[Jackson] decided he wanted to give his original Game Boy a bit more power so he replace the internals with those from a Game Boy Advance SP. This keeps the case work to a minimum, as the original was larger than the SP. He kept the buttons, speaker, headphone jack, and power switch but modified the enclosure to use the volume, charger, and battery from the newer hardware. The cartridge connector was relocated to match the slot in the back half of the case, with the color screen being the biggest giveaway that someone’s monkeyed with the device. Not a bad use for a dead Game Boy, as least you’ll be playing this one instead of dedicating it to virtual storage.
Are those tiny black dots on the sides the L and R buttons?
@mark
Looking at the wiring, I think so. There are 2 wires that go from the R shoulder button on the side of the gameboy to the corresponding top-right point of the SP’s PCB. Closer inspection of the image shows the same thing on the other side of the gameboy, but reversed. The reason behind the reversed wiring is the SP’s PCB is placed upside-down in the gameboy case.
I wanna return this LazyMegaMan, hes not lazy he gave a really well researched answer. Totally not lazy.
*replaced
I don’t get this kind of thing at all.
But to each his own.
I’m just impressed this guy had a gameboy that was broken. I’ve seen those things come back from desert storm still working.
I don’t get it either. There seems to be a flood of “hacks” that take something perfectly fine and transform it into something less functional and usable (e.g. the numerous binary clocks, a small GBA with decent shoulder buttons in a bigger case with crappy L and R buttons). IMHO, a hack is supposed to take something somewhat lacking and improve on it, not the other way around. How about mounting an Arduino nano in a server rack?
They do tend to last, although I thought it was the LCD that gives up the ghost usually.
It is a great way to re-purpose a dead one if you have one, and you could also get one of those Shenzen ones with the games built in as well.
Replacing the internal hardware of an obsolete piece of electronics with a slightly less obsolete piece of electronics…
I guess as long as he’s happy with it, that’s all that matters.
you know i love gb and gba games and i do have an old original GB hanging around here someplace with a screen rot problem…. AND a sidewalk picked GBA SP that works perfectly although it looks like it got ran over by a few bicycles.
This project should be a nice adition to my mod colection :)
yea..
im not sure i get the whole replacing
the insides of a gameboy. with the insides
of a… gameboy?
but hey. creeds to the birdsnest that will
run mario!
Was the gameboy advanced casing messed up?
http://www.geekologie.com/2008/03/gameboy_survives_bombing_still.php
exist stupids projects in the web, but in this page all projects are very goods.
congratulations
regards from mexico
Recasing GBAs inside DMGs has been done many times before, so this isn’t exactly news. However, I disagree with the statement that a mod such as this is pointless.
Clearly this is brilliance. I have a hand-me-down DMG from my father that survived an (at the time) 6 year olds abuse, including throwing it across my driveway several times when I would die. since then I’ve kept it for the past 19 additional years of my life and it has never stopped working beautifully. when the SP came out (when I was in my early 20s) well.. lets just say I went through 4 of them before digging out my older game boy advance and gaming on. The SP is quite possibly the worst idea game boy ever had, clamshell makes it flimsy. drop it from a height of over 3′ onto concrete and it will shatter. drop a DMG from a height of over 3′ onto concrete and you might lose the link cable port cover. The only reason I am understanding of the DS series is they have touchscreens. I can understand not wanting to crack such a delicate touchscreen.
Bottom line is this MOD is sheer brilliance, though I might have tried it with something smaller – say, a GBP.
I still don’t agree with people who take perfectly fine working video games and turn them into thing they are not made for. I’ve seen so many stupid Guitars made from video games its stupid. This is ok I guess.
It’s actually pretty useful, I would say. For people who make chiptune music this would be invaluable because the most common complaint about using a GBASP for making music is that it is very uncomfortable. The DMG, being the largest gameboy with start and select buttons that can be accessed from both hands, is the most comfortable to work with, but the processor and display suck the devil’s dick. So this is a great mod, actually. And I wish that he’d written a tutorial because a lot of people want to do it.
Older people that like the retro “feel” of the DMG, but want to play GBA games, like Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. Makes perfect sense to me.