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This is a page from the manual for the Game Boy Color:

Manual page containing §4 ‘Installing batteries’, with the first paragraph stating: ‘Remove the cover on the back of the Game Boy Color and insert two AA batteries as shown below. For best results use two fresh, high quality alkaline batteries. Do not use rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries.’

There is no explanation as to why this is, or how this can be, but it claims that one must not use rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries.

Why is this? I don't know if any other kind of rechargeable batteries existed in 1998 when it was released, but I know that some form of rechargeable batteries existed. Are they really saying that any kind of rechargeable batteries cannot be used in the GBC? Or just specifically nickel-cadmium ones? Either way, why would it matter what kind of battery it is, as long as it has the same "interface" and size?

user3840170
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Bacus
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    It's usually “interface”; different batteries have different voltages, because of the chemistry of the cells; you can only have integer multiples of the voltage that the chemicals produce. (I don't actually know why the Game Boy has this, though.) – wizzwizz4 Jan 08 '22 at 22:59
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    It's probably as simple as what wizz says. Alkaline batteries -- your basic, non-rechargeable AA -- will deliver around 1.5V when fresh. NiCad batteries start at 1.2V and just go down from there. Different devices will handle the lower voltage differently. Some will run just fine; some will continuously warn you the batteries are "low" when they aren't, and some will hardly run for long, or at all. Or, worse, your device "works" but gives weird results! –  Jan 08 '22 at 23:02
  • Did Game Boy have battery level indicator? – fraxinus Jan 09 '22 at 09:01
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    I used rechargeable batteries in my GB and GBC for years without any adverse effects. – Valorum Jan 09 '22 at 09:09
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    As I recall, I always used rechargeable batteries in my original Game Boy, back when it was brand new in 1989. The users guide for that one also advised against rechargeable batteries; I didn't realize until now that NiCad are only 1.2V - (whoops!) - but I never had a problem either, even though I played it constantly. Fun Fact: there were 1048 games for the Game Boy (excluding any cancelled and unlicensed games.) – ashleedawg Jan 09 '22 at 10:01
  • @ashleedawg - I had batteries on charge all the time. It was pretty common for me to exhaust one set, swap them over for a freshly charged batch and then swap them back over again before the end of the day. – Valorum Jan 09 '22 at 10:13
  • The official battery pack for the original gameboy was only 4.8 V even though it took 4 batteries, which is actually 6 V: https://www.digitpress.com/library/manuals/gameboy/rechargeable%20battery%20pack%20-%20ac%20adapter.pdf – Nelson Jan 09 '22 at 12:49
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    @Nelson - A rechargeable battery pack isn't going to be using non-rechargeable alkaline cells, so it's not actually 6V. It's presumably using NiCd cells, thus 4 x 1.2V. This raises the question of why, if 4.8V is ok from this source, why NiCds can't be used internally. – dave Jan 09 '22 at 14:08
  • @another-dave I used that as an example where the devices are most likely built to handle that kind of voltage discrepancies. – Nelson Jan 09 '22 at 15:21
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    Just to note, such a warning was very common on all sorts of devices. I remember a joke/conspiracy being that it was a ploy by Big Battery – eps Jan 09 '22 at 18:23
  • A 1.5v alkaline battery is ~1.62 volts when new and when falls below 1.5 most of its charge is gone. – Erik Eidt Jan 11 '22 at 00:09
  • @fraxinus These early GameBoys had a red power light that would slowly fade as the battery got weaker. I think it was the GameBoy Advance that switched to one that changed from green to red once it hit a certain threshold (not sure what threshold was). – Izkata Jan 11 '22 at 16:07
  • Never had the color model, but I remember having to slowly crank the contrast dial up as the batteries ran low, as the screen would start to fade. Didn't really need an indicator... – James B Jan 12 '22 at 23:30

3 Answers3

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I suspect more "don't disappoint the users" than "harm to the device".

From the Wikipedia AA article, not only is the nominal voltage lower (1.2V vs. 1.5V for both alkaline and cheap zinc-carbon), the "Max. energy at nominal voltage and 50mA drain" is *significantly lower:

  • Alkaline = 3.90 Wh = 52 hours (3.9 Wh/50mA/1.5V = 52)
  • Zinc-carbon = 2.55 Wh = 34 hours
  • NiCd = 1.20 Wh = 20 hours

I don't know the actual power requirements of the Game Boy Color. According to Wikipedia, it used two AA batteries or a 3V/0.6W adapter and up to 10 hours of gameplay on batteries. 3.9Wh x 2 = 7.8Wh/10 hours = 0.78W, which is close to a nominal 0.6W on the adapter. That would translate into 6 hours on Zinc-carbon or 4 hours on NiCd.

The 3V adapter confirms the nominal target voltage of 3V. It really is quite plausible that the Game Boy Color would not work very well even with freshly charged NiCd due to the 2.4V nominal output. But even if it did, it wouldn't last long.

