The Game Boy turns 30 years old! #GameBoy #Nintendo #Gaming #History #VintageComputing #ゲームボーイ @NintendoAmerica
Yesterday, April 21st, was the 30th birthday of the Nintendo Game Boy handheld gaming system in Japan (released July 31 in North America and September 28, 1990 in Europe).
Nintendo’s second handheld game console, the Game Boy combines features from both the NES home system and Game & Watch hardware. The console features a green dot-matrix screen with adjustable contrast dial, five control buttons (a directional pad, two game buttons, and start and select), a 2-voice speaker with adjustable volume dial, and uses cartridges as physical media for games. The color scheme is two tone grey with accents of black, blue, and maroon. All the corners are softly rounded, save for the bottom right, which is curved. At launch, it was sold either as a standalone unit, or bundled with the one of several games: Super Mario Land or Tetris among them. Several accessories were also developed, including a carrying pouch and printer.
The Game Boy received praise for its battery life and durability in its construction. It quickly outsold the competition, selling one million units in the United States within a few weeks. The Game Boy and its successor, the Game Boy Color, have sold an estimated 118 million units worldwide. It is one of the most recognizable devices from the 1980s, becoming a cultural icon in the years following its release.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: 100 CircuitPython Community Libraries, a New Arduino UNO and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
