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I just found a charger for my PSP after 8 years!
I never had a Tamagotchi, but the little rectangular Digimon versions of them were all the rage when I was like 8. I kinda miss those things.
And I recall a year or two later getting another toy…may or may not have been Digimon branded…that had the same connector on the top, but was more rounded in shape. I remember after my battery on one died, holding the two together to try and keep it alive through the power the other one was sending it. Of course it only worked as long as I was physically holding them, and would then reset.
Was it a Giga Pet? Was that what they were called?
They had brand name Digimon digital pets. Giga pets were just poor-kid Tamagotchis. I had the alien one. https://wikimon.net/Digital_Monster_Ver._1
Thank Mr gary
Past? I’m going to pick up my new Tamagotchi today and I played some Age of Empires (crappy buggy version) on my DS yesterday.
The PSP blew my young mind when it first came out. I remember holding it in my hand when I got one as a Christmas gift, completely in awe of the fact that I could take a Playstation anywhere. I loaded mine up with music and had a ton of games.
The closest modern thing is the Steam Deck. Although it’s much better than the PSP ever was, it doesn’t hit the same as an adult. Still love it, though.
Although it’s much
betterthan the PSPbulkier*
You could slip a psp into your pocket and just resume your play when you had a few free minutes
The closest modern thing is the Steam Deck.
Or a Retroid, or Anbernic, or Miyoo, or PowKiddy, or Ayaneo, or Ayn, or TrimUI… or slap a controller onto your phone using one of those derpy clip mounts or the fancy new Mcon once it ships.
Imagine my surprise when my neighbours, thinking of me as a magic tech guy, decided to hit me up because their son had a problem with some console…
…and it was bloody PSP. I had to reign my amazement in, because, like, holy cow.
Anyway it had custom software and I had to learn how to swap that which…is hella easy, but reminded me what hell was it to forum-dive for rando files hosted fuck knows where. xD
My sister and I, aged 9 and 6 respectively, were sitting in the car waiting for our father to grab a couple of things from the supermarket. My sister pointed at a girl sitting on a bench outside the store playing with a Tamagotchi. I’d never heard of it. My sister described it to me, and I liked the idea a lot. It sounded like this thing would be my friend, and I didn’t have a lot of those.
“Tell mum and dad to get you one!” I remember this phrasing, because it made me uncomfortable to even think of telling my parents to do anything for me. It bothered me that she felt it was acceptable to demand things like this. I did ask my father though, and he heaved a sigh before relenting. He’d bought one for one of his children, so he knew he couldn’t deny the other one. Maybe that’s why my sister thought I was in a strong position to be demanding.
At the toy shop, my father asked the store clerk for a Tamagotchi in a defeated and despairing way. “Oh yeah they all want those bloody things now, don’t they?” I can’t remember the exact quote, but I remember the two grown-ups agreeing that these Tamagotchi things are stupid and annoying. It was very clear that I was pushing my father into doing something he didn’t want to do, and enduring something he found bothersome in the future. I stood there in shame as he paid for the thing I was now pretty sure I didn’t want.
In my bedroom that evening, I pulled out the little tab that isolated the battery, and the Tamagotchi sprung to life. It didn’t feel like a friend at all. It felt like a dirty little secret. I played with it for a few minutes, but I just felt so guilty. By the next time I picked it up, the battery was almost dead. I wished so much that I had never asked for that thing.
I don’t think I experience 90s nostalgia in the same way as the majority of my peers. I remember the feel of the 90s, but all of these little toys and gadgets were things my parents despised, and either refused to have in the house, or begrudgingly allowed in very small doses while making their contempt for them very clear. Maybe that was for the best in a lot of ways, but it boxed me out of the 90s childhood that many seem to remember very fondly.
Lots of us raised in the 80s and 90s are riding the trauma wave of parents who were raised by people who lived through the depression and a world war or two.
You are not allowed to want things. You are not worth it. Everyone else is though.
Sound familiar?
One hundred percent. Jesus, generational trauma is a bitch.
You’re not alone. My parents regularly determined that anything trendy was clearly an invention of Satan sent to bring children directly to demon-worship. My only experience with one of these was like many of my experiences with technology growing up — the only child across the street with the “rich” parents had one, and he asked me to watch it over a weekend when he was on vacation somewhere.
It was never fun to me. It was a beeping obligation.
Did you find that socially isolating at all? On one hand, and probably more a thought from my adult brain than something I would have agreed with back then, one doesn’t want friendships that are predicated on such things. On the other hand, it sure looked like they were having a lot of fun playing Pokémon, whereas I didn’t know the first thing about it. It would have been an easy thing to use as common ground.
Watching your friend’s Tamagotchi while they’re away sounds almost humiliating though.
I didn’t get a lot of what people were talking about for awhile, but mostly it just got me to hide things from my parents from a young age and make my own money so I didn’t have to ask them for things…an attitude that of course created its own problems.
As for the tamagotchi-watching, I could see that feeling humiliating. At the time I think I just felt trusted. Sort of like when the other neighbors would ask me to watch their cat while they were gone. That kid’s parents never did end up ever letting him have a living pet ¯_(ツ)_/¯
“Nostalgia”
I’m playing FF Tactics:Advance on my Anbernic not because I’m clinging to the past, but because the game kicks ass. Also, I have a shitton of games in a convenient package.
thank you gary
More like
solastalgia
noun
- A form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home, but the environment is changed.
My buddy got an old PSP he handed me to mod for him. He doesn’t have the password because he got it at a garage sale for 15 bux. Anyone got tips on where to start?
Hero
Can it be factory reset maybe?
That’s all I’ve got.
Thank you Gary
See when I was younger psp games looked like they had 4k graphics but now I’m older I realise how mistaken I am lol
But the games were still fire.
Man. So much game time on that thing.
And for porn. God. So much porn.
How old were you at the time? 'Cause I was in my teens and they looked like PS2 graphics to me back then (which was last gen at the time). The low 272p resolution of the screen surely didn’t help, either. It was barely an improvement over the DS’s 240p screens, bad enough that it was difficult to see objects in the distance in most 3D titles.
That was part of the reason why I used my PSP mainly as a portable emulation machine. Most of what I played on it were SNES and PS1 games, which looked fine on the screen because they were designed for low resolution 480i CRTs from the beginning. (I played handful of N64 games too but the emulation wasn’t as good then. I sold my PSP before most N64 games were playable.)
I’m glad that most mobile screens are 1080p minimum these days, cause god those were some dark times. I remember that my persistence of vision would leave a pixel grid in my field of view if I stared at a screen for too long back in those days lol
To be fair I think the graphics looked amazing because they was some of the best in mobile gaming at the time and now that graphics have significantly improved since then you start to realise the massive improvements and differences.
Thanks Gary. You’re the best bud.
Thank you Gary x
