Pokemon were traded via link cables in the first generation of the Pokemon series.

Not many had link cables, so it made me quite popular among my classmates.

Trade your Zapdos for my half-dead Ratata! ♪

While trading, the gameboy's screen...

...showed Pokemon traveling through the cable.

※There were very few icons at the time. Both Zapdos and Pidgey shared the same graphics.

And if you yanked out the cable while this was going on...

...there was a feature where a real Pokemon would come out! ♪

Of course...

However, just about every first-gen Pokemon user dreamt of the same thing...