June 28, 2010 in Gadget Grandad by The Team

Gadget Grandad joins the team

We’re pleased to welcome Gadget Grandad to the team. A veteran of yesteryear technology GG will be coming into the studio on a regular basis to share his thoughts on the technology from these bygone eras. You can catch GG by Tuning into 94.7 Saint FM in the Maldon district and if you have any questions for him, just drop us a line, SMS, text or tweet him on Twitter @GadgetGrandad

June 28, 2010 in Gadget Grandad by Gadget Grandad

Gadget Grandad’s Gameboy

When I were a lad the gadget that every kid wanted was the good ol’ Nintendo Gameboy.

An 8-bit device, I eagerly waited for it to be launched in this country having first launched in Japan in 1989 followed in quick succession in the USA. We ‘ad to wait over a year before it came out ‘ere in September 1990.

The Gameboy sold over 118 million units worldwide with games such as Tetris selling over 30 million units and Pokeman selling over 31 million. I could never get me ‘ed around those pocket monster games.

But the Gameboy wasn’t the only hand-held gaming gadge available at the time. Sega released it’s Game Gear, but it didn’t prove popular because the unit ran on alkaline batteries that would only last a few hours. The same too for the Atari Lynx. Both’ad very limited success.

But it’s the ‘ol Gameboy that went on to influence Nintendo in producing many variants including a before it’s time 3D Virtual boy system, and the Gameboy Advance SP coming out only in 2003, but by then me game playing days were over because of me arthritis.