Ever wish Game Boys came in a slightly larger size? [John], aka [Bacteria] of Bacman, decided to try something different with this retro console mod — the BigBoy.
In case you’re not familiar with the Bacman website, it’s a site dedicated to retro video game console modding — and our hacker, [John] is the man behind the scenes. We’ve shared plenty of their projects before.
The BigBoy is basically a Game Boy Advance — with an 8″ display. It uses the electronics from a knockoff copy of a RetroBit in a custom case that [John] vacuum formed at home. He sketched out the proposed outline, built a mold out of plastic sheets and hot glue, and created a concrete dummy mold for the vacuum former — meaning if he ever wanted to recreate this project it would be a piece of cake!
After getting all the buttons in place, making small adjustments here and there, he decided to paint the whole thing with some speckled stone paint, which gives it a very unique and robust finish. His build log is quite extensive so if you’re interested, don’t forget to check it out on the forum.
Interesting choice. Knockoff SNES running a knockoff GBA to SNES adapter. TIL that the GBA ran at 3.3V, whereas the GB/GBC ran at 5 volts, making this adapter incompatible with GB/GBC games.
I love how vivid and sharp the display is. I might need to hunt down that Innovatek screen…
This is interesting. I’ve never played a game on the GBA, but I do know that my GBC has a size such that, as an aduly, my hands feel cramped on it, and my thumbs begin to ache not long after playing due to the bad ergonomics (it was obviously designed for kids to play). I’ve always thought that the guts of a GBC in an original GameBoy would be a much better design…
If you’re wanting retro consoles on an adult-sized device, you may want to look into the archos gamepad 2. http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/drJrCmbFG54/maxresdefault.jpg Not the 1, though, as that was fucking awful. Even the 2 is just “alright”, though I admit to hoping they release a third one with internal hardware beefy enough to emulate dreamcast.
The A and B buttons are backwards.
Oi! I think you’ll find we pronounce Zeds correctly.. It is called “English” after all…..
Didn’t read your reply fully… Generally “es” word endings do have a zee sound over here, think “trees”
How much would it cost if I asked you to build this for me with a matte black finish and a rubber slip grip on it?