The Game Boy

The Nintendo Game Boy debuted in 1989, and it was the most successful handheld game system of all time until it was surpassed by the DS much later. It was a meant to be a portable NES, in essence. It had an 8-bit processor and a sound chip that was less capable than Nintendo's flagship console. The graphics were made by a dot-matrix grid that could handle 4 colors: White (by which I mean “clear,” or nothing displayed), light grey, dark grey, and black. But even with just 4 colors it was remarkable how clear some of the graphics stayed. Nintendo had produced the “Game & Watch” series of handheld games in the early 1980’s, and were similar to the line of Tiger handheld games, but unlike these earlier games, the Game Boy featured interchangeable games.

The name, "Game Boy" probably evolved from an earlier Japan-only mascot Nintendo had used in their early days: Diskun (pronounced "Dis-coon"). The Japanese language often borrows words from other languages and attempts to pronounce them as close as they can. Examples include, Baiorin (violin), Beesubooru (baseball), and Bideo Geemu (video game). Incidentally, "Famicom" is short for "Famirii Conpyuutaa" (Family Computer), much the same way "Pokemon" is short for "Poketto Monstaa" (Pocket Monster). Because their word for "disk" was "disku," it only took one additional written character to make it into "Diskun." 'Kun' is a title/suffix that Japanese appends to young boys, much the way 'San' is attached to grownups (think Miyagi calling him Daniel-San). Essentially it translated to "Disk Boy," so when the handheld came out, they called it a Geemu Boi, or in English, Game Boy. 

While other portable game systems were horizontally oriented, the Game Boy's form factor was vertical. It featured a small 2.6” (diagonal measurement) screen and the same buttons as the NES (D-pad, Start, Select, B, and A). It had a mono speaker on the front and a volume dial on the side, but when headphones were plugged in to the jack on the bottom, the Game Boy put out stereo sound. It took 4 AA batteries and had about a 30-hour life. There was also a power input jack on the left side to connect an external battery pack or AC adapter, as well as a contrast slider to adjust the darkness. Finally, there was a red light indicating power that would dim if the batteries were about to die. 

The power switch was on the top of the unit and was a mechanical slide which caused a small plastic tab to cover the upper right corner of the games, which had a small notch to allow for this. The idea was to mechanically prevent games from being pulled out while the system was turned on. Each game came with a small plastic case, but like the black NES sleeves they were often lost.

On the right side was the jack for the GameLink cable, which enabled 2-player games on a select number of games, and required both parties to have a copy of the game. There was also a four-player adapter that worked with a handful of games, but it still meant that each person had to have his own system, a copy of the game, a cable, and someone had to bring the adapter. 

The Game Boy came bundled with Tetris, a GameLink Cable, and a pair of headphones. Later a slightly cheaper package was sold that omitted everything except the Game Boy console itself.

Every time the system was turned on, a familiar “ding” played while the Nintendo logo slid down the screen to the middle. The screen background color was known as “puke green,” and in later models was more of a speckled gold color. The screen was not lit, so it required good indoor lighting or being played outdoors. After-market adapters that magnified and lit the screen could be used to play at night. Other accessories included the Game Boy Camera (a rudimentary digital camera), the Game Boy Printer (a thermal printer resembling today’s receipt machines to be used in conjunction with the camera), and the Transfer Pak (an adapter that allowed the Game Boy to be connected to a N64 controller to transfer data between systems).

Soon games featuring the usual Nintendo cast (Mario, Samus, Mega Man, Link, etc.) were being sold, as well as portable versions of classics. Other franchises, like the Kirby and Pokemon line of games, began on the Game Boy.

The system was bulky enough that it made it difficult to carry in a pocket unless it was an adult-sized pocket, or a very big kid-sized pocket. But it fit into backpacks easily, however, and kids could take them to school (provided their teachers didn't see them). Later Nintendo would release a slightly slimmer version of the Game Boy that was easier to keep in one’s pocket called the Game Boy Pocket, as well as a front-lit version (but only in Japan).

Other systems competed against the Game Boy, but due to blurry graphics and short battery life (like the Sega Game Gear, for example), the Game Boy dominated, even against color game systems. It was very popular, even among celebrities and some parents. 

It was superseded in 1998 by the Game Boy Color, which featured basically the same sound and graphics level as the original model, but could do color as well without sacrificing battery life and required only 2 AA batteries instead of 4. It also included an IR connection mode to replace the GameLink Cable, but only a handful of games took advantage of this feature. It could display up to 32 colors at once, but what was really interesting was how it was backwards compatible, something no handheld had done up until that point. To celebrate the addition of color, the system was available in six colors colors initially, though some special editions would later be released. 

If a regular game was put into a GBC, it would automatically be colorized (similar to what the Super Game Boy did). But the difference was unlike the SGB, the GBC assigned different colors to background and foreground elements. The default palette (also accessible by pressing UP + A at the startup screen) set the background colors to black/blue/green/white, and the foreground colors to black/red/white/clear (so it looked like 6 colors were used). Other palettes were available (up to 12 different variations) by pressing certain button combinations when the system was booting up. Also, like the SGB, certain in-house games had special palettes customized for them. For example, Metroid II defaulted to a blue background combination while the sprites were all red and yellow. It made the games even more colorful than the SGB, and made them practically just as good as new GBC games.

GBC games were housed in clear plastic that lacked the corner notch that older games had. This mechanically prevented them from being played in a standard GB unit. But quite a few games were made to be cross compatible between both systems. They were shaped like regular games, but featured black plastic instead of gray, indicating that they could be used in both systems. When put into a standard GB unit, it displayed 4 shades of black/white like any game. But when put into a GBC it would display in full color.

Some games (like Link's Awakening) were re-released with a special color version, usually dubbed "DX," for deluxe. Unfortunately, games that had been optimized for the SGB did not have any kind of enhancements when played on a GBC. SGB games would basically behave like a regular type 1 or type 2 game. 

Over 1000 games were made for these two systems, though not all were released in all parts of the world (many were only available in Japan). But it would be replaced by a newer generation of handheld in 2001, the Game Boy Advance.