So I heard that Gunpei Yokoi got the inspiration for the Game

>>3348418
maybe math games? they have calculators now that have games on them, but then again they are in japan. they probably came up with numbers to multiply or whatnot, and then check the answer on their calculator

I do recall playing some math games/activities with a calculator as a kid. I don't remember what exactly though.
There were some calculators that had games built in using the (numeric) display, but my memory places them in the early/mid 80s. Same era as the Game & Watch.

>>3348418

Yes, there were programmable calculators back then that even took magnetic cards sorta like a game cartridge. They looked like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-59_/_TI-58 So it probably wasn't what you think with the calculator in the pic, but close.

Satoru Iwata also got his start in programming by making games on his calculator. I think they were baseball games. They were very basic games, you wouldn't want on. Think of it as like a text adventure game but with numbers instead of text. So yeah, I imagine it was boring ass shit but that's what they had back then.

texas instrument calculators used in the late 90s in schools were sometimes programmable, i had a friend in class who ended up getting us all tetris, a wolfenstein clone, some nes game clones, etc on our CALCULATORS.

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When I was growing up in the early 80's, there was a new gaming magazine (pic) that had some calculator listings. The mag was more oriented to tabletop stuff (boardgames, cards, etc.) but most issues had some kind of game for programmables like the HP 67 and TI 59.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-97S
https://www.ti59.com/index.html

Yeah those are the really old calculators, long before the graphing ones that became common in the 90's. I'm not familiar with them (never owned one), but it seems like they're programmed in some kind of assembly-like language, with opcodes, registers, and so forth.
Anyway since they were 7-segment LED affairs, the games in that mag typically utilized graph paper to represent & reference in-game positions. After all those calculators had tiny memories, so you had to do some manual bookkeeping, just like if you were playing a boardgame.

Anyway, I never got to play them, but it's worth a look if you can read french.
http://www.abandonware-magazines.org/affiche_mag.php?mag=185

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You made do with what you had in 1975, man.

>>3348418
There were quite a lot where you could program with BASIC. Many programmers of that time coded little games on calculators as students in that time.

Maybe he was typing 80085 over and over. LOL, BOOBS.

Gunpei didn't see someone playing games on his calculator. He saw someone fucking around with a calculator while bored, so just doing random stuff on it.

>>3349374
Thats what I assumed.

>>3349374
No, he stole that story from George J. Klose. He was inspired to make the Game and Watch games by the numerous successful handheld games that had been released in the US in the prior decade.

>>3349458
Either way, Gunpei was a hack, and this was evident when he tried to launch the Virtual Boy and later his Gameboy 2 "Wonderswan."

One trick pony.

>>3349464
this meme again.

>>3349474
He was a hack. He never had a good original idea.

>>3349483
>best selling console of all time

Who are you memers?

>>3349490
Stole it. Microvision did it first. Sales != quality, by the way, kiddo.

>>3349494
The problem is Microvision wasn't quality either.

>>3349494
Quality games makes a quality system, regardless of sales. The Microvision was a breakout machine, hardly a revelation for the industry. Not to mention is has next to nothing in common with the Game Boy. You wouldn't know any of that though; I can tell by your use of the word 'kiddo' that you were born in 1998. The significance of a product is what makes it significant in history. The Game Boy was pretty significant. You can't say so much about the Microvision.

>>3349498
It was better for its time than the Gameboy was for its. The Gameboy was released at the same year as the Lynx and looked pathetic in comparison.

>>3349506
You can't really say it's 'better' if there's nothing to play on it.

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>>3349512
>nothing to play on Lynx
Are you retarded? The Lynx had a great library.

>>3349518
It has a mediocre library at best, and I like the Lynx. It has nothing on the Game Boy at any rate. S.T.U.N. Runner is the jam though.

>>3349529
Gameboy games look and play like crap. Enjoy your two channels of sound, monochrome graphics, and lmao 4mhz cpu.

>>3349539
>Enjoy your two channels of sound, monochrome graphics, and lmao 4mhz cpu.

I will. Thank you.

>>3349542
You won't. That shit may have been acceptable as a child, but any technically minded adult would see how poor the GB was for its time and avoid it.

>>3349539
You know the Game Boy has 4 channels of sound right?
>>3349549
You're not fooling anyone into believing you're not 14.

>>3349559
But only two pulse waves. Stop trying to act like you're over 13, drone.

>>3349549
??
I still enjoy playing gameboy games on occasion. FFL1&2 are good games.

Shit man. I recently got to play Star Trek on a working Digital PDP-8e, an it was fun.

Don't know why you would limit yourself on what you could enjoy.

>>3349567
>drone
>pretending to know how sound works
Keep trying! Maybe in another 10 years you'll be able to hang.

>>3349572
Hang you like a nigger. You're just triggered because you got confused about what sound I was referring to. Moron.

>>3348920
Ooooh neat. I was going to say that the guy on the train was probably just amusing himself with the novelty which is all half modern "mobile games" are.

>>3348418
what
The guy was just bored and tried to type BOOBS with the numbers. Not like he was playing an actual game. He developed the product by observing the context.

>>3349581
>Backpedaling this hard
hahaha, I can't believe you're still pretending you know what you're talking about. I'm not confused about anything, bb.

>>3349506
Maybe strictly in terms of hardware power. But the Lynx was bigger than the fucking OG Gameboy, and had much worse battery life. Like it or not, those things matter in a handheld. Plus it was twice as expensive and didn't have Tetris.

>>3348418
What made Game and Watch so much better than those tiger handheld games?

>>3349846
they came out first retard

>>3348418
It's a cute story and there's probably some truth to it but games were being made using calculator CPUs before the game and watch. Before LCD even became a thing. One of my LED watches had a game. That would have been late 70's
Programmable calculators were around long before the game and watch. In fact handheld computers with dot matrix LCD displays were around before the game and watch. Aside from the limited screen size they were more than capable of running complex games.

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You had calculators like this one back in the 80's.

>>3349567
>But only two pulse waves

lmao

>>3349187
You mean typing 58008 707 and turning the calculator upside down?

>>3349506
Nintendo understood that people would rather a handheld that they could

a) fit in their pocket
b) would last a reasonable amount of time off its batteries.

The Game Gear and Lynx both failed at this because their creators were both convinced that the public were stupid and would be swayed by this.

>>3351086
That's a sexy bit of kit, but

>Pi not being above the P key

>>3349846
better games

>>3348695
if it was multiplayer wolf clone then I'd be super-impressed.

>>3349567
Two pulse waves, a powerful wavetable channel that can even play sampled sounds, and a white noise channel. That's pretty nifty for the time and is arguably better than the NES.

>>3351852
Exactly. I wouldn't bother trying to persuade that guy though, he's a major tool.