top of page
GAME BOY JOURNAL
Welcome to the Game Boy Journal, the field
notes of a lifelong DMG-01 collector.
This is where the little grey box that fit in a
pocket and quietly changed gaming gets the
attention it deserves: the stories behind the hardware, the games that defined it, the strange accessories and the rare variants most people never knew existed.
Expect well-researched articles, surprising facts and the occasional look behind the scenes of the collection itself. Whether you are a serious collector, a curious newcomer or simply nostalgic for that pea-green screen, there is a story here waiting to pull you in. Pick an article and start exploring.
CATEGORIES
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE (or when one article isn't enough)
Game Boy Hardware Explained: Every Component of the DMG-01
The original Game Boy was, on paper, weaker than its rivals, and it crushed them anyway.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
5 min read
The Game Boy Printer: Nintendo's Sticker Machine of 1998
In 1998 Nintendo gave the Game Boy a printer. It used no ink, printed on sticker paper as wide as a thumb, and came in a Pikachu edition that most of the world never saw.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
4 min read
Born on the Game Boy: The Nintendo Characters That Made Their Debut on the DMG
The Game Boy is remembered as a portable home for Mario and Zelda. But it was also a birthplace.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
Game Boy in Disguise: When a Handheld Became a Lifestyle Object
The Game Boy's silhouette escaped the games aisle and ended up on radios, clocks, mugs, building bricks and bubble gum.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
The Collector's Handbook: How to Collect, Grade and Care for the Game Boy
A practical, friendly handbook for anyone who collects the Game Boy: how to grade it, store it, clean it, spot a fake and understand what it is really worth, all gathered into one place.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
Bootlegs and Flashcarts: Preservation, Piracy and the Homebrew Revival
Preservation, piracy and a thriving homebrew scene all meet on the same little grey cartridge.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
The Sound of the Game Boy
Two features, two directions of travel. This is the hub for the whole story of the Game Boy and music: the instrument it became on stage, and the muse it became on the charts.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
The Paper Trail: The Game Boy in Print
The Game Boy did not just live on shelves and in pockets. It left a paper trail: comics, guides, catalogues, fan magazines and books. Here is the map to all of it.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
2 min read
Great Game Stories: Game Boy Tales, from Once Upon a Time to The End
The Game Boy's grey cartridges held real stories. Great Game Stories retells the best of them from the collection like fairy tales, from once upon a time to the end.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
Write Your Own Game Boy Games: A Beginner's Journey in Two Series
You don't need to be a programmer to make a real Game Boy game. Two hands-on series take you from an empty folder to a cartridge-ready game, in plain English.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
Third-Party Game Boy Hardware, Part 1: The Big Names
Nintendo built the console; others built the rest. Part one on the third-party makers: Nuby, Joyplus, ASCII, Naki, Beeshu, Saitek, Datel and InterAct.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
The Game Boy Around the World: One Console, Eleven Stories
The same grey box lived a different life on every continent. Our series traces the Game Boy from Tokyo to Lagos to Switzerland, market by market.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
3 min read
The Game Boy's Hidden Powers
The Game Boy's cartridge slot was never just for games. It was a secret expansion port, and this hub gathers the nine-part series on every hidden power that little slot unlocked.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
4 min read
Pick Up and Play: The Game Boy Games Made for a Spare Minute
Not every game wants your whole evening. Some are built for the bus, the queue, the five minutes before dinner.
Dr. Marcel Pflug
2 min read
Search
Grey, Black or Clear: Which Game Boy Cartridges Work on the DMG-01
Not every Game Boy cartridge runs on the 1989 DMG-01. Learn how the colour and shape of the shell tells you which games the original grey brick can play.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 6: Connectivity and the Link Port
The little Game Link port that turned the Game Boy from a solitary toy into a social one: how two handhelds became one shared world, from Tetris to Pokemon.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 5: Power
The Game Boy won on battery life: how four AA cells and a clever circuit kept it running for hours while sharper, backlit rivals died in a couple of hours.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 4: Sound
Inside the Game Boy's sound: the four tiny channels behind that famous start-up chime, how they reach the speaker, and why its music sounds the way it does.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 3: The Screen
The olive-green window that named the machine: what the DMG screen's dot-matrix really is, why it smeared, and why it still gave the Game Boy its character.
