Missing your favorite games from childhood? Struggling with game emulators on your PC? Tin can't get the controller to work? Don't fret---at that place is an alternative.

Don't allow your old console languish in a forgotten box in your attic or basement. Instead, dust it down, and load upwardly your favorite games.

"But wait," yous say. "What about my new TV? I tin't possibly connect my 8-bit or 16-chip console to a modern HDTV, can I?"

Well yep, y'all can… Read on to learn how to connect old consoles to a modern Television set.

What Old Games Consoles and Computers Have in Common

You might have an erstwhile Nintendo Entertainment Arrangement or an Atari console. As dissimilar as these consoles are, they each share a like quality---how you connect them to a Tv.

Connect your old Nintendo to a HDTV

Two options are available:

  • RF: the old-style aerial connection. While a workable pick, the cables tend to deteriorate over time, then won't evangelize a reliable moving picture in near cases.
  • Blended: the red, white, and yellow cable that is notwithstanding in use. Red and white are the audio channels, yellow the video. These cables feature RCA connectors and are also known equally AV cables.

While some consoles volition simply take one or the other, some have two. In that location'due south also the possibility of adapters and converters and fifty-fifty custom cables to view the output from your console on your high definition TV.

Allow's look at how to connect popular retro consoles to your modern television set.

How to Connect NES or Super NES to a Smart Tv

Rather than rely on emulation software, devices like the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment Organization (aka Famicom) or the 16-bit Super Nintendo (aka Super NES/SNES/Super Famicom), can be connected straight to an HDTV.

The NES has 2 options: the RF port, and the AV/RCA port.

  1. If your TV has an RF port (to connect to old-style aerials), then y'all tin employ this. The NES RF switch connects to the port adjacent to the panel'south power socket. The RF switch box is designed and then that the cable box and console tin use the same channel on your Boob tube.
  2. Need a better picture? Consider swapping to the AV cable, which shipped with later NES consoles. Connect this to the AV output on your NES and to the same inputs on your HDTV. Be sure to connect the blood-red port to the cherry-red port, and the yellow to the xanthous. This video illustrates the point.

For the Super Nintendo, a Universal S-Video cable is the all-time option to claw it to your TV. This is likewise the solution for the N64 and GameCube. The unfortunate and irritating checkerboard effect of the older composite/RCA connectors makes Due south-Video a more popular selection.

Super Nintendo users with good DIY skills might adopt to fit a component video output. This is the ruby-red/green/bluish (RGB) connectedness, also known as YUV/YPbPr. Most HDTVs have this cable connection (often using the same RCA ports as composite).

RCA to HDMI Adaptors

NES and SNES owners can besides benefit from adapters that convert the signal so it tin exist displayed on an HDTV. These HDMI Converter Adapters work with the NES, SNES, GameCube, and N64 consoles. They're also extremely affordable, available for less than $30.

How to Connect a Sega Console to Your Smart TV

If y'all want to hook your sometime Sega panel to your modernistic Goggle box, once more you'll demand the right cable. Every Sega console has a different video out port, which can confuse matters. Fortunately, you can even so choice upward the right TV cablevision for your console online.

For instance, if you have a Sega Genesis (aka Sega Mega Drive), yous'll need to detect the right cable for your specific model. Confusingly, different Sega Genesis versions accept different video connectors.

Once y'all've got the right cable, it's a unproblematic example of connecting it to the blended/AV connectors on your Television receiver.

Connect an Onetime Atari 2600 to Your Goggle box

atari 2600 console

Even the popular Atari 2600---the panel that arguably kickstarted the home gaming revolution---tin be connected to an HDTV.

To do this, take hold of the packaged RCA cable and connect a female-to-male coax adaptor. Screw this into the RF connector on the back of your LCD or plasma HDTV.

The RCA cable is a unmarried video and mono audio composite, ideal for the depression-fidelity graphics and audio of the Atari 2600.

If you can't find a female person-to-male person coax adapter, plug the RCA cable into any device with an RF pass-through circuit. You lot're looking for a device similar a VCR or DVD recorder. From here, the betoken volition be sent along the device'due south usual route to your HDTV.

With a bit of channel switching, you lot should find your Atari 2600 game is ready to play on your smart TV.

Other Panel or an Quondam Home Computer?

Overall, the method for connecting your old games console or domicile reckoner to an HDTV remains the aforementioned. It doesn't matter if yous take a Super Nintendo console or a Commodore 64 computer.

Confirm yous tin use an S-Video or AV connection rather than RF, and purchase a suitable connector.

Note, notwithstanding, that y'all may also need a converter; some older devices don't use standard signals (e.yard., the Commodore 64). Buying a well-made HDTV-compatible AV cable will reduce the likelihood of issues and problems occurring.

Also, if you're using a Television set with a SCART socket, a blended-to-SCART adapter can piece of work. Just connect the AV cable to the adapter, and then connect this to the SCART socket on your TV. Finally, select the respective output on your Goggle box and start playing.

Don't allow the Boob tube offset automobile-tuning or switching channels on you because it doesn't like, or can't automatically pick up the betoken. Y'all may accept to spend some time jumping betwixt, and tuning channels, so stay persistent!

If All Else Fails...

If none of these options are not working for your erstwhile console and your HDTV, there remains one concluding risk.

Buy an sometime TV!

You should be able to find a traditional Idiot box for under $30 from a thrift store or on eBay.