As far back as the original Game Boy hardware, Nintendo's portable systems could output stereo sound. But all of the systems have a very poor delivery system: tiny, tinny speakers.

But!

Most of their systems (save for the Game Boy Advance SP) came with the 1/8'' phono plug on the bottom for headphones. Which instantly makes the game sound better (it's how I first discovered that the final battle in Donkey Kong '94 had music mixed in stereo), and is fine, but I like to take it one step further.

I went out and purchased this from my local Radio Shack:

It has the phono plug on one end, and the left/right RCA plugs on the other end.

What does that mean?

It means that I can plug the output of my portable game system directly into my surround-sound system.

And that means that playing games like Elite Beat Agents and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow takes on a whole new dimension.

All week we've been talking about how to squeeze some extra playing time out of your portable gaming systems. And one thing that modern portable systems have in common is their rechargeable batteries. Rechargeable batteries are great in most cases... except when you don't have any convenient way to plug them to recharge.

That's why I keep handy my old Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, and my original taco-shaped Game Boy Advance. They run on easily-replaceable batteries.

In a power-outage situation, you're likely going to have access to batteries of some sort, and popping out two AA's and then popping in two more will get you back up and gaming at full power in less than a minute, whereas if you have to recharge your batteries, it can take as long as 4 hours to get them back up to speed.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.