That kid is one heck of an evil overlord.

Discussion topic of the week: In your opinion, what’s the best Zelda clone out there?

Yep, here’s one more Game Boy 20th Anniversary article from yours truly, this time on Ars Technica. It covers six strong reasons why the Game Boy was so successful during its long run. Judging by your RSOTW discussion answers yesterday, many of you already agree with me, so odds are that you might enjoy reading the piece.

But don’t worry, folks. The torrent of Game Boy coverage will soon be over.

“Just pop it in your pocket and pull it out any time.”

Twenty years ago tomorrow, the Game Boy went on sale for the first time in Japan. It retailed for Â¥12,500 (about $94 US at 1989 rates), and Nintendo offered four games at Game Boy’s initial launch: Super Mario Land, Baseball, Alleyway, and Yakuman (a Mahjong game). Four months later, Game Boy reached American shores with a retail price of $89.99 and a powerful pack-in game — Tetris.

Nintendo’s inclusion of Tetris as the US pack-in was a stroke of absolute genius. The handheld version of Alexey Pajitnov’s addictive puzzler made such waves in US that its release will long be remembered not just as a defining moment in video game history, but as a major cultural event for an entire generation.

As we now know, Game Boy’s long and successful run created an immense legacy, far beyond just Tetris. Overall, publishers released 1246 licensed games for the Game Boy in Japan and 952 in the US. To date, Nintendo has sold 118.69 million units of the original Game Boy line (including Game Boy Color) worldwide.

Above, we see an original Toys ‘R’ Us newspaper advertisement announcing the arrival of the Game Boy and its launch games in the United States. (Gotta love that line art.) It really brings back memories of my excitement regarding Nintendo’s first handheld system.

Discussion Topic of the Week:

In your opinion, what factors made the Game Boy so successful?

On the other hand, what mistakes, if any, did Nintendo make with the Game Boy over its twenty year run?

More Game Boy Scans & Coverage:

Game Boy Oddities (Technologizer)
Inside the Game Boy (PC World)
Happy 20th b-day, Game Boy (Ars Technica)

Game Boy Bubble Gum (VC&G)
Irem Game Boy Ad (VC&G)
Hudson Game Boy Ad (VC&G)

If you use this week’s image, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan. Thanks.

Just up is a new slide show I put together for Technologzier that showcases Game Boy oddities. It’s like a freak show for Nintendo’s venerable handheld, which turns twenty next week. Ever seen a Game Boy peripheral that dispenses laughing gas? How about one that demands tributes of child blood? If not, then mosey on over to Technologizer and take a look.

In honor of the Game Boy’s 20th anniversary this month, I recently dissected an original 1989 model of Nintendo’s famous handheld for PC World. Of course, I took pictures of the process.

This is the sixth entry in my “workbench series” of technology tear-downs for PC World. Here are the others: Nintendo Famicom, Apple IIc, Commodore 64, IBM Model M Keyboard, and TRS-80 Model 100.

I hope you enjoy it.

A classic case of fist-cheek syndrome.

Now here’s something you don’t see every day: a print ad for an Atari 7800 game. Moreover, a print ad for an Atari 7800 game in 1990. Moreover, a print ad for an original Atari 7800 game in 1990.

An advertisement like this seems odd because Atari’s marketing budget for the underwhelming 7800 was very modest. My guess is that the release of the Atari Lynx in the year prior injected renewed vigor into Atari’s marketing efforts. The same vigor likely prompted Atari to publish a handful of new 7800 titles around 1990-91, of which Alien Brigade was one. From what I’ve read, modern Atari fans enjoy this rare light gun game, but I’ve never played it.

Discussion topic of the week: Do you think that the Atari 7800 could have better taken on Nintendo if Atari had marketed it better? Also, feel free to share your favorite Atari 7800 games.

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

From my pocket to you.

