Nintendo Before The Revolution

We thought Nintendo (the company) came into existence only after someone found a way to shrink primitive computers (bigger than some houses in third world countries) to fit in the palm of our hands.  We were wrong.  Nintendo actually started out in 1889, many decades (or is it a full century?) before microcircuits, microchips, LCD monitors, and Gates and Jobs. Of course, back then the company didnÂ’t do electronic stuff.  They started out producing and selling special hand-made playing cards called “Hanafunda” (a.k.a. “Daitoryo” and “President“) from mulberry trees.  Who knew mulberry bark would be the start of something big?

WhatÂ’s the point of this article?  Nothing really. We just wanted share this bit of trivia in case you run into Alex Trebek

We thought Nintendo (the company) came into existence only after someone found a way to shrink primitive computers (bigger than some houses in third world countries) to fit in the palm of our hands.  We were wrong.  Nintendo actually started out in 1889, many decades (or is it a full century?) before microcircuits, microchips, LCD monitors, and Gates and Jobs. Of course, back then the company didnÂ’t do electronic stuff.  They started out producing and selling special hand-made playing cards called “Hanafunda” (a.k.a. “Daitoryo” and “President“) from mulberry trees.  Who knew mulberry bark would be the start of something big?

WhatÂ’s the point of this article?  Nothing really. We just wanted share this bit of trivia in case you run into Alex Trebek