While it might not be quite as revered as its predecessor, the Game Boy Advance is arguably the peak of “classic” handheld gaming, before things got all 3D and dual screen on us. One of its best features is the so-called multiboot mode, which allows the GBA to download a program from its link port. Officially this feature was introduced so you could play multiplayer with your friends even if they didn’t have the game cartridge, but naturally it didn’t take long for hackers to realize you can use it to run arbitrary code on an unmodified system.
[Shyri Villar] has put this capability to excellent use with a plug-in board that allows a stock GBA to be used as a general purpose Bluetooth HID controller. Now you can emulate GBA games on your computer while using the real thing as your input device. Or if that’s a bit too redundant for you, then any 2D game you think could benefit from the classic Game Boy control layout.
An ATmega328P on the board initiates the multiboot sequence when the system powers up, and feeds it the GBA program that’s stored on a W25Q32 chip. Once the code is running on the GBA, it communicates with a common HC-05 Bluetooth module through the same link port. To perform this handoff, [Shyri] uses a HCF4066 switch IC to literally change the pin assignments in the connector from the SPI used to upload the ROM to the UART lines of the Bluetooth module.
With everything powered from the 3.3 V provided by the GBA’s link port, and some software niceties like the ability to store Bluetooth pairing information for subsequent device connections, this is actually a very practical gadget. The fact that you can do this on a completely stock GBA is very compelling, especially considering some of the previous Bluetooth Game Boy modifications we’ve seen. Granted the market might be somewhat limited, but with a custom PCB and a 3D printed enclosure, we could see this potentially being a popular accessory for the classic handheld. It’s not like it can be any more niche than using the GBA as a remote display for your multimeter.
This is nifty, but what I’d really like to see is wireless GBA-to-Gamecube linking. Has anyone managed that yet?
GBA to Wavebird would be sweet
Yep, check out WirelessGBC
couldn’t he just bit bang an SPI and UASRT interface on the same pins, no need for the multiplexer IC.
Super cool! Now if he switched to an ESP32 he’d have the microcontroller and bluetooth (and lots of flash and wifi) and people could build them for $10.
Pretty sure ESP32 still is a tad bit too pricey for that price goal to be realistic.
ESP32 is about $5 on ebay (even less for a bare module). Didn’t find a male connector so the cheapest link cable I found on ebay is $2.50.
$10 sounds about right.
It’s the power budget that’ll kill it. You’ll need a separate battery.