Consoles That Were Computers (and Vice Versa)

Since A.S. Douglas created the first graphical computer game as part of his thesis on human-computer interaction, the bond between bytes and games has grown into what we know today, where consoles are as powerful as some computers. Long before the present and the future, there was a time when the line between consoles and computers was far less distinct. That's why we've prepared an article about consoles that were computers (and vice versa).

Present and Future of Console-Computers

Today's consoles offer gigabytes of storage for saving games every minute, internet connectivity to check email and read Neoteo while you rest your thumbs. Internal hard drives, powerful processors, and much more are what video game consoles provide, as if they were conventional computers with a controller and a multimedia game management suite bolted on. For those who grew up with third- and fourth-generation consoles, the idea of a computer inside the console (or vice versa) might seem a bit odd, but for players of the second generation, the concept of a Video Entertainment System was not so far removed from the Home Computer as many of us think. So it was that consoles that weren't really computers sometimes came with expansions to turn them into computers (or the other way around).

Expansion Modules of Yore

With this expansion system, the idea was to give families new activities on the same device besides playing or... computing? By offering these add-ons as third-party accessories, console makers carved out a place in the booming computer industry, and consoles became home computers that young people could use as a virtual space to load programs or even develop their own using BASIC, turning leisure into learning. Personal computers were expensive at the time, and being able to access their most common functions by buying just an adapter led hundreds of thousands to experience something called a home computer for the first time. What did these expansions include? Many came with drawing software, and some offered music synthesizers for another kind of fun with consoles. They generally came as cartridges containing ROM and a keyboard that gave new possibilities to what had seemed like a finished product just months earlier. Let's look at a few.

Spectravideo CompuMate SV01 (Atari 2600)

There is little left to say about the Atari 2600 from 1977, a console that made kids and adults alike drool in front of store windows. The classic joystick, cartridge loading, 128 bytes of RAM, and 4KB of ROM made history in that console that sold for $200 and moved 30 million units. Also with delusions of grandeur like other consoles and computers of the era, Atari launched the CompuMate SV01 expansion, created by Spectravideo, consisting of a membrane keyboard with interface connectors that fit into the console's module slot.

You had to connect it to the two joystick ports, and suddenly the console became a fairly compact home computer with which you could listen to music by playing tapes, as well as record data on them. As for software, you had BASIC as the solution for program development, a music synthesizer, and a drawing and even limited animation application. The package finished with sample sounds and free-use images.

Expansion Module #3, Coleco Adam (ColecoVision)

In 1982, video games were in their golden age, and Coleco unhesitatingly introduced the ColecoVision. It launched with a catalog of 12 titles, which by the end of 1984 had grown to almost 150. Besides being one of the most successful consoles of its generation, with the arcade version of Donkey Kong as its flagship title, the ColecoVision also had ambitions of being a computer. Taking advantage of its structure and expansion ports, it mutated into a console-computer. How? Through expansion modules. The first one gave it compatibility with the Atari 2600, making its software library the largest of the era. The second module added a steering wheel and pedals for racing games, but the big change came with module #3, which turned the console into a computer called the Coleco Adam. Keyboard, digital data pack, cassette unit, and more functionality that, guess what, didn't sell well.

ProModule SX-1 (Amiga CD32)

Arriving in the fifth generation of consoles, the Amiga CD32 (named for its 32 bits and built-in CD-ROM support) hit stores in the early 1990s, and although it was quickly forgotten, it left a bit of history. Born from the Commodore Amiga 1200, it had dropped the floppy drive and keyboard to include a CD reader. But perhaps the most relevant thing about this console for us is its peripherals. The package made up of ProModule, DCE SX-32, and Paravision SX-1 gave the console a new identity, turning it into a small computer with the functions of the Amiga 1200. You could also reattach a floppy drive, an IBM keyboard, and a hard disk. The 25MHz Motorola processor was a nice upgrade for that model.

PlayStation to Linux (PS2)

We know about the PS2's modem and expansion capabilities, but many don't know about another aspect of Sony's console's transformation into a computer. Official from the company in 2002, if you have a PS2, you should know that there is and was a way to turn your entertainment screen into a Linux distribution using PlayStation 2 to Linux. To the classic package, you add a USB keyboard and mouse, a VGA adapter, a PS2 network (Ethernet) adapter, and a 40GB hard drive (HDD). An 8MB memory card is needed to perform the system installation, which had a fairly unintuitive interface. The impact and community were so large that Sony was even sued when it tried to remove this possibility from the PS3. Another modern console with this kind of conversion was the GPX2, with the Cradle, which gave it computer functions for browsing and gaming online, something that consoles and their expansions have been seeking for decades. Remember the Satella View for Super Nintendo? Wasn't that a kind of DLC downloader of the 90s?

Commodore 64 and C64GS

The path of the Commodore 64 went in the opposite direction: it was an 8-bit computer sold as a computer, not as a home console, although it would also become one. In August 1982, the Commodore 64 appeared with 64KB of RAM, a 1.023 MHz CPU (for the NTSC version), and a sound card that was ahead of its time. With 20KB of ROM, expansion was visible, and in 1983, when the Atari 400/800 and Apple II competed in the scene with better graphics, the Commodore 64 used its available ports for peripherals that it managed separately. The Commodore 64 then used its cartridge port for game cartridges and the RF output for TV, turning itself into a console, which also inflated its price and contributed to the video game crash of 1983 that ended the second generation of consoles in the US. Later, in 1990, Commodore released its own console version called the C64GS (Commodore 64 Gaming System), but it was a complete failure whose history we'll tell someday.

Are there more? Of course. This isn't even half of the consoles or computers that had these transformation capabilities. In fact, the attempt to connect to the internet to play or check email from consoles has existed for two decades, and expansions like the modem for Sega Mega Drive or Super Nintendo are nice memories.

On the side of computers that became consoles, the search is less prolific or, from another point of view, too populous. Since joysticks connect to the PC and graphics are increasingly powerful, personal computers began to be consoles in their own right without needing expansion modules. As we said, there are more consoles, but these were the ones with the most characteristic changes and the ones most used worldwide, inspiring the current generation of super-powered consoles.

We invite you to share more experiences about this type of expansion and transformation and how you think they could be adapted to the current console industry, where each one is a computer in itself.