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Is the Game Boy the Toughest Product Ever Made?
An anonymous reader writes "CNET is running an article about tough technology, which aptly includes the Nintendo Game Boy, a device so tough that mine still works after many years. 'There's no two ways about it: the original Game Boy is one of the hardest gadgets ever conceived. Rumor has it this beige behemoth isn't made of plastic, but from the skulls of fallen Gurkhas. If you ever saw one that was broken, it's because it lost a boxing match with a nuclear bomb — on points.' So do you agree that the Game Boy is the toughest consumer electronics device ever made?"
I still have my pet rock, 30+ years later...
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Back in the stone age when you didn't own your phone, but just leased it from the phone company, those things were darn near indestructible.
Subscribers can see articles in the future? So what? Everyone gets to see them in the future.
http://www.aqualion.com/blog/uploaded_images/football-777893.jpg
I've had this for over 25 years. Still works.
Will it blend?
I dunno. Every single Zippo I've ever owned has been pretty robust. Those Ironman watches popular back in the 80's were fairly hardy, too.
My wife's 2nd gen iPod has seen constant and rugged use since it was bought and it still works great.
While I'm here, I'd like to also give a shoutout to my ancient HP Vectra VE, which until recently was my file/dyndns/hotline server . They don't make PCs like they used to, that's for sure.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I remember my brother dropped his Gameboy in a lake accidentally when he was younger. It was under water for a week until friends of ours with scuba gear found it.
That damn thing worked after we dried it out for a couple days and popped fresh batteries in it. It was missing a couple lines on the display, but it worked.
Granted, it was fresh water, but still.
My gameboy was next to useless after a year or so of use. There were many verical columns on the LCD that stopped displaying. Cleaning the cartridge connection didn't seem to help either. Yeah, you could drop it and it would still function, but that display would give out eventually.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
I've always been amazed by the controller that came with the Atari 2600. My friends and I beat the crap out of it for years and not only did it survive, it barely showed any wear.
I remember reading a blurb in an issue of Nintendo Power (I want to say sometime in the early 90's) that featured a picture of a Game Boy that had supposedly been in a house fire. They were able to fit the Tetris cartridge back into the slot, turn the game on, and actually play it (albeit, with some loss in the pixels) even though the shell of the system was almost completely charred.
I think that's pretty hardcore.
Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.
...but I do think a "blackbox" comes instantly to mind.
I went through three original Game Boys back in the day because the LCD screens kept on losing vertical lines. These were generally near the edges of the screen, but one got so bad that nearly half the screen didn't work. I'm sure they probably still power up just fine, but if you can't see what's on the screen it doesn't really matter.
This guy's the limit!
A bit lightly toasted. The page has a link to a YouTube video on it as well.
Engadget report here: http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/02/iphone-takes-on-semi-lives-to-tell-the-tale/
One iPhone, gets left out... and flattened by a Semi tractor trailer. Took a lickin', kept on tickin'.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
It may not be a nuke, but there's a gameboy in Nintendo's NYC store that survived a barracks bombing (no clue as to which side's barracks it was, though.) It's on display there, still playing Tetris to this day.
here's a pic and a flash video of it:
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/video-fully-functional-gulf-war-gameboy#more-6645
Pretty badass...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
You mean those nuclear or perpetuum-volt ones?
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
Apparently, more weapon than controller it is capable of withstanding high speed impact with stationary objects, LCD/plasma TVs, dry wall, idiots, etc.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The DS screens break (top one specifically) if you fart too close to it. I still haven't broken my DSlite... yet..., but I went through 4 DS's with them in my laptop bag when they were damaged.
I also broke several GB advances, I think it's the flip open design, it stresses the screens somehow.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I got my first gameboy when I was about 8 years old when I was going on a flight by myself to see my mom in FL. That one lasted me probably about 8 months. I remember the first time I broke it, I dropped it down the front steps at my gramma's house. The device stayed intact, but the screen wouldn't display anything except for a couple of horizontal black lines.
