor (with dedicated external serial printer and dedicated external floppy drive), as a scheduler and calendar and as a LOTUS123 machine. It is a sturdy laptop, 8 lbs of weight! Although I have 'played' my way in gaming changing many machines since 1988, I simply couldn't throw this non gaming one away. A good friend of mine gave it to me many years ago and it was love at first sight.
Attachments:
version!.jpg (397 Kb)
I could have shown other gear, but I chose my fondest memory: good old Atari VCS (no, it wasn’t called 2600 back then). It originally belonged to a friend of mine. Back in the 80s her father was one of the first programmers (not developers) on the face of earth, and he had a thing for videogames, so he bought it. We kids spent afternoons playing Combat (yes, the very one you see in the picture). Years later I’ve become a programmer and this friend of mine gives it to me. Legacy. I was in tears.
Attachments:
my_atari.jpg (366 Kb)