This morning we trekked to Target and a craft store. When we got home my purchase from Think Geek had arrived. I bought this with the coupon I was given by the University of Massachusetts. It's a portable NES. I still have all my NES games you know, now I can play them anywhere! It can also hook up to the TV so we can play the like we did back then.

I do still have my old NES; it still works. However, the controllers do not and the last batch of replacement controllers didn't fit the jacks. This portable unit solves that by both having the controller built into it and it comes with two wireless controllers and a light gun for play on the TV.

Much of the afternoon and evening was spent with the old classics. Mom got to go a round with Tetris even.

In other news, my allowance has been increased as the budget can handle it. I used this to get the SNES/NES combo console from Think Geek; once that arrives, mom will have access to crack Tetris Attack and her other favorites, and we won't have to worry about sharing the unit. I then went on a little spree on eBay for NES carts -- they're quite cheap you know.

So why buy a new console instead of emulating the games I like? Simple: emulation is legally shaky at best. Using a console and the actual carts is 100% legal. Back when I was seriously into emulation, I sometimes stated that I'd prefer a legal method to emulation's "it might be legal" status. Well, now I have that legal method.

Part of the day was spent working on Din, so the day wasn't totally wasted on nostalgia.

I did some tests to see how to do some things with Playpen and hit a serious problem: DOS can't handle a feature it will require. This means the current way of doing things isn't going to work. Ultimately, I'm going to have to make a GUI program, like it or not. Tomorrow I'll see about that and see about making it as painless as possible.

Today's link of the day is also very old school: here's a link to Sesame Street's YouTube Channel. It's very hard to beat a certain rubber ducky for Old School Nostalgia!