The original Nintendo Game Boy was among the most popular electronic devices for several years, in the late 80s and early 90s, so, of course, there were many accessories. Not all Game Boy accessories received explicit approval from Nintendo, but the Work Boy did. This tiny mobile keyboard appeared briefly in game magazines after debuting at CES 1992. The device was never released, disappearing into obscurity as quickly as it appeared. Game history YouTuber Liam Robertson got his hands on a Work Boy – possibly the last in the world, and it’s working thanks to Nintendo’s massive data leak a few months ago.
The Work Boy was a project by Source Research and Development and produced by Fabtek Inc under direct supervision by Nintendo. It consisted of a full QWERTY keyboard and a software package to accompany it. If the Work Boy had been launched, it would have transformed the gaming notebook into a rudimentary PDA with features like currency conversion, a calendar, a clock and a calendar. As soon as the device and its software were almost ready, Nintendo announced its intention to lower the Game Boy price. Fabtek, fearing that people would not buy an accessory more expensive than the Game Boy itself, discarded the project.
That could have been the end of it if it weren’t for a series of articles in game magazines. Liam Robertson began investigating the Work Boy story 28 years after his debut. Since Fabtek decided to take the project, you can’t just go out and buy a Work Boy. Fortunately, Fabtek’s founder, Frank Ballouz, still had a prototype in his possession, possibly the last existing Work Boy in the world.
Robertson was dismayed to learn that the Work Boy, which connected to the Game Boy via an integrated link cable, did nothing when connected. It turns out that there was a cartridge component that ran most of the Work Boy software. Without a copy of that, the accessory was dead forever. Incidentally, a huge Nintendo IP leak known as Gigaleak happened a few weeks after Robertson got his hands on the Work Boy, and hidden among the many gigabytes in Nintendo’s history was the Work Boy’s almost final software.
Robertson recorded the Work Boy software (v8.87) on a reusable cart and connected the device – and it worked. You can see the Work Boy doing his job in the video above. While functionality is insufficient by today’s standards, it would have been incredible in the early 1990s. Owners could have maintained databases and tracked other data with a (marginally) portable device. It even supported dialing phone numbers by reproducing dial tones on the receiver.
You can understand why the Work Boy won the ax – it was bulky, expensive and the keyboard itself looked difficult to use. It would be years before another portable device achieved this type of functionality. But it would have been fun to see the Work Boy hit the market.
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