GameBoy and GameBoy Color
Released in April 1989, the GameBoy is an 8-bit handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. The console was so successful that the production continued until the year 2003.
- Initially sold for $89.9 in the US ($212 in today's money)
- It is estimated that 118.5 million units of GameBoy (GB) and GameBoy Color (GBC) were sold worldwide
THE CLASSIC GAMEBOY AT A GLANCE
The GameBoy was initially released in Japan and the US (1989), and later in Europe (1990). Made by Sharp, the CPU is based on 8080 and Z80 chipsets.
- Discontinued in: 2003
- Colors: Grey, transparent, black, white, red, green, yellow, and blue
Tech Specs
- Dimensions 148 x 90 x 32 mm, weight 220 gr
- Sharp LR35902 CPU running at 4.19 MHz
- 2.6-inch LCD (STN) display with 4 shades of grey
- Built-in mono speaker (4 sound channels) but with stereo output (headphones)
- 64 KB address space
- 8 KB of RAM
- Cartridges with 64 KiB - 512 KiB of ROM
- 15 hours of gameplay battery life (4× AA batteries)
Related Models
- GAMEBOY POCKET (1996)
- GAMEBOY COLOR (1998)
- GAMEBOY ADVANCE (2001 32-bit)
- GAMEBOY MICRO (2005)
GAMEBOY COLOR
Released in 1998, the GameBoy Color offers a TFT screen with 56 colors from a palette of 32,000 colors. The device was designed to be smaller but compatible with all previous GameBoy devices.
- Initially sold for $79.95 ($140 in today's money)
- About 800 games are playable by the GameBoy Color console (including the original GameBoy's compatible titles)
- Colors: Blackberry red, neon green, yellow, turquoise, purple, clear purple, and Pokémon Special Edition
Tech Specs
- Dimensions 133.5 x 78 x 27.4 mm, weight 138 gr
- Next-generation liquid screen (TFT)
- CPU Clock frequency: 8 MHz with 32 Kbytes of RAM
- Up to 10 hours of gameplay using 2 AA batteries (1.5 V)
GameBoy Graphics
CLASSIC GAMEBOY
- 160 × 144 pixels
- Four shades of "gray" (2-bit)
- The screen is composed of background tiles and sprites
- 40 sprites per screen (each sprite up of 4 bytes)
- The GPU is assigned 8 KB of space
GAMEBOY COLOR
- 160 x 144 pixels
- 56 colors on the screen simultaneously
- 32,000 colors-palette
Sound Capabilities
- 4 different sound channels
- 2 pulse wave generators
- 1 PCM 4-bit wave sample
- 1 noise generator
- Audio input from the cartridge
- Built-in mono speaker (headphones output stereo sound)
GameBoy Expansions
- GameBoy Four Player Adapter
- Universal Game Link Cable
- Handy Boy (two built-in speakers and a square magnifier with light for illumination)
- Light Boy (extra light and magnification to the screen)
- GameBoy Printer
- GameBoy Camera
- Transfer Pak
- Action Replay (games cheating device)
- Mobile Adapter GB (connect the GameBoy Color or GameBoy Advance to mobile phones for remote play)
- There are many more accessories mainly made for the original GameBoy
I/O Ports
- Game Boy cartridges slot on the top
- External DC power supply jack on the left side (6 V, 0.7 W)
- Headphones port (outputs stereo sound)
- Serial port (link cable) to connect with another GameBoy on the right side (512 kbit/s with up to 4 connections)
Controls
- On/Off switch on the top
- Contrast control on the left side
- Volume control on the right side
Game Titles
- It is estimated that about 1,040 games were officially released for the original GameBoy
- It is estimated that about 800 games in total are playable by the GameBoy Color
- Tetris was the best-selling game for the GameBoy with 35 million sales (units)
- Pokémon Red and Blue sold 23.64 million units
- Amazing Tater (1991, worth more than $10,000)
- Kid Dracula (1993, worth more than $3,000)
- Spud's Adventure (1991, worth more than $3,000)
- Ninja Boy 2 (1991, worth more than $3,000)
- F1 Pole Position (1993, worth more than $2,500)
■ GameBoy
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