From now until the end of 2019 we will be celebrating next year by looking back and republishing some of our best features over the past twelve months, in addition to our regular releases. The article first appeared on the site in May. Enjoy!
Game Boy turned 30 last month – shocking those we see as being over 30. Where has it gone? I think it started popping up at the end of my shelf – at least that's where I got my old DMG-01, the first Game Boy. Like many of you reading this, I'm sure, I took the time to hold it again and remember when the plastic bricks felt like the future.
That shimmering gray still touches my heart like hitting the hoof. But apart from my pure and innocent love, I had no bitter motive for reuniting: the Game Boy would advise me to be dirty.
The Gift Horse
It was actually a success that started the whole thing. One late spring evening, I walked down the aisle of the Tokyo department store at closing time. Just the previous day was packed with bicycles and luggage, but today only, it was the "Retro Bazaar" of consumer goods for the time being, no one under the age of 20. There were Walkmans, digital clocks, Famicom Disk Drives – activities. The station was already running out of space, and as the closing time neared, I knew it would be over.
Something has happened to me: the release of the 1993 game Boy Boy, complete in a box. But this was not a game. In front was a glittering horse; back a startling record of accurately predicting horse racing results. By the 1992 season, it had chosen the winner 48.4% of the time and returned 101%. What future journey brought me this? It was an honor of youth that I had never really lived with and a promise of a future I could make for myself. I rushed the box to the clerk and hid it in my bag like a whipped dream.
Study of Form
Tekichuu Rush (something like “Cor Correct Prediction Rush”) was released in 1993 by Japanese Clary Business. Some digging around online claim that Clary never released another Game Boy software and its website went into the Wayback Machine in the early 2000s. Not a video game company, their most prominent product was "Computator", which appears to be a cheap printer for calculating TV subscription cards.
Tekichuu Rush's simple suggestion is that if you tell them about the odds listed in the horse race, you will tell the winner. In addition to showing its incredible accuracy as a race forecaster, the box promises “basic controls that use a few buttons – even inexperienced ones can use it! & # 39; – A reminder that, in 1993, a computer with two key buttons might cause some users trouble.
The basic control scheme aside, the instruction booklet does its best to confuse things. Every possible scenario is summarized in a single flow chart with a small Japanese text. Ah, how hard can it be? The instructions are for the lost: let's face the other horses!
To the races
The closest race to me is the Shakespearean town in Warwick, England. The other day of the race, I opened an online betting account and started to crack. Game Boy at; red light; Nintendo® smudge; they areother! And now the horse event, charging the dust, jockeys pointing their head and shoulders at the end, congratulated by the chirpy chiptune. “Tekichuu Rush. © 1993 Japan Clary Business. ”I forced Start.
After being overwhelmed by the huge amount of raw data I felt it might have been easier to get my millions engaged in stock exchanges in the 1970s
The group first wanted to know the race scene. I couldn't type: I can just rotate the options slowly and carefully with the A button. This was good news: if Clary had kept their promise of basic control then they would have kept their promise of unlimited wealth gained through divine means. Certainly.
I was cycling: Tokyo – Nakayama – Kyoto – Hanshin – Sapporo… I was starting to worry that Warwick would be OK eventually! Hakodate – Fukushima – Niigata – Chukyo – Kokura – and Warwick! Wait, no. No Warwick?!? I decided it should be “Regional” and I chose that.
I've started copying issues. After being dragged through a number of green data capture screens I felt like it might have been easier to get my millions engaged in the stock exchange business in the 1970s. In the end, outraged that I had to work for him, I turned down the winning horse number and set my bet.
All in all, it was a long and hard way to lose £ 5. How could the Tekichuu Rush do it wrong? The reason I thought was that maybe Warwick wasn't listed as a Japanese race racer. Time to get some Japanese racing.
What are the Odds?
Starting at the bottom, it is possible that, with a long pattern of bizarre luck, the bookmaker was betting on a single race in Nakayama that weekend.
After the milling which provided an irresistible answer to the question "Why would all the text be inserted like this?" I guessed it. I have been given three possible pairs: horse number 3 followed by 12 horse; 4 followed by 12; or 7 followed by 12. The number of horses, of course, would obviously not have overcome anything that happened, so I didn't pay attention to that and set my bet to 3, 4 and 7.
