Theocacao: A Stone Age Nintendo DS

A Stone Age Nintendo DS

I did a double-take when I saw a page dedicated to the Nintendo Game & Watch device. These were single-game portable devices which also happened to be, you know, watches.

So pretty cool, right? Nintendo stuff from any decade is fun. Ah, but wait. When was the last time you saw one of these things? Let's look at, oh, I don't know, the Donkey Kong II model.

(image from here)

Now I have your attention, right? Twenty-five years before the DS came out, Nintendo already had a dual-screen portable device. Nintendo was ahead of its own time. To be fair, a modern microwave likely has more processing power than this thing. But still.

I originally found this at The Best Stuff in the World, and Wikipedia has more. I also realize this may not be news.

A Stone Age Nintendo DS
Posted Nov 30, 2006 — 6 comments below

Gavin — Nov 30, 06 2517

OMG, I had Donkey Kong II when I was a kid. I also had Oil Panic! Awesome.

Ben — Nov 30, 06 2518

There is nothing new under the sun, especially at Nintendo Co. That said, these things were a lot of fun.

apican — Nov 30, 06 2519

Ha! I've still got a working MarioBros-Dual-Screen Game&Watch (1983)... wanted to sell it on eBay, popped in some batteries to see if it was still operational, found out that it was very much so... and decided to keep it. :-)

Scott Stevenson — Nov 30, 06 2521

There is nothing new under the sun, especially at Nintendo Co

If you can find a Game and Watch version of Brain Age, let me know. :)

Joachim Bengtsson — Dec 04, 06 2555

My sister still has exactly that one Game&Watch! :) It was way fun.

Alastair Tse — Dec 04, 06 2557

Brilliant! And I suppose PSP and N-Gage copied
Game Gear :)

At the end of the day, there are only so many ways latches and hinges can be arranged to give you portability. Hurray for copying ideas.

Comments Feed

Comments Temporarily Disabled

I had to temporarily disable comments due to spam. I'll re-enable them soon.