I got a new unit a couple months later from my dad which lasted me close to a year before it finally wouldn't turn on one day. We tried replacing the batteries, but nothing would fix it. I remember seeing my dad with it open on his desk doing some kind of surgery to it. He wound up taking the screen out of that one and transplanting it into my first one, thereby fixing it (I had to do a similar thing with my PSP, but that's another story). That gameboy still works to this day, although I made the mistake of putting the majority of my gameboy and gamegear games into the same drawer as this 8" speaker magnet that I had and none of them work anymore.
I've got really bad luck with electronics... Not including the normal upgrade process, only replacements for faulty units, I've had about 6 ipods, more than 10 cell phones, 3 palm pilots, 2 PSPs, 3 xbox360s, 2 Wiis, about 6 Laptops, a dozen monitors (CRT), countless harddrives (well over 20), and several new headphones, keyboards, mice, digital cameras, drive enclosures and powerbricks. Many were replaced under warranty, but still.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
I never owned a Game Boy, but I did own a lot of other things that held up well over the years.
My first camera was a Canon Snappy 35mm. It held its own for many years. By comparison, the non-digital Elph2 I got afterwards made it through a single summer (of near daily travel and use).
The only phones that ever survived abuse were my old Nokias. I dropped them countless times and they always worked.
As much as I dislike a lot of Sony's corporate policies, their consumer products I've bought have been sturdy as hell. My Sports Walkman worked flawlessly for a decade, and the CD-Walkman I got afterwards made it through a summer of constant traveling unscathed.
It is too early to tell, but I think the 2nd-gen iPod shuffles will hold up well. There's not much to them, after all.
Something has to be said for hardware designed in the 80s. I think the new small, sleek, shiny designs lend themselves to not be as reliable over the long run; any cosmetic defects would be more apparent.
My parents have an old IBM XT. Ten years after they got it, I was using it for word processing, programming, and who knows what else. I booted it up a few weeks ago and it was running like I remembered it, over 20 years later. An old wood-paneled Kenmore TV also lasted about twenty years.
What I've heard is that in certain types of consumer electronics (especially ones where form factor, not software is likely to change), the first-generation products usually hold up extremely well. These are things like the $1000 CD players and $500 DVD players. They become cheaper as they reach a mass market due to economies of scale, but the components usually get cheaper too.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
My Son has a GBA, GBA SP and GBA DS. They all still work despite being dropped, crushed in backpacks, and having been loaned to a two year old nephew. Pretty hard to beat that sort of treatment.
With the exception of the absolutely completely f9(^*(%'n useless screen on the GBA, I've been very impressed with Nintendo game machines.
Seriously, what idiot released the original GBA?
Brad
I was playing a frustrating game on my original Game Boy back in the day, got frustrated and hit it against my head--I broke the internal screen, and it couldn't display games correctly anymore. So it's not that tough...
I would have to nominate my flash drive. I left it in my pants one time, and it survived a trip through the washer and dryer. I should really have hand-washed it, though: it shrank from 1 gb to 512 mb.
Man, I wish 360's were that durable. Mine just about red rings every time I use my microwave, and dammit, i love my ramen noodles!
why? forty-two.
My brother's forehead Christmas Day 1990 1
Gameboy 0
You report, Slashdot decides
Prevueing you're poast ownly hellps iff ewe no how two spel inn teh furst plase
You just can't argue with a keyboard that has a 2mm steel plate.
Remember the Gamecube car test we posted a few years ago?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEvlWQ5ULCg
Same with original Nintendo DS, when closed mode it will withstand most drops.
I nominate the IBM Model M keyboard and its brethren as being among the most bulletproof gadgets ever made. They weigh 5 pounds, mostly because the keys are mounted on a solid steel plate. And not only are they indestructible, but they're delightful to type on.
