In the early 1990s, Nintendo explored the Game Boy’s massive success and thought, What if you could work on this thing too? Enter the WorkBoy, an accessory that turned Nintendo’s handheld system into some sort of early PDA. But despite much evidence of the WorkBoy’s existence, it disappeared before it ever got into the hands of productivity-minded gamers. Now a prototype has been excavated that represents us a glimpse of all the address books that could have been there.
During the weekend, Liam Robertson, a video game historian, posted one video talks about his dive into the history of the WorkBoy and his search for the lost prototype. He found that despite persistent rumors in the vintage gaming community that the WorkBoy was being sold in limited quantities, it never hit the market.
The WorkBoy’s first trademark in January 1992, the WorkBoy’s compact keyboard bezel, plugged into a standard green-shielded Game Boy. Users had access to 12 apps, including a diary, currency converter and calendar.
According to Robertson, a prototype was on display at the CES electronics showcase in May 1992. After the show, the device received some press coverage with GameZone writing: “Nintendo’s success was visible through its showing at CES – the had pretty much a whole hanger to himself, filled with his own products and those of developers. But there was little offering that was radically different – little that is, except the WorkBoy. “The Chicago Tribune was less pleasant, calling the quirky accessory” ridiculous. ”
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During his research, Robertson came into contact with 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 preventing the WorkBoy from entering the market and said it was intended to sell anywhere from $ 79 to $ 89. Gill had no unit in his possession, but he pointed Robertson to Frank Ballouz, founder of the device’s producer, Fabtek, and owner of what is believed to be the only WorkBoy not locked up in Nintendo’s vault.
When Robertson finally got his hands on the device, it didn’t work because it needed the corresponding cartridge to access the software. As luck would have it, there was a huge deluge of obscure Nintendo files this summer that the Gigaleak, and Robertson was miraculously able to find the WorkBoy software in the leak.
While the productivity peripherals were impressive for the time, the limited memory and no internet connection means their usefulness is quite limited. I have to say I love the phone book designed to allow a user to hold the Game Boy’s speaker against a landline phone receiver to automatically dial the intended number.
Robertson has been on this WorkBoy quest since 2019, and he has done a spectacular job of recovering the story of this lost device. Watch the full video below.