Forget colour. That generation iMac was incredibly repairable compared to today's Apple stuff. Two screws on the back panel and the whole internal tray slides out. Every major component's immediately accessible. And all repair parts were available.
Though, with the caveat that the computer stuff is integrated with the CRT which stores a potentially deadly high voltage for quite a while after being unplugged. Which doesn't mean it's not repairable, it certainly is especially by an independent shop with trained technicians, but it was still very clearly not meant to be repaired by the user with no prior experience. IIRC there were older Macs with integrated monitors that had the computer parts more or less separated from the monitor parts, which were comparatively safer.
Mind you, this carried over to fairly recent iMac models, because up until the M1 iMacs, they had their power supply as just a bare PCB right beside the motherboard with no separate enclosure, and modern switched mode power supplies also have capacitors that store deadly voltages long after being unplugged (as in, higher voltages than from the wall, they step up the voltage before stepping it back down which allows them to use more energy efficient components). While there's a lot to dislike about discrete power adapters for everything, they are definitively safer especially for people doing repairs because all the dangerous high voltage stuff is self-contained and separate from the actual device itself (and allows you to very easily replace the power supply with zero disassembly).
I never owned one, but played plenty of my friends N64’s. The controller has three different handle positions, so you had to move your hand from one spot (for pressing directional buttons) to another spot to use the joystick.
I’m sure eventually you’d get used to it and not think twice about it. But it was definitely a unique controller design
The three-prong layout was certainly an idea someone had. Having an analog stick on a console controller was innovative at the time, but the implementation of putting it on its own grip so you had to choose between it and the D-pad didn't go so well. There were games that used the D-pad, but most titles published for the system were the newfangled 3D games that were best played with the newfangled analog stick, so in practice most players held the right-hand 2/3rds of their controllers. There were a lot of games where having occasional access to the D pad would have been nice; imagine Majora's Mask with the transformation masks and ocarina bound permanently to the D-pad so you wouldn't have to keep menuing to replace C-button items, especially late in the game.
Sony very quickly studied what was right and what was wrong with Nintendo's approach and they created the Dualshock, which was almost entirely perfect.
How many shooters were there for the platform? There was Goldeneye, Doom64, and...?
Sure they made it work, but...adding the analog stick to the controller was pure innovation at the time, sure. But the vision for implementation was so fundamentally flawed that a bodge job from Sony bolting two analog sticks to their existing controller was 90 times better.
I hold a grudge against the translucent plastic fad.
Once upon a time the Linux workstation at my desk at $CHIP_COMPANY was built into a noname transparent teal ATX case. For that reason I gave it the hostname "fugly".
We had excessive field failures with some of our chips, and I was tasked with coming up with a way to identify those bad parts at customer sites. My solution was a bootable Linux CD that would run a test and tell the customer if they need to contact us for a recall. The test relied on a modified Linux kernel, so it couldn't be distributed as an application. I used "fugly" to develop and build the test, patched kernel, and CD image.
The test was deployed, the first few customers were pleased, and I got a wood plaque and bonus for my efforts.
A few weeks later, my manager called me into her office looking uncharacteristically pissed off. She asked why I put a message saying "fugly" into the CD. A customer complained about it, saying they saw "fugly" on the screen when the test was running, and while it did it's job it was unprofessional. A split second of confusion before I realized what happened: at boot time the Linux kernel prints the name of the machine it was compiled on, in this case fugly.team.company.com . It scrolls past quickly on boot, so neither I nor my collaborators ever noticed. Somehow the customer latched onto it.
I ended up with a slap on the wrist, being put on PIP for 6 months and having to change the hostname because higher-ups needed their pound of flesh.
Coincidentally, a week after this incident, Toyota posted a billboard at a major intersection near our office advertising the Scion xB that read "Funky? Or Fugly?".
A 6 month PIP for A NAME?!? Yes, we’re going to improve your naming conventions over the next 6 months. You better improve! Obviously it’s so a manager could tell another manager that “it won’t happen again.” But, fuck that.
My manager was understanding after I explained that it was unintentional. But it made support and sales look bad in front of the customer, and in a cascade of finger pointing the director of our department decided that would convince everyone that justice had been done.
Yeah, definitely just a bunch of fluff. Still ridiculous that we live in a world where that happens. Then the sales manager went to the customer and goes “LoOk ThE eMpLoYeE wAs RePrImAnDeD. Still give money?👉🏻👈🏻”
Performance Improvement Plan. Corporate probation. It's more common to see people put on PIP for low performance than managerial CYA for dumb mistakes like mine.
