In the early 90s, Nintendo examined the massive success of Game Boy and thought: what if we could also work on this issue? Introduce the WorkBoy, an accessory that turned Nintendo’s handheld system into a kind of early PDA. But despite a wealth of evidence of the WorkBoy’s existence, it disappeared before passing into the hands of more productive players. Now, a prototype that gives us has been unearthed a look at all the address books that could have been.
The weekend, Liam Robertson, video game historian, published a video recounting his immersion in the history of the WorkBoy and his search for the lost prototype. He found that despite persistent rumors from the vintage video game community, which claimed that the WorkBoy was sold in limited quantities, it never reached the market.
The WorkBoy’s first compact keyboard peripheral was first recorded in January 1992 on a standard green-screen Game Boy. Users could access 12 applications that included a diary, a currency converter and a calendar.
According to Robertson, a prototype appeared on the CES electronics showcase in May 1992. After the show, the device received some press coverage with GameZone writing: “Nintendo’s success was visible because of its appearance at CES: it had almost a hanger of its own, full of its own products and developers, but there was little radically different offering, little except the WorkBoy. ” idiosyncratic accessories.
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In the course of his research, Robertson contacted Eddie Gill, the founder of Source Research and Development, the company that created the WorkBoy for Nintendo. Gill was able to address some of the issues that prevented WorkBoy from reaching the market and said it was intended to retail for between $ 79 and $ 89. Gill had no unit in his possession, but Robertson pointed to Frank Ballouz, founder of the device manufacturer, Fabtek, and owner of what is believed to be the only WorkBoy that is not locked in Nintendo laps.
When Robertson finally got his hands on the device, it didn’t work because he needed the attached cartridge to access the software. Luckily, there was a huge spill of obscure Nintendo files this summer that was christened Gigaleak, and Robertson miraculously was able to find the WorkBoy software hidden in the leak.
While the productivity peripheral might have been impressive for its time, the limited memory and lack of internet connectivity means that its usefulness is quite limited. I have to say I love the phone book designed to allow a user to grab the Game Boy speaker into the receiver of a landline phone to automatically dial the intended number.
Robertson has been involved in this WorkBoy research since 2019, and has done a spectacular job recovering the history of this lost device. Watch the full video below.