Game Boy

This is a Loopz developer cartridge, a working Game Boy prototype rather than a retail copy. Instead of a factory mask ROM, it carries a socketed ceramic EPROM on a 256-kilobit development board, its quartz window covered by a strip of masking tape hand-labelled "LOOPZ 10/30", almost certainly a build date or version jotted down by whoever burned this copy.

Loopz is a tile-fitting puzzle game designed by Ian Upton, first seen on the Atari ST in 1989. The 1990 Game Boy version was programmed by Argonaut Software and published by Mindscape for rights-holder Audiogenic. This board came from the collection of the late Steve McKay, a Nintendo of America distributor, and was later verified and dumped by preservationist Frank Cifaldi, giving it a documented chain of custody from an attic find to a public preservation event.

The full story of this prototype is told in the museum journal: The Loopz Developer Cartridge.