Turning A Game Boy Into An Android Gamepad

gameboy

[Chad] has been messing around with emulators on his phone, but as anyone with a smart phone knows, even the most advanced touchscreen controls are terrible. Wanting something that pays tribute to the classic systems he was emulating, he decided to turn a classic old school brick Game Boy into an Android gamepad.

After gutting an old DMG-01, [Chad] set to work turning the D-pad and buttons in the Game Boy into something his Galaxy Nexus could understand. He chose a Bluetooth connection to provide input for his emulators, with the hardware generously donated from a Nintendo Wiimote.

The Game Boy PCB was cut up and a few leads attached to the Wiimote PCB. After modifying the case to include space for the Wiimote and a cell phone mount, [Chad] had a functional game pad, perfect for his adventures in emulation.

You can see [Chad]’s demo of his game pad after the break,

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIPLcj3y7gA&w=570]

20 thoughts on “Turning A Game Boy Into An Android Gamepad

  1. pretty cool.
    i do have an old game boy (the original one, just like the one he used) and i just checked, a wiimote is about 12 € @ ebay (i think they are clones)
    don’t worry, my gameboy is already kind of broken, screen is unreadable faint

    i could do something similar (if i weren’t so lazy ;) )

      1. of course i know that, but it doesn’t work.
        just tried again, control buttons seem to be broken too.
        sound works and screen ist faint at best,
        so i can tell if something is happening, or not.
        can’t select anything, or start the game, it’s just sitting in the menu and playing music.
        however, i could try to repair ist before i rip it apart ;-)

    1. The wiimote inside the gameboy should still be fully functional, he just gave it a different form factor, so the accelerometer and such should still work fine. you’ll just need a hole for the accessory port at the bottom and probably a hole for the IR leds at the top.

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