It heavily depends on the company as to what it means, but at this job I would have been fired if I got another PIP within that 6 months. I live in an at-will employment state, so if it weren't just a performative gesture then they would have just fired me.
You know what? I'd agree but it's probably for a different reason. Back then I thought this shit was the ugliest thing. Looking back now I kinda miss it but I think it's the nostalgia from it.
Sounds like a genshin problem. Before I had a steam deck, my go to portable emulator was on Android and I even had a little phone holder thing to stick my 8bitdo controller on since all it need was Bluetooth. Not sure about the ultimate controllers, though, as I wasn't a fan of Xbox layouts.
I love the translucent vibe. It shows exactly what makes the device work which the nerd in me just can't get enough of. Nowadays it seems like tech companies are more and more trying to hide the actual electronics and technology aspect of their products and marketing them more as magic black boxes.
Be the change you want to see. I've stopped EVER buying black, dark gray, or silver colored stuff unless there is no other option. It's great. Harder to lose, easier to find, rarely gets confused with similar products owned by coworkers, etc....
Do something that puts you in light prison/jail and have friends/family give money to your commissary. I've been in a serious prison and a bunch of the guys had transparent PS2, so you couldn't hide anything in it.
I bought that model a few years ago and it's gorgeous. I love transparent consoles, especially blue so I've done shell swaps on all of my consoles I can find blue shells for, either official or 3rd party. So far I have a PS2, Wii, and a Switch. I also have transparent blue face plates for a PS5 but I haven't gotten one yet
Colorful transparent plastic is nostalgic and tacky, like those object shaped rubber bands/bracelets. On one hand its a bit ugly and clashes with modern aesthetic, on the other the pop of color makes it stand out and seeing the insides of your electronics is kind of novel, dare I say radical
Also yeah yeah Steam Deck shells. Sorry I don't want to waste one whole perfectly functional plastic shell just to buy even more future plastic pollution because it's slightly cooler looking.
Or I could just continue using the perfectly serviceable shell I've got, because realistically it's more likely to outlast the rest of the device anyway, and I'm still producing less plastic waste by abstaining from getting something I know I don't need.
You can, but as someone who just replaced his own screen, the process is daunting! Mostly sticking new adhesive on a screen and making sure the cables are secure. Upside, ifixit is an official partner and the whole thing was built with repairability in mind.
If that process is worth a translucent case, that's up to you!
I mean, the items in this post were definitely made that way for marketing. The color of the plastic doesn't change the functionality at all but it often was more expensive to get the special colors, or only limited quantities were produced. "Special editions" is a tried and true marketing tactic that goes back much further than the 90s.
Which is why I go out of my way to never own a car with one of those colors. Of course by doing so I realize I'm making myself stand out to police, but I really like blue and purple cars. (edit: Lime green would be cool to have one day too. Ooh or a nice golden yellow.)
Why does it matter whether it looks "cheap" though? I get that you don't want something ugly-looking, but what's the problem with it being cheap, as long as it works?
Be attentive though, that 3D-printing commonly creates "hollow" structures with just a little bit of support material. If this was transparent, it would look totally weird as a consequence. You need to make this solid on the inside.
Today's console gaming has plenty of color and style options. And computer gaming literally has an RGB culture obsession with putting flashing colors all over the place.
Also, this pic includes a 2DS which was only discontinued in 2020. What does "back then" even mean?
I'm just happy to have painted colors that don't look tacky on cases now. Probably helps that the enthusiast market has grown significantly in the last 20 years
I know we are talking nostalgia but my God I love the Analogue Pocket ordered. I really loved when they sold the transparent pockets and was sad I missed out until I saw the transparent ones cracking.
I try to hold on as much of my old hardware as possible. We are really living in a very underrated golden age of hardware coming back up to play our retro games.
I like these, but their removal kind of makes sense. You'd be hard-pressed to find many modern homes which are not primarily black, white or wood coloured. They just don't fit in there anymore. Even children's rooms kind of lost their colour over the past decades.
Of course, they should at least still make handhelds with these designs.
Tbf, I also hate the 'so sad and beige, you'll want to slit your wrists just to see some fucking color' aesthetic we've moved to overall. It's boring as shit.
Even children's rooms kind of lost their colour over the past decades.
That feels like the opening line to a Willy Wonka movie - to set up how we need a quirky hero to fix our society that has forgetten how to love bright transparent plastic.
