Time Travel - What would you take with you?

[TornadoCreator]

I was having a conversation with a few friends of mine about this and I thought this was interesting.

Imagine you where going to be forced back in time 30 years to 1981. You will have to live out the rest of your life in the past, however you are allowed to take with you the following.

1. Any, ONE electrical device of your choosing.
2. Any 5 peices of software, be them discs, cartriages or other format.

For the sake of this, an electrical device would be any Computer, TV, Games Console or Handheld Device (although I suppose you could take a Microwave if you want), and it is assumed that you have all the cables, controllers, memory cards etc. you need to use it. HOWEVER no pre-installed software is allowed, (so no saying you'll bring a Laptop with emulators for every 16-bit console and 100gb of TV shows, thats cheating). Remember, it's 1981, so HDMI doesn't exist, all TVs are CRT and the internet doesn't exist.

When it comes to software, the following things count as software.

1. Any video game, so long as it's a single game or sold as a compilation. eg. The Orange Box, or the God Of War Collection would be allowed.
2. A single DVD or DVD box set, for example ONE season of a TV show, or a boxed set of the Star Wars films would be acceptable. The entire Star Trek library would not.
3. Any CD or Music Album.
4. Any computer software that sold as a single entity, (I'll point out, if you're bringing a PC, you want to bring a copy of Windows with you).

It'd be interesting to see what things you guys pick, so let's have some fun with this. Remember it's 1981, so make sure whatever you pick is compatible with the tech of the day. It's pointless having a HD console if you can't read the text on the screen... oh and just in case we have any Apple fans, your iPhone won't work here (well, it'll work offline and you can play the games... if you REALLY want to pick and iPhone as your item).

Remember, if you decide to bring an SNES and a DVD, you have no way of playing the DVD, so think carefully. I already know what I'd pick, I'll post my response once the balls got rolling.

[Gamerforlife]

Weeeell, first of all going back in time and staying there would create some horrible, consequences that destroy reality. Soooo, I'm out

[TornadoCreator]

Weeeell, first of all going back in time and staying there would create some horrible, consequences that destroy reality. Soooo, I'm out

Not quite what I ment really... let's, for the sake of the thread, ignore all causality issues and just assume you'll be stuck living in 1981 starting tomorrow but whatever force that's sending you is as an act of empathy allowing you to take the afformentioned items back as a souvenier of your own time and the rules I stated are the ones it's putting in place. We could even assume no causality effects. That everything you do in the past is what was supposed to happen anyway and that your actions are already part of history. So if you take a 3DS back with you and hand it to a Nintendo executive, you won't change history, it'll just turn out that it was your fault we got the Virtual Boy after all.

[BurningDoom]

It would be too much of a shock back then to go from something like Atari 2600 or Intellivision to say XBox 360 or Gamecube. Remember systems like Jaguar and 3DO that were released just a little too soon?

I think the best bet would be to introduce them to something 8-bit or 16-bit. Wow them with your Genesis or NES.

[TornadoCreator]

It would be too much of a shock back then to go from something like Atari 2600 or Intellivision to say XBox 360 or Gamecube. Remember systems like Jaguar and 3DO that were released just a little too soon?

I think the best bet would be to introduce them to something 8-bit or 16-bit. Wow them with your Genesis or NES.

Aaah, you're thinking more "what I'd introduce to the masses". Fair enough that's an interesting take on it and I agree in that case the early stuff is probably best. I was thinking more a "Desert Island Discs" kind of scenario, you know the "which 5 songs would you have on a deserted island if these where the only songs you could listen to". That kind of thing...

Here. I'll give my answer so people know what I mean.

I'd take a Playstation 2 because it's a reliable console and it has some great games I enjoy as well as being a DVD player. Remember, this is early 80's so the Atari 2600 is the height of gaming, TV in UK is BBC 1, ITV and BBC2 only (Channel 4 didn't exist until 1982), and VHS has only been around for 3 years. Betamax is more widespread, but it's expensive... so even watching TV will be hit & miss.

For software, obviously I'd need to pick stuff that would really last me. So I'd go for:

1. Final Fantasy VIII. It's my favourite Final Fantasy, it's got plenty of side quests, and Triple Triad would keep me going for a while. It's not a game I'd get tired of quickly. I could see myself spending 100s of hours on this.

2. Dynasty Warriors 4. Sure, I love Devil May Cry 3, Chaos Legion and God Of War but I'm looking at replayability, and with all those characters, with additional characters to unlock and final weapons to achieve, I'd have loads to do.

3. Season 1 of Bones on DVD. This is one of my favourite shows, and while Season 1 doesn't have the best arc it's got some of the best stand alone episodes and it's long, 22 episodes, 43 mins long each, that's a solid 16+ hours of TV, more with comentary and special features.

4. DVD Box Set of Firefly. Again one of my favourite shows, and quite a different show to Bones. Again 43 mins long on average per episode, 14 episodes, which means 10+ hours of great TV, more with comentary and special featres.

5. Burnout 3: Takedown. A game with theoretically no end. There's loads of tracks, loads of medals to get, it's a great game and I'd also get the soundtrack which has songs I like such as Finger Elevens, "Stay In Shadows" and Sugarcult, "Memory", which as I've picked no CD's this would be a great idea.

Now that you've heard mine. Hopefully you'll have a better idea what I was getting at, I'd like to hear what others think.

[bryan_65]

Not really an answer but,

I would take nothing but my wife. I would just let everything be new again.

[Anayo]

I would take back a netbook with files stored on the hard drive documenting all stock market activity from 1981 to 2011.

[fvgazi]

I would take back a netbook with files stored on the hard drive documenting all stock market activity from 1981 to 2011.

Somebody has got the right idea.

I would go back and write all the hit songs before they are written.... even terrible ones. I'd probably change the words around for shit n giggles too.

[TornadoCreator]

You know, I wonder why I bothered with this thread if not a single persons going to give it more than a sentence or two in response... based on the other threads on this forum I thought you'd all get really into this and be planning which games/consoles would give you the most varied gamplay, most replayability etc. but no. Seriously can you guys not discuss an abstract concept without having to specifically ignore it or pick holes in it while simultaneously entirely missing the point?

[BoringSupreez]

You know, I wonder why I bothered with this thread if not a single persons going to give it more than a sentence or two in response... based on the other threads on this forum I thought you'd all get really into this and be planning which games/consoles would give you the most varied gamplay, most replayability etc. but no. Seriously can you guys not discuss an abstract concept without having to specifically ignore it or pick holes in it while simultaneously entirely missing the point?

Dude, chill. No need to insult everyone.

I would take back a netbook with files stored on the hard drive documenting all stock market activity from 1981 to 2011.

Somebody has got the right idea.

Actually, it'd only work once or twice; after that the history of the stock markets would start going off on a new tangent. So you might as well only take the activity for 1981.