Canceled Released 28 Years Ago, Here Is The WorkBoy That Can Turn Game Boys into PDAs

GAMEFINITY.ID, Jakarta – The missing and unreleased Game Boy add-on, WorkBoy has been found after being missing for 28 years. These accessories bring many functions and make the GameBoy like a PDA, such as address book functions, calculators, appointments, and much more to the Nintendo device.

Quoted from IGN, video game historian Liam Robertson shares his quest to find out what happened to this add-on in the video. Game History Secrets on Youtube channel, DidYouKnowGaming? Not only did he track down the original creator behind WorkBoy to learn the story behind why this add-on ended up never being released, he was also able to get his hands on the world’s only prototype and still work.

As gamers can see in the image below, the WorkBoy is a keyboard that connects to the Game Boy via a Link Cable and allows users to take advantage of 12 apps, including an address/phone book and an appointment book. The WorkBoy is designated as an officially licensed accessory for the Game Boy designed by Source Research and Development and manufactured by Fabtek Inc., a company in close collaboration with Nintendo.

In January 1992, WorkBoy officially became a trademark of Nintendo of America and even appeared at CES 1992. This add-on was profiled by various outlets, but eventually disappeared like the earth swallowed. Robertson tracks down Eddie Gill, the architect of WorkBoy and founder of Source Research and Development, and he discusses how WorkBoy was originally planned to be released in late 1992 or early 1993 for around 79-89 USD. Unfortunately, various problems prevent it from being accessible to the public.

Gill says there are only two WorkBoy prototypes left in the world that he knows of. One may be “deep in the Nintendo vault,” while the other is owned by Frank Ballouz, the founder of Fabtek. Robertson contacted Ballouz and he admitted he did have a WorkBoy prototype. However, Ballouz didn’t have a Game Boy to test it on, so he sent it to Robertson hoping he could get it working.

When Robertson first connected the WorkBoy keyboard to the Game Boy, nothing happened except for a brief alarm beep. It turned out that WorkBoy needed cartridges to be fully functional, although none could be found. As fate would have it, Robertson was able to find a software ROM in one of the Nintendo Gigaleak leaks earlier this year. After burning the ROM to an empty cartridge, Robertson managed to get it working.

Yes, when compared to sophisticated devices in the 2021 era, indeed the function of WorkBoy is now outdated. However, considering that this device was actually released in 1992, the functions it has can be called quite visionary in its time.

No wonder the price of WorkBoy is quite high. Unfortunately, this high price was the main reason why this project was cancelled. The Game Boy at the time retailed for $89.99, and was projected to get a price drop. While the price of WorkBoy itself is worth 79 USD to 89 USD, aka potentially more expensive than the main device.

It was also revealed that a big explosion at a computer chip factory in Japan caused the price of D-RAM to soar. As a result, it is almost impossible to lower the price of WorkBoy.

Although WorkBoy was never actually released, Gill’s original design helped inspire his patented new device for personal communicators, complete with keyboard and touch screen, which Nokia later licensed for the Nokia 9000 series devices in 1996.

Gill himself admitted that he had returned to work with Nintendo to try to develop an updated WorkBoy for the Game Boy Advance. This time WorkBoy has more advanced features such as e-Mail, web browsing, and word processing. However, again the project was never realized.