Both. I think the translucent stuff just makes it look bad. Again, to each their own though but I always thought the translucent stuff looked awful and was how to distinguish between cheap knock offs vs better quality goods.
I'm sure it depends on what items you grew up with specifically, but the translucent controllers for me were always the knockoffs. And beyond that, I thought the macs were hideous compared to a boring but at least solid windows beige box.
Like, how many people you remember seeing with the clear blue PS2 instead of a black one? Or a non grey Gameboy, or the n64 and GameCube and controllers. The only thing there that wasn't really a rarity was the computer.
Well the blue PS2 was exclusive to Japan so even to this day you don't see many in the US (I have one) but there are tons in Japan. The Funtastic N64s were pretty popular though, I knew several people who had a Jungle Green or Atomic Purple N64
They still look good.
Just commit a minute drug offense in the USA, and you can experience transparent electronics again.
Forget colour. That generation iMac was incredibly repairable compared to today's Apple stuff. Two screws on the back panel and the whole internal tray slides out. Every major component's immediately accessible. And all repair parts were available.
Though, with the caveat that the computer stuff is integrated with the CRT which stores a potentially deadly high voltage for quite a while after being unplugged. Which doesn't mean it's not repairable, it certainly is especially by an independent shop with trained technicians, but it was still very clearly not meant to be repaired by the user with no prior experience. IIRC there were older Macs with integrated monitors that had the computer parts more or less separated from the monitor parts, which were comparatively safer.
Mind you, this carried over to fairly recent iMac models, because up until the M1 iMacs, they had their power supply as just a bare PCB right beside the motherboard with no separate enclosure, and modern switched mode power supplies also have capacitors that store deadly voltages long after being unplugged (as in, higher voltages than from the wall, they step up the voltage before stepping it back down which allows them to use more energy efficient components). While there's a lot to dislike about discrete power adapters for everything, they are definitively safer especially for people doing repairs because all the dangerous high voltage stuff is self-contained and separate from the actual device itself (and allows you to very easily replace the power supply with zero disassembly).
Isn’t the 2DS from more than 10 years after most of these?
it was also almost 8 years ago already.
They did it for nostalgic reasons I guess.
Funtastic Grape you philistine
I’ll trade you for a watermelon one
omg just kiss already.
I will never say no to that.
I usually regret it, but that's tomorrow's problem.
Loved the N64, but that was one of their worst controller designs ever (not the color, but the shape/layout).
what made it a bad design?
The hard plastic analog stick gave you blisters if you played the first Mario Party too much. The wire had a great mouth feel.
I never owned one, but played plenty of my friends N64’s. The controller has three different handle positions, so you had to move your hand from one spot (for pressing directional buttons) to another spot to use the joystick.
I’m sure eventually you’d get used to it and not think twice about it. But it was definitely a unique controller design
Where there games that did this? From what I remember, you either used the analog stick and the z button or the d-pad with the Left shoulder button.
The idea behind the design was that you would use the stick OR the d-pad. Not both.
So you weren’t awkwardly switching how you held the controller all the time.
The three-prong layout was certainly an idea someone had. Having an analog stick on a console controller was innovative at the time, but the implementation of putting it on its own grip so you had to choose between it and the D-pad didn't go so well. There were games that used the D-pad, but most titles published for the system were the newfangled 3D games that were best played with the newfangled analog stick, so in practice most players held the right-hand 2/3rds of their controllers. There were a lot of games where having occasional access to the D pad would have been nice; imagine Majora's Mask with the transformation masks and ocarina bound permanently to the D-pad so you wouldn't have to keep menuing to replace C-button items, especially late in the game.
Sony very quickly studied what was right and what was wrong with Nintendo's approach and they created the Dualshock, which was almost entirely perfect.
At the time the left grip + analog stick was how I played shooters.
Moving with my left hand and aiming with my right made sense to me coming from a mouse/keyboard.
How many shooters were there for the platform? There was Goldeneye, Doom64, and...?
Sure they made it work, but...adding the analog stick to the controller was pure innovation at the time, sure. But the vision for implementation was so fundamentally flawed that a bodge job from Sony bolting two analog sticks to their existing controller was 90 times better.
Doom, quake, turok, goldeneye, perfect dark, duke nukem, Hexen, dark forces and others that used “fps” style movement.
This was the only way to know if ants are living in your Nintendo and they’re going to fry a circuit somewhere.
It’s a wasteful we moved away from this design.
I think that is more a problem that you need to clean up your room more and properly dispose of your candy wrappers. Gross.
If you’re not supposed to store candy in the cartridge slot when not playing, then I don’t want to be right!
