My SNES Story
At a Friend's House...
Way back in 1997, I went to a friend's house one day. In his room, he had a Super Nintendo. Now, I had seen one before, but never actually played any SNES games until then. He showed me Super Mario World, and then he showed me F-Zero, which he managed to convince me was a 2-Player game. I didn't notice that I wasn't actually playing it, I was just having too much fun to do so.
Meanwhile, back at home...
So when I was little, I had a tiny little black & white Quasar TV that had a built-in clock, radio, and *phone*, of all things... (this is relevant, I promise.) One day, I was walking home from school with my mom when she mentioned that my brother said he was going to give me his Super Nintendo! I was excited! Well... Turns out, the only thing he had was the console itself, and one game: Populous. He lost the controllers, power supply and RF switch, just like years before, when he gave me his Atari 7800 ProSystem, minus all the things needed to make it work. (I never did get to play that thing.)
Anyway, months pass, and I just have this inert game console, a game I know nothing about, and to top it all off, even if I did have everything, I still wouldn't be able to connect it to my little TV. I was disappointed. I thought I'd never get to play anything on it, just like before... Well, unbeknownst to me, some things were going on behind the scenes...
The 13" Sharp Color TV
One evening, I was out in my backyard pedaling a plastic Little Tykes tricycle when my brother came out holding a remote control. "Here's the key to your new TV", he said, as he handed the remote to me. I got up and hurried to my room. My brother had had a 13" Sharp Linytron TV in his room. It was now in *my* room. I was ecstatic! The TV was on, and it was showing one of my favorite TV shows, Home Improvement (which oddly enough, was as old as that TV, both being from 1991.)
The TV that my brother gave me. I still have it to this day.
So, I had this 'new' TV, and I loved it. I didn't put two and two together until much later, but what I didn't know at the time was that that was an indication that my brother was actively trying to find what was needed to get my SNES working.
Dec. 25, 1997
Christmas morning. I open my presents. I got a few cool things. A sleeping bag that I wanted, a VTech PreComputer Power Pad Plus (a little educational 'laptop' computer with little learning games, and even a version of BASIC), and... A Super Nintendo controller, a copy of Super Mario Kart, and... well, my brother couldn't find the hookups at the store, so he'd still have to look for his old ones, but this was a good sign! This wasn't like the Atari system at all! Swee- oh... One little problem... I opened the Super Mario Kart box, and HALF THE CONNECTOR ON THE CARTRIDGE WAS MISSING!
I was gutted. Apparently, we couldn't find the receipt, so unfortunately, I couldn't exchange it. I was back to having only one game. Still though, it was not like I could play it anyway... My SNES still sat dormant. Occasionally, I'd pretend I was playing it, because after all, I had a *controller* now, but the console was not functional. Well, not until...
"Hey, where's your Control Deck?"
I was sitting at my desk doing my homework one afternoon either in 1998 or 1999 (strangely enough, I don't remember exactly...), My brother walked up to my door holding a bundle of cables. "Where's your Control Deck?" he asked. I perked up as if someone had given me Mountain Dew intravenously. I hurried into the living room, where my SNES was sitting under the coffee table, and rushed it into my bedroom, where my brother was screwing the cable from the RF box of the SNES into the back of my TV. Within one minute, the title screen to Populous was showing on the TV screen, and the awesome title music was playing.
I hurried as fast as I could to finish my boring-ass phonics homework, and laid in bed just listening to the music. I couldn't believe it. I finally had a working game console. My mom told me that dinner was ready. I walked into the kitchen, and stood waiting in the attached family room where the dinner table was, as my mom got the meal, tuna casserole, my favorite, put on the table. Moments later, my brother walked in holding a copy of Super Mario World! I was so excited, I wolfed down my dinner and ran to my room, and played the heck out of Super Mario World. A couple hours later, my brother walked into my room and handed me a bag of Reese's Pieces.
If it hadn't happened to me, I wouldn't believe it myself, but that day was one of the best days of my life. Maybe some day I'll tell you about the *best* day of my life, but that's just going to have to wait for another day.