characters or graphics on a black background.” Hold the device, called the Private Eye, up to your face and the tiny display appears to be full-scale—the equivalent of a 12-inch screen. When it was invented the possibilities appeared limitless, revolutionary. Reflection Technology was shopping the display to anyone who would listen, from airplane mechanics to anesthesiologists. Office workers needn’t look at blurry, low-res monitors anymore; they’d all wear a headband affixed with the Private Eye, giving them a crisp display and a desk free of bulky equipment. Reflection’s sales team even visited the Pentagon: The Navy SEALS wanted to put the screens inside divers’ helmets. Four years earlier, Reflection was working out of the basement of an old Portuguese bakery in Cambridge. Now the U.S. Military was calling them? The future looked bright, full of blinking red LEDs.

But there was a problem: Though dozens of companies bought development kits, very few products actually made it to market. Feisty engineers would fall in love with the technology and begin a project, but before long their work fell out of favor with the actual decision makers. Secretaries that tested the device had a near-unanimous response: “Can I do something different tomorrow?” The all-red text just wasn’t comfortable to look at for extended periods.

But Allen Becker knew this display was something special. The young entrepreneur, who had founded the company in 1986, was used to overcoming obstacles. Not feeling challenged, he’d dropped out of MIT to install computers in Saudi Arabia. Then he worked with Ray Kurzweil at The Reading Machine Co., where they developed products to help blind people read. When Al saw a problem, he fixed it. The Private Eye was just another problem lacking a solution.

The Popular Mechanics article ends with similar optimism: “Other applications for the Private Eye are probably manifold. Reflection Technologies is interested in any good ideas.”

On April 21, 1989, Nintendo released the Game Boy in Japan to an unsuspecting public. Three months later, the portable system launched in America. With a cheap $89.99 price tag, long battery life, and the addictive Russian puzzle game Tetris packed in every box, Game Boy became the de facto handheld entertainment experience. Millions of parents bought one for their kids. Soon after, millions of parents bought one for themselves. Videogames, having taken over the living room, were now taking over everywhere else.

Al Becker and his team were paying attention. They knew their miniature display could survive in one of only two ways: as an expensive industrial product, sold in low quantities