Ants can come from anywhere and they find the electricity plus warmth of a game of Mario kart attractive.
Unpopular opinion: Making shit out of translucent plastic was the single fugliest way to make a product, and I'm glad it's gone.
I hold a grudge against the translucent plastic fad.
Once upon a time the Linux workstation at my desk at $CHIP_COMPANY was built into a noname transparent teal ATX case. For that reason I gave it the hostname "fugly".
We had excessive field failures with some of our chips, and I was tasked with coming up with a way to identify those bad parts at customer sites. My solution was a bootable Linux CD that would run a test and tell the customer if they need to contact us for a recall. The test relied on a modified Linux kernel, so it couldn't be distributed as an application. I used "fugly" to develop and build the test, patched kernel, and CD image.
The test was deployed, the first few customers were pleased, and I got a wood plaque and bonus for my efforts.
A few weeks later, my manager called me into her office looking uncharacteristically pissed off. She asked why I put a message saying "fugly" into the CD. A customer complained about it, saying they saw "fugly" on the screen when the test was running, and while it did it's job it was unprofessional. A split second of confusion before I realized what happened: at boot time the Linux kernel prints the name of the machine it was compiled on, in this case
fugly.team.company.com. It scrolls past quickly on boot, so neither I nor my collaborators ever noticed. Somehow the customer latched onto it.I ended up with a slap on the wrist, being put on PIP for 6 months and having to change the hostname because higher-ups needed their pound of flesh.
Coincidentally, a week after this incident, Toyota posted a billboard at a major intersection near our office advertising the Scion xB that read "Funky? Or Fugly?".
A 6 month PIP for A NAME?!? Yes, we’re going to improve your naming conventions over the next 6 months. You better improve! Obviously it’s so a manager could tell another manager that “it won’t happen again.” But, fuck that.
My manager was understanding after I explained that it was unintentional. But it made support and sales look bad in front of the customer, and in a cascade of finger pointing the director of our department decided that would convince everyone that justice had been done.
Yeah, definitely just a bunch of fluff. Still ridiculous that we live in a world where that happens. Then the sales manager went to the customer and goes “LoOk ThE eMpLoYeE wAs RePrImAnDeD. Still give money?👉🏻👈🏻”
Gross.
Whst's a PIP?
Performance Improvement Plan. Corporate probation. It's more common to see people put on PIP for low performance than managerial CYA for dumb mistakes like mine.
It heavily depends on the company as to what it means, but at this job I would have been fired if I got another PIP within that 6 months. I live in an at-will employment state, so if it weren't just a performative gesture then they would have just fired me.
Performance Improvement Plan
I agree with you, except for the atomic purple Gameboy Color. That was the shit
I believe that history will remember the atomic purple GameBoy color as the apogee of 20th century design, practicality and classiness.
You are allowed to have an incorrect opinion.
I purposely swapped the case to my Steam Deck to be translucent because you are wrong :-p
You know what? I'd agree but it's probably for a different reason. Back then I thought this shit was the ugliest thing. Looking back now I kinda miss it but I think it's the nostalgia from it.
It's not even that for me, it's just that now everything looks the same which is boring.
Absolutely. I hated that era where everything tried to be an imac. Maximum kitsch.
I was already in my 20s then though, so I really have no childhood nostalgia for that time.
This was Pavlov (or rather one of his many twins).
He was in my friends' dorm room in college.
His name was Pavlov because you had to respond to him when the bell rang.
Gotta love that prison aesthetic.
Yoooo shout-out to the new translucent purple 8bitdo controller I picked up recently!
Oh no, do I need ANOTHER 8bitdo controller...?
Yes but you must ask: do I go Pro 2 for the handles or Pro 1 for the more authentic SNES feel. Both are glorious.
I have a couple of the pros (1?) that are great and are still hanging in there.
The SNES style one is tempting...
Sounds like a genshin problem. Before I had a steam deck, my go to portable emulator was on Android and I even had a little phone holder thing to stick my 8bitdo controller on since all it need was Bluetooth. Not sure about the ultimate controllers, though, as I wasn't a fan of Xbox layouts.
I love the translucent vibe. It shows exactly what makes the device work which the nerd in me just can't get enough of. Nowadays it seems like tech companies are more and more trying to hide the actual electronics and technology aspect of their products and marketing them more as magic black boxes.
Be the change you want to see. I've stopped EVER buying black, dark gray, or silver colored stuff unless there is no other option. It's great. Harder to lose, easier to find, rarely gets confused with similar products owned by coworkers, etc....
