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I recently blew the dust off my GameBoy and Tetris game, put some fresh AA batteries in, and it happily booted up and played like a champ even after decades. I
by gleenn 3y ago
I recently blew the dust off my GameBoy and Tetris game, put some fresh AA batteries in, and it happily booted up and played like a champ even after decades. I wish any hardware or software written today would preserve so well, everything requires internet connections and the hardware hardly lasts this long.
- yard2010 3y agoAgreed. But keep in mind that is not perfect either, some games that use a clock feature depend on a small battery in the cartridge which is depleted after a decade or so
- Kwpolska 3y agoSame goes for saving games on the old systems — that's using a RAM chip kept alive by a battery inside the cartridge.
- Uvix 3y agoDepends on how old. NES and Game Boy were all batteries, but by the N64 and Game Boy Advance they had started to use Flash memory or EEPROMs in many games instead.
- NamTaf 3y agoI broke out my OG beige brick Gameboy and pokemon red about 5 years ago. I swapped out the dissolved acidic powder, cleaned off the terminals and threw in some fresh batteries before hitting the switch. For a moment, I was deeply disappointed that nothing displayed. Then I remembered that they came with a brightness rotary dial. Swung that around and it was as good as the day I got it. The cartridge even held my childhood save. What an incredible device.
- iforgotpassword 3y agoHuh, shouldn't the save have vanished without power from the battery? My Pokémon gold save was already gone in 2018ish when I stumbled upon the cartridge plus gba, but then again that game contains an rtc, so higher power draw I guess. Edit: got it, you helpfully left some batteries in the Gameboy for future you; you're not talking about opening the cartridge..
- Danieru 3y agoPokemon Red had no real time clock. That was the fatal weakness of gold and silver.
- jdiff 3y agoReal time clock doesn't matter, I thought all Gameboy games had battery-backed saves. I can find forum posts of people talking about replacing batteries in their Red cartridges, troubleshooting why the game still won't save after replacing them, across iFixit, Reddit, GameFAQs. I'm pretty sure that G/S/C only took additional advantage of the existing battery, and didn't introduce an additional battery.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lightedman 3y agoThe RTC constantly ate power way more than the battery-backed RAM, that absolutely matters.
- jdiff 3y agoIt makes a difference, absolutely, but the battery still exists and it's surprising for it to live for so long.
- philistine 3y agoYou're right that the save is going to vanish from the batteries, but tests and anecdata have shown that cartridge batteries on Game Boy can easily last more than three decades. Pokémon Silver, Gold, and Crystal have a clock inside the cartridge, limiting their survivability to around a decade.
- Dolototo 3y agoMy selfwritten game with Microsoft xna still runs. And I made that 18 years ago. I had to change my intel q6600 only after upgrading my camera as Lightroom grinded to a hold with the bigger raw files. Besides the Mainboard / capacity apocalypse ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague?wprov=sfla1 ) I'm genuin happy with how well older things still work.
- crtasm 3y agoWe got out our Nintendo DS consoles and played some download play games recently (no internet required, one sends the game program directly to the other). Great fun! The battery is less easily replacable though.
- andrepd 3y agoThere's software in my phone I installed two months ago and which doesn't work anymore. It's not even anything that needs an online connection for its features, too.