Hey guys, this is Austin.
The Nintendo Game Boy is
probably the most important
handheld console of all time.
But what I want to know is
what happens when you deconstruct it?
Alright, so it is time
as I do a few more claps
for the first episode of Deconstructed.
And what better way to start
than with the original Nintendo Game Boy?
Unlike some of the other things
I may be taking apart soon
this is pretty simple.
Just a single Philips screwdriver.
So the Game Boy used four AA batteries
which seems kinda crazy today
but some of those old consoles
had crazy terrible battery life.
You would get six or eight AAs
that would last you two or three hours.
So we've got six screws here
so we have four that are exposed
and we have two underneath
the battery door.
I've got to say I've actually
never opened a Game Boy.
I've owned Game Boys since I was six?
I mean this console is 25 years old?
No, it's even older than that.
It's 27 years old.
What was your first Game Boy, Ralphy?
Game Boy Color, there you go!
My very first Game Boy I
actually ended up saving money
which is really hard when
you're six years old.
So I ended up having to
save my birthday money.
I saved allowance for a few months
and I finally had enough to
buy myself a Game Boy Color.
But I didn't have myself
enough money to buy
an actual game for it.
So I remember and I still feel
bad about this to this day.
I went to my grandma and I kinda just said
oh it's been so hard to be
able to save so much money
to be able to get this Game Boy
but I just don't have enough for a game.
She handed me 30 dollars and the next day
I went and bought Pokemon Red.
Still feel bad about that
but you know you gotta do what you gotta do.
Alright.
Number five.
And let's see if we can get this.
Uh oh, uh oh. Here we go.
OK, maybe not the moment of truth
because there's still
stuff holding it together
but it's kind of apart.
We've got the display and the speaker.
Alright.
So the Game Boy is apart.
So we've got actually a
fair bit in the front half.
So basically this is where the screen is.
We've got the main buttons.
We've got the contrast switch.
We've also got the speaker
which is pretty big.
Let's see if we can kinda ease this out.
Oh, there's more screws.
Of course there are.
It's crazy how different
electronics are these days.
I mean today this would all
be glued into place.
There would be maybe like a screw or two.
You'd have to remove and
destroy all kinds of stuff.
I mean not destroy.
Depends on if you're me or not.
I don't know.
It's just something kinda
like therapeutic about it.
It's like you spend so
much time with technology
but it's nice to just take a look
and see what actually makes it work.
I've got to say there are
a lot of screws in here.
Every time I think I'm about done
I see like five more screws.
Alright.
The board is free.
Let's see what we've got.
Alright, wow.
That is cool!
So basically the screen is kinda come
it's all built into one board.
We've got all the buttons
which actually come out.
So there's this little silicon piece
where the buttons.
Oh, wow!
It actually feels like a button.
I never actually realized this.
There's no spring.
There's nothing.
Literally the entire
action of what you feel
when you press a Game Boy button
is just the rubber kind
of bouncing a little bit.
So if you look at the
actual circuit board
you can see that all it's doing
is making contact right here.
Can you guys tell I'm
having fun right now?
So there's a little daughterboard here
for the headphone jack.
I could probably detach that
but I think it's probably
easier to just unscrew it.
So one of the things is
with the original Game Boy
one of the big things they touted
was it had stereo sound.
You actually see dot
matrix with stereo sound
which is funny because it actually had
a single speaker.
So if you ever play like some
of the older Game Boy games
some of them would have a option
to turn the stereo sound
which you actually only realize that
when you had headphones plugged in.
And that's the rest of it.
So this is actually the
guts of the Game Boy.
So on this side we can see
where the display connects.
We've also got the daughterboard.
We've got some of the connectors.
And we flip it over.
This is the heart of the Game Boy.
Wow.
So it's 4.194304 megahertz.
I like how they had to be very specific.
We've also got 64 kilobytes of RAM.
It's crazy to think what was on these.
Like I know these Game Boy cartridges
they were so tiny.
Like the amount of data and stuff
that they actually were able to pack
into such a small cartridge is crazy.
And speaking of the cartridge
we actually can see this
is where it plugs in.
So if I drop it in right here.
There we go.
So when you think about it
the board is actually fairly compact.
So we've got quite a bit of stuff.
We've got the link cable port.
We've also got the switch here.
That satisfying (click).
(click)
I always appreciate being
able to open up electronics
and really kinda understand
what's inside of them.
And the Game Boy is.
It's something special.
Like it's simple.
There's not a lot here.
I mean like one small Philips screwdriver
and you're through it in
like ten minutes or so.
But it's a really special thing
to be able to kinda appreciate
all the engineering and all the ingenuity
that went into it especially back
over 20 years ago.
So that's it for this
episode of Deconstructed.
Let me know what you guys think
in the comments below.
And if you guys want
to see me do more stuff
give me your suggestions.
Whether it's new stuff, old stuff,
whatever it is.
Let me know.
And yeah.
I'm gonna go put this back together
and play some Pokemon Red.
See you guys next time.