A transparent PS2 is all the rage I wish I had one at the time.
Do something that puts you in light prison/jail and have friends/family give money to your commissary. I've been in a serious prison and a bunch of the guys had transparent PS2, so you couldn't hide anything in it.
I bought that model a few years ago and it's gorgeous. I love transparent consoles, especially blue so I've done shell swaps on all of my consoles I can find blue shells for, either official or 3rd party. So far I have a PS2, Wii, and a Switch. I also have transparent blue face plates for a PS5 but I haven't gotten one yet
Colorful transparent plastic is nostalgic and tacky, like those object shaped rubber bands/bracelets. On one hand its a bit ugly and clashes with modern aesthetic, on the other the pop of color makes it stand out and seeing the insides of your electronics is kind of novel, dare I say radical
Cowabunga dude
Retro Handhelds are helping to bring it back.
Also yeah yeah Steam Deck shells. Sorry I don't want to waste one whole perfectly functional plastic shell just to buy even more future plastic pollution because it's slightly cooler looking.
It means you have a spare. Nobody said you needed to throw anything away.
Or I could just continue using the perfectly serviceable shell I've got, because realistically it's more likely to outlast the rest of the device anyway, and I'm still producing less plastic waste by abstaining from getting something I know I don't need.
Unihertz Jelly Star, baybee!
you can do that with steam deck
I'm strongly considering it now...
You can, but as someone who just replaced his own screen, the process is daunting! Mostly sticking new adhesive on a screen and making sure the cables are secure. Upside, ifixit is an official partner and the whole thing was built with repairability in mind.
If that process is worth a translucent case, that's up to you!
The back half - everyone can do.
The front half - I would not recommend. It is not for the light hearted, or inexperienced. If you have any doubt - don't.
I did the full case swap to mine and it was very worth it
Now color is used as a marketing trick.
"This generation of Iphones comes in new colours never before seen on an Iphone! So you better buy the latest one or people will think you are poor."
"More features? Why you'd need that? You got different colours!"
So in my eyes, it is yet an other good thing ruined by marketing.
I mean, the items in this post were definitely made that way for marketing. The color of the plastic doesn't change the functionality at all but it often was more expensive to get the special colors, or only limited quantities were produced. "Special editions" is a tried and true marketing tactic that goes back much further than the 90s.
How has color ever been used for anything other than trying to make your product look more appealing?
Looking pretty is probably top of the list but there is also:
Yo man the job site guys who are arguing over color tools are just trying to fill the shitty day and get a check.
I mean, maybe if your product is something where the color is part of the function, like paint or such
I loved those iMac colors. Our school computer lab had rows of them and it looked soo cool!
I believe that colorfulness directly correlates with happiness.
Also, most of it was japanese AFAIK.
To be fair, the Japanese dominated electronics in the 90s
Cars too. In most parking lots, grey, black and white account for 95% of the car colors.
Which is why I go out of my way to never own a car with one of those colors. Of course by doing so I realize I'm making myself stand out to police, but I really like blue and purple cars. (edit: Lime green would be cool to have one day too. Ooh or a nice golden yellow.)
In the US.
Automobiles seem to have lost color, too, with various shades of grey in the standard offerings.
What happened to green colored cars? Seems to only be red, blue, white and black now. And when was the last time you saw a yellow colored car?
You are correct, but I can't give you an answer why.
Banana cars are still out there. Source: my children punching me when we pass one. Maybe once/twice a fortnight?!
Now we have colour in the form of RGB LEDs in everything instead.
I miss my transparent orange palm pilot. :(
Color can still be had.
Please bring back this design language 🙏🏻
This design and use of cheap plastic is disgusting. Design peaked during Bauhaus.
I get that plastic is cheap, common, and often wasteful but it is also shock resistant, light, and transparent.
The problem is not "plastic", but cheap looking shit these things were made out of. There are plenty of good looking plastic products.
Why does it matter whether it looks "cheap" though? I get that you don't want something ugly-looking, but what's the problem with it being cheap, as long as it works?
Because they are petty and need to flex not being cheap.
Because it looks like shit. What else is there to explain?
Well, I don't feel that it looks like shit. It looks good to me.
Serious question, how were these enclosures made? Is it resin? Is it plastic? How were they shaping the plastic?
I'm pretty sure it's just injection molded plastic like the uncolored or"normal" consoles.
It might be interesting to get scans of this and try 3d printing them.