LATEST ARTICLES
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Game Boy Hardware Explained: Every Component of the DMG-01
The original Game Boy was, on paper, weaker than its rivals, and it crushed them anyway.
Play It Loud: When the Grey Brick Got Colour
For years the Game Boy came in any colour you liked, as long as it was grey. Then Nintendo let it shout.
The Game Boy That Learned to Google: Sebastian Staacks and There Oughta Be
In 2021 a real 1989 Game Boy pulled a Wikipedia article off the live internet. The story of Sebastian Staacks and the hand-built cartridge that made it work.
ALL ARTICLES
GBuddy’s Escape: Machine Learning on an orignal Game Boy (DMG-01)
A Game Boy cartridge on which a small robot learns a maze by trial and error, inside the ROM itself, with no PC, no server and no stored answer.
Great Game Stories, No. 14: The King Who Stole the Feast (Kirby's Dream Land)
A greedy king steals all the food in Dream Land, and a small, hungry hero floats out to get it back. Great Game Stories No.
Everything Still Switched On: The Centre for Computing History
Not dead machines behind glass: the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge keeps its old computers and consoles plugged in, warmed up and ready to use.
The Netherlands' Home for Games: The Nationaal Videogame Museum
Inside the Nationaal Videogame Museum in Zoetermeer, the Dutch national museum where the whole story of games is told and the exhibits are there to be played.
Grey, Black or Clear: Which Game Boy Cartridges Work on the DMG-01
Not every Game Boy cartridge runs on the 1989 DMG-01. Learn how the colour and shape of the shell tells you which games the original grey brick can play.
The Game Boy's Hidden Powers, Part 10: Keeping Time
A Game Boy has no clock, yet a small family of cartridges could keep the time, run a day and night, even sound an alarm. The timekeeping hidden in the slot.
The Tamagotchi Cartridges: Three Pet Sims, and One of the Rarest Boards in Game Boy History
Bandai brought the Tamagotchi craze to the Game Boy as three Japan-only pet sims. One of them hides one of the rarest boards in Game Boy history.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 6: Connectivity and the Link Port
The little Game Link port that turned the Game Boy from a solitary toy into a social one: how two handhelds became one shared world, from Tetris to Pokemon.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 5: Power
The Game Boy won on battery life: how four AA cells and a clever circuit kept it running for hours while sharper, backlit rivals died in a couple of hours.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 4: Sound
Inside the Game Boy's sound: the four tiny channels behind that famous start-up chime, how they reach the speaker, and why its music sounds the way it does.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 3: The Screen
The olive-green window that named the machine: what the DMG screen's dot-matrix really is, why it smeared, and why it still gave the Game Boy its character.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 2: The Main Board and the Sharp Processor
Part 2 reaches the heart of the Game Boy: the custom Sharp LR35902 processor, the glob-top chips, 8 KB each of work and video RAM, and the cartridge connector.
Game Boy Hardware Explained, Part 1: The Shell, Buttons and Controls
Part 1 stays on the Game Boy's outside: the ABS shell and screws, the D-pad and rubber buttons, the switches and shields, and why it's so easy to repair.
A Nation's Games, Kept in Tampere: The Finnish Museum of Games
How a crowdfunded idea became the Finnish Museum of Games in Tampere, telling the story of how a small northern country grew into a giant of play.
Game Boy Hardware Explained: Every Component of the DMG-01
The original Game Boy was, on paper, weaker than its rivals, and it crushed them anyway.
bottom of page