Evolution of the Nintendo Gameboy / Handhelds

This guide is simply available to educate people on the Evolution of Nintendo's Hand Held Gaming Consoles. Ipersonally like Nintendo's innovation, Quality and Performance and will continue to buy their consoles for years to come. I hope this guide serves as someuseful reading to those who are interested .........Nintendo Game and Watch HandheldsDuring the early 1980s Gumpei Yokoi was asked to create a new toy for Nintendo which would result in the Game and Watch pocket systems. The small handhelds similar to the Tiger brand LCD games. The Game and Watch were a small pocket sized system that often folded in half to protect the LCD screen it contained and many popular games were created utilizing the Nintendo trademark figures such as Donkey Kong, Mario, and Zelda. Some systems, like Zelda, contained a double LCD screens. From this achievement, Yokoi also patented the Directional Pad or D-pad that Nintendo has used for many years. At the time of production for these small units, a joystick would be too difficult and clumsy to incorporate into a small system, so Yokoi, the great inventor created the D-pad, he called it control cross, which provided the most reasonable and accurate movements. The production line lasted from about 1980-1989 and produced about 60 or so different games. Two LR44 batteries are required for play.Nintendo Game BoyIn 1989 Nintendo debuted in the United States with the Game Boy, a handheld 8-bit black and white system to bring up their end of the portable console market. The $99.99 system came with the Tetris game as a pack in. Game Boy had been released the previous year, in 1988, in Japan. The 2 screen of the Game Boy, although not backlit, was a 8-bit monochrome (4 shades of gray) reflective LCD display that was 160x144 dots. The stereo was 4 channel stereo sound that could be mapped to one or the other, or split between speakers. It was not so much of a battery muncher, as was the Game Gear and Atari Lynx of the same period, it could run about an average of 35 hours on four AA batteries. This one is lovinly referred to as "The Brick". Over a decade later, the Game Boy series of console has by far been the most successful pocket console of all time.Game Boy Pocket On September 3, 1996 Nintendo released the Game Boy Pocket system in the United States for a price tag of $59.99 USD. Released initially in metallic blue and silver, the Game Boy Pocket was 30% smaller than its pappy. With the smaller size, came smaller batteries, two AAA batteries were included with the system and lasted the player about 10 play time on average. The red LED indicator light dimmed as the battery power diminished. Other marked improvements were the 2.6 large, high resolution reflective LCD screen. Within time the system was available in more colors. This includes, but is not limited to: green, blue, black, red, atomic green, and clear. It still had 4 channel stereo sound and weighed only 4.5 oz. Like its' predicessor the Game Boy Pocket was released in the Play It Loud colors.CPU: Custom Z80 @ 4.19 MHz RAM: 8kb Screen Resolution: 140x102