Nintendo Game Boy, model DMG-01, manufactured by Nintendo Company Limited, 1989. Nintendo Game Boy, DMG-01, made by Nintendo in 1989. The successor to Nintendo's Game & Watch series, the Game Boy sold over 150 million units worldwide. Its success was due in part to the huge popularity of the game it was sold with, 'Tetris'. Vintage 1989 Nintendo Original Game Boy DMG-01 Handheld Game System.

17 Jun 2020 | 20 minutes to read

The original Gameboy was an 8-bit handheld console created by Nintendo.It was technically their second handheld console, the first being the Game & Watch series.The same team that developed the Game & Watch games also worked on development of the Gameboy, which went on sale on April 21, 1989 in Japan and July 31 in North America.It was originally sold for only $89.95, about $185.99 in 2020 dollars.It was Nintendo’s primary handheld console until the release of the Gameboy Color in 1998.

Before the Color, the Gameboy Pocket and Gameboy Light were released but they weren’t hugely different than the DMG, more like minor revisions than a new handheld.Despite the color being release, the Gameboy DMG (Dot Matrix Game) continued to be sold until 2003, after the release of the Gameboy Advance.

The DMG had a total of 6 launch titles, though some were only released in specific regions:

Title	JP	NA	EU
Alleyway	✅	✅	✅
Baseball	✅	✅	✅
Super Mario Land	✅	✅	✅
Tennis	❌	✅	❌
Tetris	❌	✅	✅
Yakuman	✅	❌	❌

By the end of it’s life, around 1,056 different games made for the system.The last game released in Japan was Shikakei Atama o Kore Kusuru: Kanji no Tatsujin on March 30, 2001.The last game released for both North America and Europe was Pokemon Yellow on October 19, 1999 and June 16, 2000 respectively.

Now let’s talk about this one specifically.

Case

Compared to the plastic on the inside, it’s a little yellowed but that’s to be expected with how old it is.I hope to eventually get my hands on some retro-bright and restore it back to it’s original grey.I am especially happy with this Gameboy because it still has both the battery cover and the communication port cover.

Front

The screen takes up the largest part of the front, consisting of the screen itself and a plastic cover on top.Along the top of the plastic cover is the text DOT MATRIX WITH STEREO SOUND.Just below the screen the Gameboy proclaims it’s name to the world, with the text Nintendo GAME BOY TM.Just to the left of the screen is a small red LED that shows when power is on.It is simply labelled as BATTERY.It’s useful for figuring out if you need to fix the contrast of the screen, get new batteries or have a deeper issue as in my case…

Below that is the buttons and speaker grill.On the left is the D-Pad molded from black, which has a more mushy feel than later Gameboy handhelds.It has a divot in the center and two slightly raised sections in each direction, which you can see if you look closely.There are also small arrows in each direction molded on the case.

On the right is the A and B buttons, with the labeling on the case instead of being molded into the buttons like in later Gameboys.These buttons are also molded from hard plastic, though in a dark red or maroon like color.

The start and select buttons are both molded from a silicon-like material, and are even mushier than the D-Pad.One thing to notice is that they are angled, not parallel with the bottom of the case.To me, it makes it feel more slick and futuristic.The labels for the buttons are printed on the case, in the same direction as the A and B buttons, thought at a smaller font size.

Finally, the speaker grill is in the bottom right, outputting mono sound.It has 6 “slots” for sound to come out of, but only 5 of them have holes cut through the case.

Back

Gameboy Model Dmg-01

Serial #: G06184423

Back text

The back of the case is much simpler than the front, but you’ll definitely spend more time staring at the front than the back anyway so it doesn’t matter too much.Cartridges are loaded from the top, with the label facing out.When switched on, the cartridge is held in place by a small tab on the on/off switch.

Below that slot is the “battery bay”, which holds 4 AA batteries.A cover goes over the batteries, holding them in place.It is held by a little clip at the top and two legs at the bottom of the plastic.

To open up the case, there’s 4 screws on the outside and 2 inside the battery bay that need to be removed.

Edges

On the top of the case is the On/Off switch.To turn the console on, you move it toward the middle.When you turn it on, the button has a bit of plastic sticking out that holds the cartridge in the slot.This stops you from removing a cartridge while it is on.This “feature” was later removed from later Gameboys, I think when designing the original Gameboy they were worried that people would pull the cartridge out at the wrong time and corrupt the save data for whatever they were playing.

Text: VOL ◢, EXT. CONNECTOR

On the right side, there is the communication port and volume knob.The communication port is a 6-pin plug that allows one to connect to other Gameboys over a serial interface.It had a variety of different modes, including a “Normal” mode for 1 to 1 connections, a “Multi-Play” mode for 1 to 1-4 connections where each had the same game, and a “Multi-Boot” mode.I most often used it for trading Pokemon, and not much else.

Text: CONTRAST, USE ONLY DMG-03.-05, ⭪ DC 6V

The left side has the contrast knob and a jack to plug in external power.The knob allows you to adjust the contrast of the screen, which is extremely useful as it can take some tuning to get the screen to look right.It is about a third of the thickness of the volume knob.You have to fight against the ambient light around you, and as you play more and the battery drains it’ll start getting fainter.There are mods to install a fancy backlit screen, but that’s a mod for a different day.

The plug is intended to be used with the rechargeable battery pack, which would plug in via a cable.It was able to power the Gameboy on its own, and somewhat fixed the battery issue.

On the bottom of the case is the headphone jack.This allows headphones to be plugged in, letting you enjoy that sweet 8-bit stereo sound.I think it is ironic that the headphone jack was included on the original Gameboy, but not on the Gameboy Advance SP, which was made 14 years later.

The Insides

To open the case, you must remove 6 screws: 4 on back and 2 underneath the batteries.Once those are removed, the case opens up into two sections connected by a ribbon cable, pivoting at the top.The front section contains the I/O inputs, speaker and screen hardware. The back section contains the main logic board, along with a power converter board and headphone jack board connected by wires to the logic board.

Screen and I/O PCB

Most of the heavily lifting is done on the logic board so the front PCB is pretty simple, with lots of blank PCB space.It’s attached to the front case piece with 10 screws, much more than the other PCB.They are spaced carefully around the buttons and screen to try and provide the most support.This PCB needs to withstand the pressure of the player pressing buttons, so the screws makes sure nothing warps or breaks in ways it shouldn’t.

The screen is a Sharp LH5028 160px x 144px monochrome LCD screen, capable of displaying 4 shades (2 bits worth) of green.The datasheet for the original screen can be found here.It rests on the PCB held in place by 3 clips part of the plastic screen housing.The screen contains two ICs that control drawing the X and Y axis.You can see the X axis chip in the image above, labeled 004.The ribbon for the X axis chip is held to the PCB by two small screws and a bar that is soldered across to hold it in place.

The front of the screen is glass, but is protected from d

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