On Modern Gaming With Retro Hardware

Thu, August 7, 2008 - 5:46 PM PST

For reasons that I can't get into, I have a company-purchased XBox 360 game console in my cube. It's a real shame actually because it's only been turned on like 4 times in the months that I've had it now. And because it doesn't get used much, it wasn't hooked up in the best of ways: no speakers, and tied to an old CRT monitor - which of course perpetuates the trend that it doesn't get played.

Inspiration struck me today though: plug the composite video and stereo audio cables into the capture card of my SGI O2 that I have on my desk. Now the XBox displays in a window on the IRIX desktop and the audio gets piped out the tinny internal speaker built into the workstation. So we all gathered around and watched the intro to Lego Star-Wars (one of the only games we have) play a few times and everyone ooh'ed and ahh'ed and then we all went back to work. Nobody even bothered to pick up a controller.

It's wonderfully retro and I love it. But that doesn't mean anybody needs to actually play it.