For those of a certain age the first digital camera many of us experienced was the Game Boy Camera, an add-on for the original Game Boy console. Although it only took pictures with the limited 4-tone monochrome graphics of this system, its capability of being able to take a picture, edit it, create drawings, and then print them out on the Game Boy Printer was revolutionary for the time. Of course the people who grew up with this hardware are about the age to be getting married now (or well beyond), so [Sebastian] capitalized on the nostalgia for it with this wedding photo booth that takes pictures with the Game Boy Camera.
The photo booth features the eponymous Game Boy Camera front-and-center, with a pair of large buttons to allow the wedding guests to start the photography process. The system takes video and then isolates a few still images from it to be printed with the Game Boy Printer. The original Game Boy hardware, as well as a Flask-based web app with a GUI, is all controlled with a Raspberry Pi 4. There’s also a piece of Game Boy hardware called the GB Interceptor that sits between the Game Boy console and the camera cartridge itself which allows the Pi to capture the video feed directly.
The booth doesn’t stop with Game Boy hardware, though. There’s also a modern mirrorless digital camera set up in the booth alongside the Game Boy Camera which allows for higher resolution, full color images to be taken as well. This is also controlled with the same hardware and provides a more modern photo booth experience next to the nostalgic one provided by the Game Boy. There have been many projects which attempt to modernize this hardware, though, like this build which adds color to the original monochrome photos or this one which adds Wi-Fi capability.
Millennials (hopefully) on their second marriages I see
.. you know, the Gameboy and its peripherals was popular well into 21th century. Could be “gen Z” just as well.
Yeah, but let’s be honest it’s not
Hm? I don’t get it. The Game Boy Color appeared in 1998, the GBA in 2001, the GB Micro in 2005.
Somewhat popular Pokèmon Emerald came out in late 2004.
By 2005, the Game Boy platform on a whole was far from obsolete, despite the DS being on the rise.
By that time, the Zers could been age 7 or 8 already.
I don’t see anything wrong here, thus.
It’s not as if the Game Boy was a relic from 1990 or something.
The platform just started to take off by late 90s, thanks to Pokèmon franchise or gems such as Shantae (GBC, 2002)..
GameBoy Camera was extremely niche at the time and by 2005 nearly everyone was using GBC or DS. This is a Gen X and Gen Y product.
Biggest issue I see before watching is that the GB printer uses thermal paper (IIRC) and that loves to fade. For this type of event a way to make the printouts permanent is crucial.
I think that is what the big DSLR next to it is for. One is to keep, the other is a funny little trinket and conversation piece that you crumple up and leave in the dust bin on the way out (and that’s not necessarily knocking the idea, party favors like this are still fun)
Idk, some people might want to keep the GB picture too.
In principle, that’s possible with a GB printer emulator.
I think it already exists.. It prints into a bitmap file.
Example: https://github.com/mofosyne/arduino-gameboy-printer-emulator
You can also easily dump the photos over USB using a Joey Jr.
Yah the video only indicates the GB pics printout on the original printer. I would imagine somebody has to have decoded the data the GB sends to the printer so u could have it instead print to one of those little glossy photo printers