Before shared family computers and borrowed TV time, the Game Boy Color fit in a jacket pocket and answered to one kid. Eighty bucks at launch. Atomic Purple shell you could see straight through. Pokémon Gold loaded in the top slot.

It didn't do much, technically speaking — 2.32-inch screen, 160×144 pixels, an eight-bit CPU running on two AA batteries. But it went everywhere: car backseats, waiting rooms, under the blanket after lights-out. The screen had no backlight. You angled it toward every available lamp like a sundial.

Nintendo sold it from 1998 to 2003. The translucent shells — Teal, Purple, Yellow, Berry, Dandelion — let kids peek at the circuit board inside. A small design detail that felt enormous in 1998. It also played every original Game Boy cartridge, so your worn-out copy of Tetris still worked.

About 49 million Game Boy Color and late-era original Game Boy units moved over that product life. It wasn't the most powerful device on the market. It was just the one nobody else was allowed to touch.

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