My mother was born in Texas, and my immediate family usually visited her parents every summer when I was a kid. During one of these visits as a teenager, my grandmother invited me to look through her Time Magazine collection. She led me to the back of the family’s wash house, a detached building on their rural Texas property where she did the laundry. Through a side door, we entered my grandfather’s generally dark and cluttered workshop. In the far corner — beyond the tools, beekeeping equipment, and motorcycle parts — I spotted three or four large cardboard barrels overflowing with old magazines. The mouse-chewn issues spilled over the edges of the containers where they had been piled haphazardly for decades.

I spent the rest of the day thumbing through musty old magazine issues from the 1970s and 80s. While reading a copy of Science Digest from 1983, I ran across the ad for Wizard of Wor and Gorf you see above. I was amazed. In my youthful zest to discover and collect all things vintage, I felt like I had uncovered a lost Egyptian tomb. I’d never before seen a vintage video game print ad — and prior to that, I didn’t know that CBS had published a version of Wizard of Wor (a game I love) for the Atari 2600.

I eagerly tore out the ad page, folded it up, and stuck it in my pocket. Why I didn’t take the whole magazine is unknown to me; I guess I just didn’t want the rest.

Until now, the page you see above has been sitting, still folded, in my collection of vintage print materials. It’s been waiting for a day like this when it can finally end its long journey from my mid-1990s pocket in Texas to you, on the Internet, today.

Afterword

A year or two later, I revisited the Texas magazine pile and found even more material, especially in Time Magazine. There were issues with cover stories on personal computers, video games, and computer viruses. That time, I took the whole issues themselves. Among them, I found a few ads for IBM systems (like this and this). I probably still have more from that collection that I can scan in the future.

Discussion topic of the week: Tell us about your ancient computing or video game discoveries. When have you felt most thrilled at uncovering old video game or computer history?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Your wish is my command.

If my previous posts on the Game Genie are any indication (wow, they’re from 2005 — that’s vintage), then I’m a huge fan of the game-manipulating device — assuming, of course, that my 2005 self wasn’t lying just to throw off the accuracy of a future Retro Scan post.

But heck; I shouldn’t have to read my old blog posts to know that. In the early 1990s, I spent untold numbers of hours developing my own Game Genie codes for games like Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES, and also for Super Mario Land for the Game Boy (I need to make a homebrew gallery about that). I loved the Game Boy Game Genie so much that I took a hacksaw to its extraneous plastic parts so it would fit on the Super Game Boy. It was a weird kind of love, but it worked.

From there, I moved on to the Super NES Game Genie (I don’t recall developing my own codes for that), and I eventually bought a used Game Genie for the Sega Genesis. The only one I never acquired was the Sega Game Gear version. But I didn’t have a Game Gear back then, so that would have just been silly.

Discussion topic of the week: The Game Genie: reality-bending peripheral or wussy crutch for bad players?

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In late 2006, I received a large collection of vintage computer magazines from a friend. For days I sat on my office floor and thumbed through nearly every issue, finding page after page of priceless historical information. One day, while rapidly flipping through a 1983 issue of Popular Computing, I encountered a photo that stopped me dead in my tracks.

There I discovered, among a story on a new computer business, a picture of a black man. It might seem crazy, but after reading through hundreds of issues of dozens of publications spanning four decades, it was the first time I had ever seen a photograph of a black professional in a computer magazine. Frankly, it shocked me — not because a black man was there, but because I had never noticed his absence.

That discovery sent my mind spinning with questions, chiefly among them: Why are there so few African-Americans in the electronics industry? Honestly, I didn’t know any black engineers or scientists to ask. I tried to track down the man in the magazine, but all my leads ended up nowhere. I’d have to put the matter aside and wait for another opportunity to address the issue.

[ Continue reading VC&G Interview: Jerry Lawson, Black Video Game Pioneer » ]

Now we know where those sword-shaped cocktail spears came from.

I seem to recall a 1UP.com feature a few years back that named this colorful airbrush illustration from Double Dungeons (TurboGrafx-16, 1990) as some of the worst cover art of all time. I’d have to disagree. While kinda cheesy by modern standards, I found it captivating when I was a kid. It made me want to play the game, which is probably the goal, right?

Discussion topic of the week: Share your nominations for the best and worst video game cover art of all time.

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.