Game Boy

The Nintendo Gameboy was the first "true" handheld console from Nintendo. It was released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America in August 1989, and in Europe on September 28, 1990. It was incredible at the time. The game cartridges were interchangeable and small. The Gameboy also featured a 2-bit dot matrix screen. The Gameboy also had 8 buttons: A, B, D-pad, Select, and Start.

Technical Specifications

 * CPU: Custom 8-bit Sharp LR35902 core at 4.19 MHz. This processor is similar to an Intel 8080 in that none of the registers introduced in the Z80 are present. However, some of the Z80's instruction set enhancements over the stock 8080, particularly bit manipulation, are present. Still other instructions are unique to this particular flavor of Z80 CPU. The core also contains integrated sound generation.
 * RAM: 8 kB internal S-RAM (can be extended up to 32 kB)
 * Video RAM: 8 kB internal
 * ROM: On-CPU-Die 256-byte bootstrap; 256 kb, 512 kb, 1 Mb, 2 Mb, 4 Mb and 8 Mb cartridges
 * Sound: 2 pulse wave generators, 1 PCM 4-bit wave sample (64 4-bit samples played in 1×64 bank or 2×32 bank) channel, 1 noise generator, and one audio input from the cartridge. The unit only has one speaker, but headphones provide stereo sound.
 * Display: Reflective STN LCD 160 × 144 pixels
 * Frame Rate: Approx. 59.7 frames per second
 * Vertical Blank Rate: Approx 1.1 ms
 * Screen size: 66 mm (2.6 in) diagonal
 * Color Palette: 2-bit (4 shades of "gray" (light to very dark olive green))
 * Communication: Up to 2 Game Boys can be linked together via built-in serial ports, up to 4 with a DMG-07 4-player adapter.
 * Power: 6 V, 0.7 W (4 AA batteries provide 15–30+ hours)
 * Dimensions: 90 mm (W) × 148 mm (H) × 32 mm (D) / 3.5″ × 5.8″ × 1.3″