Liam Robertson, video game historian shared your quest to find out what happened to this add-on in a new Game History Secrets video on DidYouKnowGaming? and, not only did he track down the original creators behind the WorkBoy to learn the story behind why it was never released, he was able to make one of the only prototypes in the world work.
As you can see in the image below, the WorkBoy was a keyboard that connected to the Game Boy via Link Cable and allowed you to take advantage of 12 applications, including a phonebook / phonebook and appointment book.
Image credit: Liam Robertson – DidYouKnowGaming? – Secrets of game history
The WorkBoy was created to be an officially licensed accessory for the Game Boy, designed by Source Research and Development and produced by Fabtek Inc. in close collaboration with Nintendo.
In January 1992, the WorkBoy was officially registered by Nintendo of America and even made an appearance at CES 1992. It was profiled by several stores, but after a brief increase in coverage, it more or less disappeared.
Robertson was able to locate Eddie Gill, the WorkBoy architect and founder of Source Research and Development, and he discussed how the WorkBoy was originally planned to be launched in late 1992 or early 1993 for about $ 79- $ 89 USD, but several issue prevented it from reaching the public.
Gill said there were only two WorkBoy prototypes left in the world that he knew of, and he said that one was probably “in the depths of Nintendo”, while the other was in the hands of Frank Ballouz, the founder of Fabtek.
Robertson contacted Ballouz and he actually had a WorkBoy prototype. Ballouz, however, did not have a Game Boy to test it, so he sent it to Robertson in the hope of making it work.
When Robertson first connected the WorkBoy keyboard to a GameBoy, nothing happened but a short alarm beep. It turns out that the WorkBoy needed a cartridge to function fully, although none were found.
As fate wanted it, Robertson was able to find a software ROM in one of the major recent leaks that followed the Nintendo Gigaleak earlier this year. After writing the ROM to an empty cartridge, Robertson made it work.
Seeing the WorkBoy in action is a glimpse of what could have happened. It is also very interesting to see this in action in 2020, where many of the WorkBoy’s functions are common. In 1992, this was ahead of its time.Because of this, it needed to have a very high price. That high price was one of the main reasons for the project’s cancellation, as the $ 89.99 USD Game Boy was scheduled to drop in price, meaning the WorkBoy probably would have been more than the system itself in $ 79- $ 89 USD.
In addition, a huge explosion at a factory in Japan that was producing computer chips caused the price of D-RAM to skyrocket, making it almost impossible to lower the price of the WorkBoy if it had been launched.
Even though the WorkBoy never saw the light of day, Gill’s original design helped to inspire a new device he patented for a personal communicator, complete with keyboard and touchscreen, which would later be licensed by Nokia for his series Nokia 9000 devices in 1996.
Gill would then return to work with Nintendo to try to develop a revamped WorkBoy for the Game Boy Advance that would allow for email, web browsing and word processing. As with the original, however, he never reached the finish line.
To learn more about Nintendo’s history, be sure to check out our look The lie that helped build Nintendo and (almost) all Nintendo accessories of all time.
Do you have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Send an email to [email protected].
Adam Bankhurst is an IGN news writer. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.