Toby Speight
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manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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    Zinc-carbon batteries spend at least half of their discharge below 1.2V. When a device is made to work off two zinc-carbon (or alkaline, for that matter) cells, it is pretty much made to work acceptably down to ~1.0V, otherwise the user will have to throw half-full batteries. NiCd on the other hand are quite stable at their 1.2 and abruptly fall below 1.0V when empty. – fraxinus Jan 09 '22 at 09:00
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    @fraxinus And that's actually one of the side effect of NiCd in a gameboy; the system just dies without the telltale dimming of the power lights. – Nelson Jan 09 '22 at 12:45
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    And don't forget that NiCad cells improved over the years, the 1000mAh assumed in the answer are about "modern" cells, 500mAh might be more realistic back then. – Ralf Kleberhoff Jan 10 '22 at 11:13
  • My experience at least with nimh batteries is that they last significantly longer in high drain devices than alkaline batteries, regardless of what the battery specifications suggest. – le3th4x0rbot Jan 10 '22 at 18:37
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    @trognanders We're talking here about NiCd, not NiMh. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Jan 10 '22 at 18:45
  • Interesting conjecture, but if this were merely a “don't disappoint the users” issue, the manufacturer could recommend the use of alkaline batteries, as it does in the previous “For best results” sentence. To me, an absolute “Do not” statement in bold text connotes something that could cause serious harm to the device or its user. – dan04 Jan 11 '22 at 00:25
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    I see. Actually, I did used rechargeable batteries in my GameBoy Color and I did notice that they didn't last as long as normal batteries. – Green绿色 Jan 11 '22 at 12:40
  • I'm using ni-mh batteries on a GPi case which for sure uses more power than the gb color and I'm getting more than 4h. Today the ni-mh batteries can reach 2.6Ah without problem (3.1Wh) and their voltage can be up to 1.5+v when are fully charged. – Daniel Carrasco Marín Jan 14 '22 at 19:22
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Two simple reasons.

Different battery chemistries have different voltage and safety.

Standard alkaline batteries are nominally rated for 1.5V, but they can have more than 1.6V when brand new and are considered to be discharged at around 1.1V or so, depending on application.

Standard rechargeable batteries that are intended to be used in place of standard alkaline batteries in consumer electronics have less voltage. Nominally they are rated for 1.2V, for example NiCd batteries can have around 1.4V when fully charged and are considered to be discharged at around 1.0V.

So basically, the device is designed to use 1.5V alkaline batteries, and when using NiCd rechargeable batteries, the device can complain about batteries being empty and shut itself down, even though batteries are not empty yet. In case of NiCd batteries, they degrade faster when only partially charged and recharged, as they perform better when fully discharged before recharging.

And alkaline batteries are safer than rechargeable batteries, especially in the hands of children, as the device is basically a toy.

Rechargeable batteries are able to output roughly 10 times more current than alkaline batteries, so in the event of device malfunction due to mishandling such as dropping it, a short circuit with alkaline batteries is relatively harmless as the wires or batteries may heat up noticeably, but with rechargeable batteries, a short circuit can heat up copper wires red hot, melt the insulation, and start a fire. Not to mention possible hazards when mishandling the batteries outside the unit that might cause them to short, such as keeping spare rechargeable batteries carelessly.

The manual only talks about NiCd batteries, as while NiMH batteries did exist, they might not have been so popular everywhere due to various reasons.

Justme
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    NiMH batteries of the time were of the high self-discharge variety, and would go dead after just a month or two on the shelf. Low self-discharge NiMH batteries didn't appear until seven years after the GBC. – Mark Jan 10 '22 at 22:14
  • "Rechargeable batteries have less voltage" isn't universally true, even if you're referring to individual cells, such as AA. For example, a Li-Ion 14550 cell (same dimensions as AA) is 3.7V. – Toby Speight Jan 11 '22 at 14:18
  • @TobySpeight: True, but the OP specifically asks about NiCd. And how popular were lithium batteries in 1998 anyway? – dan04 Jan 11 '22 at 18:02
  • What would happen if someone were to poke some metal object into the cartridge port of a Game Boy loaded with alkaline cells? What about one loaded with NiCads? – supercat Jan 04 '24 at 19:58
  • @supercat that's unknown to me. But a few facts first. There is a fuse to protect from overcurrent, I have not decrypted the fuse rating or type (fast, slow, etc). Then there is an unknown DC/DC conversion module with very little info about the parameters. So the battery voltage, as far as I see, does not go directly to the cartridge port. The NiCads can just provide much larger current, and at lower voltage. So if you shorted the cartridge port, it most likely depends what protections the DC conversion module has, but if there are NiCads able to give more than expected, something may damage. – Justme Jan 04 '24 at 21:46
  • @Justme: From your description, it sounds as though a non-current-limited short across the batteries would be unlikely. If the battery voltage had gone direct to the cartridge port, however, I could imagine Nintendo not wanting things to melt if the cartridge port got shorted. – supercat Jan 04 '24 at 21:48
  • @supercat I don't think they wanted anything to melt, even when shorts before fuse. It might be that the DC converter expects voltages of alkaline, not NiCd chemistry. It will have to draw more current in at lower voltage longer. Maybe it runs hotter or less efficiently. Maybe it cuts off at some proper voltage level for alkalines, but will have too short usage with NiCd chemistry and they are not fully discharged, and if these are recharged, they would degrade in use because of the "memory effect" they have. So maybe they just thought NiCd are poor supply, or the console a poor load for NiCd. – Justme Jan 04 '24 at 21:58
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Most likely reason I think is that when NiCd batteries discharge, they stay at almost 1.2V for most of their discharge cycle then go from 1.2 to 0 volts very quickly, so the low batt warning is unlikely to be on for very long if at all, and the player being unable to save the game, if it simply turns itself off with little to no warning.

Since alkaline batteries reduce their voltage output as they discharge, 1.5V being the voltage only when unused, 1.2V is within the operation of almost any device that can use alkaline batteries (0.7-0.8V being a common low limit)

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