Now I can confirm that Tekichuu Rush was actually a Game Boy Printer that issued bank notes instead of stickers
You probably expect one of them to win – or maybe somehow all three win. Surprisingly, all bets went down. What had happened? I looked at the results. First there was another nag named Saturnalia – number 12! The very horse we knew would be lost! Next came Velox, Danon Kingly and Admire Mars – horses 7, 4 and 3! Our winners are not guaranteed!
Like you, I'm sure, I immediately suspected that cheating was playing. Tekichuu Rush was 25, after all. Apparently, the great race had its hands on it and distorted its enrichment power under the company – instead of the good and the faithful self to advise Mostly you should.
So in one additional act of honest attachment that would guarantee my making millions free, I read the instructions. I admit it now: I should have done that earlier. It turns out, the results confirmed by Clary's ball for Clary were called "rent". In the UK, this is "back-to-back" weather, which means that while Tekichuu Rush says horses 7 and 12, it actually means the two will finish first and then second in any way. If I got my £ 6 right, on the rear forecasters, I would now be riding on £ 19.
But I was not disappointed at all, for now I could confirm that Tekichuu Rush was actually a Game Boy Printer that issued bank notes instead of stickers. The next time I opened Game Boy, the sound of Nintendo® was no exception others: it was bying.
Back to Sadali
However, there were a few hiccups. It was always my fault, not the sport, but the next few races that cost me money. I start at a coffee shop across from the bookies and learn some good points for managing a Japanese horse race. Then I pulled out some factual swipe papers at the betting shop: I lost in Kochi because I entered an incorrect number meeting. I lost to Hanshin because it was the fourth race – the day when I meant second. And I missed out on Fukushima because what I learned as the first race of the schedule was actually twelve. But all the mistakes were a lesson: Now I could read the leaves of the Tekichuu lake perfectly.
I felt I was enjoying the mad megalomaniacal science that had measured the precision timepiece. But I had been hiding. Spreadsheets and lists of brochures and discarded slides were then scattered around me. The desire for anonymity will fix us all: what was the evil of this forbidden technology?
But You Can't Drink
It was back in Fukushima with the "Flora Stakes". My prophet has given me three background predictions, all based on the booklet & # 39; Therepeia & # 39; beloved number 10. The race route was good; the meeting is true; the day was ready; the race number was correct. I have monitored and double-checked the runners and the limits. Without the certainty of my win, I was somewhat nervous.
Thepeia trembled and began to dominate and my hands reached for my trembling betting slip. They rotate for the first time and the pack is stretched; corrected the second one and sucked the rest. Therepeia was on the heels of number 9, Jodie, and clocking in at number 17, Leone d & # 39; Oro, whatever was the winning combination.
Then, coming up heroically at the bottom of the final understanding, Thespeiawas passed through one, two, three, four, five, six, eight, eight, eight, eight, eleven, twelve! Twelve!
The expectation pit; pride in privilege; and the emperor's humility, naked all this time
My wrists slowly go unnoticed and float in the air. My eyes glistened and my jaw dropped in indescribable confusion. How so? Why? The punter opened the door and the rust flooded my bet and ruined the piles of notes. In file and file, Tekichuu Rush's instruction book went into the bookcase. What was that on the first page? I mapped out my piece in Japan: "This software is …" Yesstatus? Entertainment. "… for entertainment purposes only. Japan Clary Business does not guarantee the accuracy of the predicted results."
All of a sudden it all came to light: Clary, in their timeless wisdom, intended the Tekichuu Rush just to not lead me, so that I could reach my endless desire for a near future. And in that unimaginable encounter I could hear the great thrill of the race: the speed of all dreams held, and then falling. The expectation pit; pride in privilege; and the emperor's humility, naked all this time.
So that was the end of Tekichuu Rush. A quarter of a century after the small manufacturers of time-saving devices decided to enter Game Boy, here is its creation, on the other side of the planet. 90 & # 39; s Clary cut Tokyo is still raging in the ancient city of England in the 21st century. More impressive than guessing the future, I can see now, is that this game came to life.
I squandered my loss and counted my blessings. Well, I've calculated my loss: £ 23. A reasonable price for your favorite Game Boy.
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