That's odd. Me, and almost everyone I know, had exactly the opposite experience. The joysticks that came with the Atari for were notorious for being easy to break. The problem was the plastic 'spring' that they used inside was prone to snapping. And, unfortunately the plastic was too oily for glue to fix. Many of the third party controllers of the day were extremely durable though. The Wico bat stick, and the slick stick come to mind. The slick stick actually used auto parts in it's construction. The handle was a tire valve. The paddles were even worse. Luckily, the paddles were just a generic off the shelf potentiometer, so they were (and still are) super easy to repair.
I don't know about everyone else but my Ti-83 still works after 10 years of abuse. Those are some hard calculators to break.
Has anyone mentioned these yet?
I heard one of the 9/11 rescue workers found one in the rubble, and it was still working.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
What's the last Microsoft project that Bill Gates spent considerable time writing code for before his managerial duties took away his time for coding?
:)
The portable, handheld battery-operated TRS-80.
Solid as a rock. There are tales of people skipping them across concrete and they still work.
And as far as the code? Bill must have done something right, because as of a few years ago (I last heard this in 2005 or 2004) there are still some of these beasts in use. Not much computing power, but they have an RS-232 port. The O/S is flexible enough that there are corporations using the device still. Apparently, the thing is so tough that there are off-shore oil platforms running some ancient equipment that dumps data through an RS-232 port, and the crews that have to service them use the portable TRS-80's to grab the data and take it back to their offices where they upload it to their PC's. More modern equipment apparently chokes after constant exposure to salt air, constant shock, and, well, oil workers. They're tough guys, you know.
And anyone with the common sense to wash their hands after eating Cheetos never had this issue...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
While someone has mentioned the zippo, where's the love for maglites? I've literally seen someone turn one on WHILE it was on fire. That's hardxcore.
That just proves that, no matter how tough the Gameboy may be, your head is harder!
;) .
(Come to think of it, We shouldn't be surprised at the density of your noggin, being that you chose to use your head as a hammer as opposed to the wall or some other, non-organic instrument of destruction
Still, made for a funny anecdote...
The original Blackberries, the Mobitex 850s, were bricks. Back at RIM we used to drop-kick them across the office for testing.
It's not a real keyboard if you can't beat a man to death with it.
Um, hypothetically, I mean.
Thanks to a cheaply designed holster, my Blackberry 7510 underwent daily "is local gravity still in effect?" testing, sometimes many times a day.
No problems with it, the casing is scratched up badly, but it still works.
My replacement 7520 undergoes a similar test every couple weeks, and holds up just fine.
They knew that kids would be using them and if our experience was going to be anything like the NES there was going to be some serious controller slamming. Only this time the controller is also the console. I have to say that my DS Fat is still kicking after having it for several years and using it a lot. Now that it has the R4 in it I use it more.
Can I bum a sig?
I don't know about Technology (although the Wii remote would be pretty high up on that list... or generally anything designed by Nintendo... which I swear must have a contract with the makers of LEGO), but the strongest thing I've ever known is Snap-On tools.
:P.
I swear... that company must be sacrificing souls to some demon in order to make them that damn-near-physics-defyingly strong
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
Contrary to popular belief, game cartridges are not 8-track tapes (or core memory); there is nothing in them that is stored magnetically or that could be damaged by a magnet. More likely, the connectors have oxidized.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I'd vote for this as one of the toughest ever made. One time I got home late at night and somehow left the phone on the roof of the car. Overnight, it snowed about five inches. I didn't feel like shoveling the driveway, so I just got in, gunned the engine and after a few back-and-forth runs, made it out onto the road. Got to work, couldn't find the phone. Finally, after I got home again, I took my cordless house phone outside and dialed the Nokia. Underneath the packed snow, under the car, there was a green glow and a faint ring. I dug the Nokia out, wiped it off, and it still worked. Sure, the stubby antenna had broken (easily replaced) but the screen wasn't cracked and it could still make calls. I still have that phone in a drawer somewhere and in the battery on the back there are still deep grooves from the grit on the tires rubbing through the plastic.
