The console Nintendo wants you to forget

In 1995 Nintendo sold a glimpse of the future: a headset on a stand, with real 3D games inside. It was called the Virtual Boy.

There was one catch. Everything was red. Not mostly red. Only red, glowing lines on pure black, because the display tech that could do color cost too much.

You leaned your face into it at a table, like a scientist at a microscope. You could not see the room. Your neck ached. And the manual suggested taking a break every 15 to 30 minutes, because for plenty of players, the red-on-black 3D meant headaches.

The games were actually clever. Wario Land on Virtual Boy is genuinely good. But under a million units sold, and Nintendo pulled the plug in less than a year. It became the company's most famous failure.

Then the usual thing happened. The market forgot it, and the collectors did not. A working Virtual Boy with a solid display stand now sells for more than most working retro consoles, because so few were made and the displays are fragile.

The future it promised did arrive, decades later, from other companies. The Virtual Boy just knocked on the door thirty years early, wearing the wrong color.

The library has the full spec sheet and notes from the brave folks who own one. If you have one in the cupboard, add it to your gear.