TECH NEWS – A tech-savvy gamer has managed to run an original Xbox on an antique 1977 television using a radio adapter and transmitting antenna.

The past technology is not always compatible with today’s game consoles. But one gamer managed to get an Xbox console to run on an old TV set from the late 1970s. In the modern age, HDMI flat-screen monitors and televisions are the standard. But that doesn’t stop some people from experimenting with older display models for fun and challenge.

Many of these gaming experiments revolve around the boxed CRT TVs of the 90s, which will be warmly familiar to gamers who enjoyed using them to play consoles such as the original PlayStation or Nintendo GameCube.

Tech-savvy enthusiasts have managed to run more recent titles like Skyrim and Halo Infinite on these cubic displays. While others have investigated why older games look better on them than on newer HD monitors.

Now a TikTok user called b_b_retro has managed to get an original Xbox console to run on an old TV from 1977. This retro device does not even have the audio/video input normally required to connect a console. However, b_b_retro can play the original Halo: Combat Evolved on it by plugging it into a radio adapter. It sends radio signals through the antenna, resulting in the Halo start-up screen and the classic Halo intro theme playing through the monochrome device.

Commentators have praised b_b_retro for achieving this impressive feat. Some shared their memories of playing older Halo games on CRT TVs.

Even though these types of displays have largely been phased out, there’s still a certain nostalgic charm to trying to get newer game systems to work on them – and as mentioned above, older games actually look better on them, as LCD/LED TVs stretch out the smaller images to fit on the larger screen.

Still, an old TV from the late 70s can’t be expected to be connected to a newer games console like the original Xbox. Especially since the TV was made before the audio/visual inputs that modern systems take for granted. Nevertheless, the b_b_retro managed to do so using radio signals and the old antenna that carried analogue television signals into homes in the decades before digital broadcasts became commonplace, much to the surprise of gamers. It is not, it should be added, the first such project.

Source: TikTok