How did you join the Turbo family?

[GUTS]

Yeah the christmas of 1991 I think, or was it 1990?  I can't remember which year the SNES came out, I do remember it was right afterwards though.  Toys R Us always had a display unit of every system in big glass cases and I remember always drooling over the Turbo Express and Master System 3D goggles.

[Ultra Luigi]

One of my bros found it at a garage sale. It came with Final Lap Twin and Keith Courage. I’m guessing he got it around 95 – 97, I don’t know when. I heard about this system from reading magazines and I knew someone who owned it in the early 90s. I asked her to sell to me but she didn’t want to.

A few years later I found a store that sold TG games so we bought Bonks Adventure and Neutopia. The store was called Treasure Island, and it had a huge selection of systems and games. The owner moved about 4 years ago, his business probably wasn’t doing well. A lot of the stuff was expensive.

So now my bro got married, and gave me the TG-16. His wife doesn’t like when he plays games. What a dumbass, but good for me. He did take his Atari 2600. I hope his wife didn’t trash it.

[nat]

I would never marry anyone who couldn't mesh with my edge-of-your-seat Turbo lifestyle.

[kungfukid]

I never owned a PCE when I was young - not all that many people in the UK did at the time. I always had sega stuff, starting with the Master System and then the Megadrive. After joining ebay in 2002 I started filling in the gaps in my master system collection until I had virtually every master system game, system and accessory known to man  I needed something else to concentrate on and had always fancied getting hold of a PCE, so I did. Still didn't really know all that much about what games to get etc. and it was only really when I discovered sunteam's PCE software bible that I really got into the system. At the moment, I play using PCE-Duo and have a pretty good mix of CD & Hu-Card games, and getting into the PCE was definitely one of the best decisions I ever made.

[Hobo Xiphas]

I joined the Turbo family when a shady looking character traded me a copy of Far East of Eden II and Missile Defense 3D for 24 Tele-Games and Combat at my town's midnight game swap in the Cyberpunk Alley.

It was a deal I just couldn't refuse.  Thankfully, we made the trade before the police busted the swap meet.

[Keranu]

I still haven't played my copy of 24-Tele Games yet, but I plan to soon since the Atari is hooked up! Thanks for the trade again!

[Hobo Xiphas]

A+++++ will cyberpunk again

[Monster Bonce]

Back in the early 1990s a friend gave me a copy of the first edition of the Complete Guide to Consoles. Of all of the machines in it, the PC Engine really stuck out.

By the way, if anyone has that magazine and is willing to sell it, I'd be more than happy to buy it.

I really wanted a PCE—the games looked brilliant and, I have to admit that, in retrospect, I have always loved the underdog. Unfortunately it cost what would now be about €450 to buy a so-called grey import. Needless to say, I couldn't afford it.

I also remember the TG16 being advertised in American comics, particularly Bonk and Splatterhouse, but for some reason I was never particularly interested in the TG16. Stupid, I know, because it's the same machine but my interest in the PCE was twofold:

- the form factor
- Japanese games

Anyway, in early 1991 my friend bought a Super Famicom. It was pretty amazing and I enjoyed playing, among other things, Actraiser on it, thought it was tough with all of the Japanese text. A while after it appeared on European shores as the Super Nintendo I caved in and bought one. My PC Engine dream died. Or so it seemed.

A little while later, my SF-owning friend was booted out of school for an infraction and we lost touch. With that my interest in these things dropped off quite quickly. Time passed.

In 1998 I was at art school and had just bought a Mac. I discovered the site emulation.net (now emulation.victoly.com) and downloaded a PCE/TG16 emulator and happily played away. I was kind of busy, though, with both college and socialising so I didn't really get into it.

Fast forward eight years and I am self-employed and spend all day researching various things. As a result I spend a lot of time on-line and, well, the mind does wander. I downloaded a PCE emulator again. And Neutopia. Being gainfully employed—or at least no longer being a student—I occasionally find one or two euros rolling around in my bank account and so, in a moment of madness, I went on to E-Bay and bought a PCE, Bomberman and a few other games. I don't regret the decision, in fact, I regret not having bought one back in the day. Still, what could I do? Working class kids could scarcely afford localised consoles, let alone Japanese imports.

Anyhow, there you go—a pointless personal story. I hope it wasn't too boring.