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.

Released in April 1989, the GameBoy is an 8-bit handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo.

  • 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

Gameboy Color with Case and Tetris from collection..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
The 10 Rarest GameBoy Games
  1. Amazing Tater (1991, worth more than $10,000)
  2. Kid Dracula (1993, worth more than $3,000)
  3. Spud's Adventure (1991, worth more than $3,000)
  4. Ninja Boy 2 (1991, worth more than $3,000)
  5. F1 Pole Position (1993, worth more than $2,500)

 

Shops

 

GameBoy

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