Game Boy Color

Type: Handheld
Publisher: Nintendo
Firstly released in: Japan
First release: 23 Oct 1998
Release and compatibility details: Released Oct. 23, 1998 in Japan, Nov. 19 in the states, Nov. 23 In Europe and most other places.

Success and unsuccess:

Most popular years: 1999-2001
Most popular countries: Japan, USA, Europe
Amount of games in database: 1162 (list)
Amount of music records in database: 22 (list)
Amount of downloadable MOD tunes: 2 (list)
Amount of downloadable MIDI tunes: 11 (list)
Importance on the market in the most popular years: High

Characteristics:

Successor to the original monochrome Game Boy. Comparing to it, the games are in color and is backwards compatible with old Game Boy. Surprisingly, some Game Boy Color games will work with the old Game Boy (of course without color :) ). Except number of colors is this console from the hardware identical to old Game Boy. Because of this lot of games were released for GBC, but it was on the scene de facto only for 3 years and was soon replaced by Game Boy Advance.

CPU: 8-bit Z80 at 2.2 MHz
RAM: 16kB
Sound: 4 channels
Resolution: 160 x 144
Colors: 56 from 32768 color palette
Sprites: 8 sprites (8 x 8)
Cartridges: max 64bit

Games and music info:

Most common media for storing games: Cartridge
Average packed game size: 500 kB
Music formats: GBS

Emulation info:

Game Boy hardware is in very good emulation state, though very few new games still have issues. And also, you have to mind that handheld has small screen. That can be a bit annoying for someone, to play games in 160x144 resolution on PC monitors. :)

BGB - I think best from emulators which are completely free.
You can also check shareware emulators, especially VGB and NO$GMB - I haven't tested them yet, but why to spend time with them when BGB runs almost all and is free? :)

This emulation info was written on 20.January 2003. (This time is very important, because emulation info very depends on the time it was written - emulators can improve a lot after this time..).