Description

The original Game Boy was released on April 21, 1989 in Japan and in August, 1989 in the United States. Based around a Z80 processor, it had a tiny black and green reflective LCD screen, an eight-way directional pad, and two action buttons. It played games from ROM-based media contained in small plastic detachable units called cartridges (sometimes abbreviated as carts). The game that really pushed it into the upper reaches of success was Tetris. Originally only available in neutral grey color, Nintendo released several colored Game Boy models in 1995, advertising them in the Play it Loud! campaign.

Technical specifications

CPU

Custom 8-bit Sharp Z80 at 4.194304 MHz (has a slightly different instruction set than a standard Z80, and integrated sound generation)

RAM

8 kByte internal S-RAM

Video RAM

8 kByte internal

ROM

256 kbit, 512 kbit, 1 Mbit, 2 Mbit and 4 Mbit and 8 Mbit cartridges

Sound

4 channel stereo sound. The unit only has one speaker, but headphones provide stereo sound

Display

Reflective LCD 160 x 144 pixels

Screen Size

66 mm (2.6 in) diagonal

Color Palette

4 shades of "gray" (green to black)

Communication

Up to 4 Game Boys can be linked together via serial ports

Power

6 V, 0.7 W (4 AA batteries provide ~35 hours)

Dimensions

90mm(W) x 148mm(H) x 32mm(D)/3.5 x 5.8 x 1.3 (inch)