As time passes, it becomes more difficult to get your classic systems hooked up to newer equipment. HDTVs want HDMI or Component video input, and if you’re stuck with the standard Yellow/Red/White Composite cables that came with your 16-bit system, you might be out of luck. No Super Castlevania IV or Sonic 2 for you unless you find an older TV set.

But even if you can use the composite cables, do you really want to? Sure it looked OK on your old, non-HD set, but composite is a really crappy standard (and let’s not even talk about what you got via RF Switch, OK?) and your games deserve to look as nice as possible on those giant screens.

Enter HD Retrovision, LLC.

These guys have a crazy idea: you should be able to play your 16-bit consoles on your modern-day HD television with the best possible quality. Sure, that video being output at 240p isn’t going to hold a candle to your PS4 (or even your PS2), but just look at what’s possible with their engineering tricks:

Left: standard composite video signal. Right: video signal with HD Retrovision Component cables.

That’s Super Mario Kart looking the way it always has on the left, vs. how it should have always looked on the right. Please note, this console is not outputting at HD resolutions. Both of those images are still 240p, same as they were back in the 1990s. HD Retrovision’s cables just clean up the video signal to display what the developers originally wanted their game to look like: crisper, cleaner, brighter graphics on the same console.

“Welcome to (the new and improved) NBA Jam!”

They’re looking to Kickstarter to get funding to make this type of display a reality for all serious 16-bit retro gamers. So if you want to see your Genesis/Megadrive and Super Nintendo games look the best they possibly can without complex hardware hacks or resorting to emulators, here’s your chance.

Go back these guys and help them hit their target before the end of the month.

Watch their videos. Check out their screenshots. And prepare to fall in love with your 16-bit favorites all over again.

Michael Crisman

In 1979, Michael Crisman was mauled by a radioactive Gorgar pinball machine. After the wounds healed, doctors discovered his DNA had been re-coded. No longer fully human, Michael requires regular infusions of video games in order to continue living among you. If you see him, he can see you. Make no sudden moves, but instead bribe him with old issues of computer and video game magazines or a mint-in-box copy of Dragon Warrior IV.


If he made you laugh, drop a tip in his jar at http://paypal.me/modernzorker


(If he didn't make you laugh, donate to cure his compulsion to bang keyboards by sending an absurdly huge amount of money to his tip jar instead. That'll show him!)