What really got me was that I figured I had driven over the thing about eight times.
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Rotate the pod, please, HAL....
For modern kit, I'd put some money on The TDS Recon http://www.tdsway.com/products/recon. I have seen one thrown off a building and they keep one in a fish tank in their lobby http://www.tdsway.com/products/nomad/fish_tank2
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I've broken Gameboys...but the OLPC looks tough.
No sig today...
+1 to that. My StarTac was absolutely bombproof - rode around in my backpack for four years of undergrad, got dropped into a toilet, fell down three flights of stairs, exposed to all kinds of chemical hazards (other student spilled H2SO4 on my backpack in chem lab), magnetic insults (rather memorable trip through an MRI) and temperature extremes (left in cars ranging from -10 to +105 F). It survived all of that in perfect working order, with just a few etches and scratches on the case to show for its adventures. Even better, I only had one broken antenna (phone was in a belt clip, antenna got ripped off by over-enthusiastic attempt at seat-belt buckling).
I've also not been able to kill my old PalmPilot Professional in twelve years of trying. That device got beat on even worse in its career, as it was my electronic notebook all through high school. (My handwriting was and still is spectacularly illegible, so I had to type my notes if I wanted anything I could actually study from at exam time. The Pilot with a peripheral keyboard was my salvation.) Over the years, I've been through a Palm Vx, two m505s, a Sony Clie something-or-other, and a Treo 650, all of which died within two years or less of purchase. Meanwhile, I pulled the old PP Pro out of the desk drawer a few weeks ago, popped in a fresh pair of AAA's and it was ready to go. Syncing is IR-only these days, as none of my home systems have a serial port for the old-style cradle, but it still runs like a champ.
First rule of trauma: Bleeding always stops.
I have an original Fisher Price Garage. The thing was bought in the mid 70s for my older brother and it was handed down to me. It's now over 30 years old. It's been played with by countless numbers of children over the years and apart from being very scuffed up is in working order. My own kids love it. I suspect my own grandkids will be playing with it many years from now.
That, or my vote would be for anything Tonka made in the 70s. Still have several examples of those as well.
The problem with gameboy's was LCD rot (if you're talking about the original), I imagine others will have this problem as well as time goes on and pixels go dead (unless they've fixed this) but it takes a while to happen.
I still own one. My original Gameboy had the LCD screen get lines in it, and stops working unless you jiggle the AA batteries just so and then power comes back on.
The Atari Lynx uses more batteries and eats more power than a Gameboy, but it is more durable plus it came with a color LCD. It also weighs more, and has the graphics and sounds of an Amiga 1000 in a hand-held case. Plus the carts for the Lynx are wafer thin and don't need to be cleaned as often as the Gameboy carts.
Also I have a few Game.com units by Tiger, the original touch screen handheld, they last forever as well. Except when I lose the stylus pen, but a finger or retractable ink pen works just as well as a stylus. As a bonus the Game.com has built in PDA like software.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
The original Game Boy has problems with the battery compartment. The battery connectors (springs) wear and it doesn't hold the batteries in securely to the point where you have to be careful you don't move it while playing and even more careful when you put it down that it does not loose power. I had my first Game Boy replaced under warranty because of this. The same problem happened to the replacement after the warranty expired. Nintendo have since addressed this and have been using better battery connectors in their more recent products (GBA, Wii remote).
I had another problem my second GB. I'm not sure how common this is but after many years of use, on the left-hand side of the screen a whole vertical bar of pixels disappeared. This later increased to a bar three pixels wide.
From my experience, every Nintendo product made after the GB has been far more reliable.
Toughest bit of electronica I ever had was my old Ironman wristwatch. After 12 or so years of constant use, I had to replace it only because the buttons had worn down and couldn't make a connection anymore.
The crowning compliment ever given this model was from a guy I knew who jousted on the ren faire circuit. He wore his under his gauntlet every day for well over 6 years: mud, horsecrap, and beatings from the other jousters never fazed the thing.