Be attentive though, that 3D-printing commonly creates "hollow" structures with just a little bit of support material. If this was transparent, it would look totally weird as a consequence. You need to make this solid on the inside.
I imagine that the technology used to make plastics like these isn't super-complicated. You just need oil, then you can form it into shape.
According to ChatGPT is plastic injection moulding
brother, you just made it sound like you don't know what you're talking about
An example of doing it at home here: https://piped.video/watch?v=Y5_kSuMitu8&t=4
No, I think you miss neon.
Today's console gaming has plenty of color and style options. And computer gaming literally has an RGB culture obsession with putting flashing colors all over the place.
Also, this pic includes a 2DS which was only discontinued in 2020. What does "back then" even mean?
Nah no way. Really? I thought the old 2ds was discontinued pretty early
I'm just happy to have painted colors that don't look tacky on cases now. Probably helps that the enthusiast market has grown significantly in the last 20 years
I know we are talking nostalgia but my God I love the Analogue Pocket ordered. I really loved when they sold the transparent pockets and was sad I missed out until I saw the transparent ones cracking.
I try to hold on as much of my old hardware as possible. We are really living in a very underrated golden age of hardware coming back up to play our retro games.
I keep my old phones in the hope that I can flash them with mainline linux one day. PostmarketOS is making this dream happen
That N64 looks delicious.
What is the device to the left of Dreamcast
memory card thingyVMU?Oh, I think that's a camera, now that I looked closer. But what is the small pink thing left of the GBA? Just a USB flash?
Yeah the first thing is for sure a camera. I honestly don't recognize the 2nd thing though. I'd guess a USB stick too.
There are two Gameboys.
One of them is color.
Thanks. Can't read it, atrochious picture quality.
Atrocious spelling
Unnecessary rudeness towards someone struggling with admittedly bad picture quality.
Not saying you did anything bad in particular, could've been a joke.
I like these, but their removal kind of makes sense. You'd be hard-pressed to find many modern homes which are not primarily black, white or wood coloured. They just don't fit in there anymore. Even children's rooms kind of lost their colour over the past decades.
Of course, they should at least still make handhelds with these designs.
Tbf, I also hate the 'so sad and beige, you'll want to slit your wrists just to see some fucking color' aesthetic we've moved to overall. It's boring as shit.
I want to bring it back in my house. I liked the modern neutral colors for a while, but I'm tired of it now and miss the 90s/early-00s charm.
Doesn't everyone?
It was a gentler time. We didn't worry about World War 3. Literal Nazis. The death of the American Dream. Roe v Wade.....
That feels like the opening line to a Willy Wonka movie - to set up how we need a quirky hero to fix our society that has forgetten how to love bright transparent plastic.
The 2ds slaps though
Colour was awesome, but the translucent stuff with pcb showing through just looked trashy to me.
As a tech inclined person, I find it pretty cool that you can "feel" electronics that way.
urgh, msm8916? Do Qualcomm even make those chips anymore? That is sooo passe
To each their own.
When I look at these I think of cheap plastic trash. Much prefer current design.
Cheap plastic trash that's not translucent, or glass stuff that's more expensive, fragile, and even less biodegradable?
Both. I think the translucent stuff just makes it look bad. Again, to each their own though but I always thought the translucent stuff looked awful and was how to distinguish between cheap knock offs vs better quality goods.
I'm sure it depends on what items you grew up with specifically, but the translucent controllers for me were always the knockoffs. And beyond that, I thought the macs were hideous compared to a boring but at least solid windows beige box.
I just think it has so much charm
Fair! I'm glad it works for some. 😊
Anything other than metal sucks
You like metal? Name all the bands.
Beige powder coated metal.
As the proud owner of a G4 Cube I agree with OP
"Proceeds to show very limited runs of items"
Like, how many people you remember seeing with the clear blue PS2 instead of a black one? Or a non grey Gameboy, or the n64 and GameCube and controllers. The only thing there that wasn't really a rarity was the computer.
Well the blue PS2 was exclusive to Japan so even to this day you don't see many in the US (I have one) but there are tons in Japan. The Funtastic N64s were pretty popular though, I knew several people who had a Jungle Green or Atomic Purple N64
God, I fucking hated this trend when it popped up. So fucking ugly. I'm glad this died out. Not so glad it's apparently coming back.
My husband loves it. I have to keep a very close eye on him at retro gaming markets because this crap crosses the line.
Take of your rose tinted glasses people.
Seriously. It makes it hard to see the colors when you wear them.
Exactly
Too busy playing my rose tinted n64