Nintendo Companion manual

The Transceiver Companion (トランシーバー コンパニオン), or Companion for short, is the earliest electronic toy sold by Nintendo. It is a very rare piece of Nintendo history.

Some time ago, I was lucky to add one to my collection, and posted about it here.

The Nintendo company name is written in bold kanji on the manual:
Nintendō kabushikigaisha (任天堂株式会社)

Although the Companion I found was in very good condition, unfortunately it was missing the manual.

But a few weeks ago, I was able to track down another Companion set, this time with manual!

The manual is printed on one side of a big sheet of glossy paper. It folds twice to fit inside the Companion box. When folded out, it measures about 30 by 42 centimeters.

The manual highlights the various parts of the Companion handset: microphone (マイク), speaker (スピーカー), power-switch ( 電源スイッチ), talk-switch (送話スイッチ) and antenna (アンテナ).

The manual also contains instructions on placing the 9 volt battery in the handsets, extending the antenna and switching on the Companion.

And most importantly, instructions on how to use it.

"Press the button to talk"

Press (押す) the talk-switch during transmission (送話). And release (離す) the talk-switch during reception (受話). That's all there is to it.

"Don't press the button when listening"

The instructions may seem a bit too obvious now, but don't forget that in 1965 this was a high-tech toy.

The manual suggests you should first test the handsets at a range of about 5 meters.
But a distance of up to 80 meters must be possible.

According to the manual, the maximum range is 80 meters in optimal conditions, when there are no obstacles between the two users.

For more information about the Nintendo Companion, check out the previous post.