VOGONS


Original GameBoy

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First post, by HunterZ

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I'm going to be moving next weekend, so one of my roommates dug out the GameBoy games from his desk drawer that I had loaned him a year or two ago to play on his GBA SP when he first got it. I dug out the remaining games I had from my own desk drawer and found my original GameBoy (the one before the Pocket, Color, etc.) with working batteries in it! I haven't touched it for almost 3 years, the last time being when I showed off a GameBoy game to classmates that I had made as my senior project in college; I now have my own GBA SP (with flash cartridge too finally), but I blew the dust off, put Metroid II in, and fired it up just for the heck of it.

The thing ways about ten pounds (when I showed it to my roommate he said, "you can club a baby wolf to death with it"), and you can barely see anything on the screen in full light. I don't think the screen is going bad, as I am able to make it completely dark or light using the contrast knob (on the other hand, the sound seemed very quiet so maybe the batteries are a little weak even though the power light is bright). It's amazing I didn't go blind playing that thing for all those years.

My original GameBoy and the 11 (out of 14 or so) games I still have are now living in a box with half of the NES game collection that I recently expanded quite a bit via eBay.

I think the games I'm missing are Super Mario Land and Tetris. Another is Final Fantasy Legend III, which hasn't worked for over a dozen years after being lost in my mom's car for a few months when I was a teenager (but I still carried it around with me and eventually even opened it up so I could show people what the inside of a cartridge looks like). I'm guessing that one of my former college friends still has the missing couple of games, as I remember loaning a bunch to her at one point as well. It's okay though because I can play them all on emulator now. I'm even thinking of getting a flash cartridge that will let me play them on the GameBoy Color hardware in my GBA.

Games I still have:
F-1 Race (I wonder where my 4-player adapter is? I never used it)
Final Fantasy Legend (the first one)
Fortified Zone
Kid Icarus
The Ledgend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (later rerelased as a GBC game, I hear)
Metroid II
Mickey's Dangerous Chase
Prince of Persia
Race Drivin'
Super Mario Land 2
Super Star Saver

Games I also use to have:
Final Fantasy Legend III (died)
Super Mario Land (the first one; loaned and lost)
Tetris (loaned and lost)

Reply 1 of 3, by DosFreak

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I've been thinking of getting a flash cartridge too....but I never played handhelds much. Heck I got the original gameboy when it first came out and barely played it. The NES had color and superior games and my PC was of course a PC (286 12mhz) and superior for longer gameplay sessions.

The original gameboy isn't that big. In fact I'm kind of suprised out how small it is actually.(for a handheld machine released in the 80's that is) I think I have it laying around in a box somewhere.......

For my gameplay habits spending money on portables has just been a waste of money. 🙁 I usually end up playing them a little bit when they first came out, digging them out occassionally because I feel guilty and then storing 'em away so I can dig them back up again and marvel at the technology of yesteryear.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
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Reply 2 of 3, by HunterZ

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Yeah GameBoy's are great for traveling or riding the bus, but I don't do much of either these days. I got a lot of use out of my original GB for years starting when I got it in late 1990 or so.

Part of it was also that my parents were weird and never let us upgrade from our Atari 2600 to a NES until we bought an NEC TurboGrafix 16 (aka PC Engine) around 1992 and then traded it with some kid for his NES (which I still have) a year or two later when we realized that there weren't any good games out for the TG16 besides Bonk. Yes, I still have my Atari 2600 too 😀

Also, about flash carts: GB flash carts are extinct now unfortunately. You can still easily find GBA flash carts, but you only have two options for playing GameBoy games on them:
1. Use Goomba, a GB emulator for the GBA. This emulates the GB in software, which means the emulation isn't perfect. It also doesn't play GBC games. It works on all GBA flash carts though.
2. Get the GB Bridge and a Flash2Advance (non-Ultra) cart. This lets you put GB games on the F2A cart and then make the GBA think that it's a GB cart instead of a GBA cart. The advantage is that it runs the games on the real GBC hardware that Nintendo put inside the GBA to let you play your old games. The disadvantage is that the F2A is more expensive than some other flash cart brands, and the GB Bridge is hard to find (I don't have one myself).