game boy

168 Articles

Breaking Out A Game Boy Link Cable

November 7, 2015 by 17 Comments

[Samuel] is working on one of the most important electronics projects of our generation. He’s building a device for the Game Boy that will allow Pokemon trades between generation II and III. Yes, This means bringing your Charmander from Pokemon Red to your team in Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald. and finally completing the National Dex you’ve been working on for 20 years. Before he gets to designing this system, he first needs to listen in on the Game Boy Link Cable, and that means creating a breakout board.

The Game Boy Link Cable – sometimes inaccurately referred to as the Zelda cable – is a special proprietary connector. The design is well documented, but unlike the Wii Nunchuck controller, there’s no readily available breakout board available for this piece of obsolete technology.

Together with a his friend [David], [Samuel] loaded up a copy of Eagle and designed a board that will fit on a small piece of copper clad FR4. This design was then sent over to a small CNC mill, The traces were machined away, and a sextet of pins were soldered into the holes.

With a breakout board for the Game Boy Link Cable, [Samuel] now has a great platform for peering into the strange and magical world of Pokemon. He’ll be using a Teensy microcontroller for his trading device, and with several similar projects already completed by others around the Internet, the potential for a Gen II to Gen III Pokemon trader is palpable.

Raspberry Pi 2 Game Boy Brings Sexy Back From 1989

October 1, 2015 by 18 Comments

When the ever-versatile Raspberry Pi was released, the potential for cheap video game emulation was immediately obvious. Some of the very first Raspi projects to hit the internet were arcade cabinets, and it wasn’t long until people were making them portable. A purpose-build Linux distort called RetroPie has become very popular specifically because of the Raspi’s game-emulation potential. However, the actual hardware for these emulation systems isn’t always the most aesthetically (or ergonomically) pleasing. That’s where reddit user [Cristov9000] has managed to stand out from the crowd.

[Cristov9000] accomplished this by combining high-quality design (and 3D printing) with the careful use of original Nintendo parts. Game Boy and SNES buttons and elastomers were used to achieve the correct button feel. Other original Game Boy parts, like the volume wheel and power switch, ensure that the system feels as much like 1989 OEM hardware as possible.

Also impressive is the internal hardware, including 3 custom PCBs used to tie everything together to work via the Raspberry Pi 2 GPIO pins. The display is a 3.5″ TFT screen, and with the 6000 mAh it can handle gameplay for more than 7 hours. Other details, like the integrated mono speaker and rear shoulder buttons complete the experience. Combined with the RetroPie and an assortment of emulators, this is one of the most impressive portable gaming builds we’ve seen, especially among a crowded list of awesome raspi-based Game Boy builds.

Arduboy Classic Plays On Original Game Boy Screen

August 18, 2015 by 10 Comments

The Arduboy is a Kickstarter backed, 8 bit video game console that mimics the look of a very tiny Nintendo Gameboy. The Arduboy Classic is actually using the case, button and LCD screen from a classic Game Boy.

[uXe] is using the same brains, an ATMEGA32U4, along with a 328 as a co-processor to handle the classic “creme-n-spinich” gameboy screen. 2K of dual port ram acts as a buffer between the two micro-controllers meaning they can not only run while not being in lock step with eachother, but that each micro can read or write to the ram at the same time.

Currently the whole setup is spread out on a breadboard while all the interfacing is worked out, but it is working quite well. Future plans are to make a drop in motherboard replacement for the classic game system, and there is ample room for all the new electronics on the original footprint.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Arduboy project, check out our interview with it’s creator, [Kevin Bates]. That and the demo of [uXe’s] hack based on the project are both found after the break.

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8-bit Digital Photo Gun

April 3, 2015 by 23 Comments

One of the first popular mass-produced digital cameras was the Game Boy camera, a terrible black and white image sensor stuck inside a highly modified Game Boy cartridge. With a Game Boy, the camera, and the Game Boy printer, it was able to produce low-resolution but still surprisingly usable images. Combine all these parts together with the best of hacker art from [vtol] and what do you get? The Game Boy Instant Photo Gun.

There aren’t many details for this build, but it looks like this is an uncased Game Boy Brick, a Game Boy camera, and Game Boy Printer assembled into something that looks dangerous and won’t get past a TSA checkpoint. That might be fixed by repurposing an old NES zapper.

We’ve seen [vtol]’s work before with a machine that probably doesn’t steal your credit card info, a levitating speaker, and something that doesn’t reference [Tarkovsky] enough. This build is right up there with the rest of them.

Thanks [Itay] for the link.

Use The Internet To Get Your Kadabra To Evolve

April 1, 2015 by 13 Comments

If you grew up playing Pokemon Red or Blue, you might have moved far away from your childhood friends by now. If you’re still playing Pokemon Red or Blue, you can now literally reconnect with these friends using [Pepijn]’s new and improved Game Boy link that lets players trade Pokemon over the internet.

Based on [Pepijn]’s previous work building an Arduino-based Pokemon storage system (which was inspired by a separate project that was able to spoof trades), the device allows a Game Boy (including Pocket, Color, and Advance versions) to connect to the Internet via a Teensy shield. The online waiting room software is called TCPoke which facilitates the Internetting of the Game Boys. From there, all you have to do is connect via the project’s wiki!

The TCPoke software is available on the project’s site. Also, be sure to check out the video below which shows a demonstration of how the software works. There is noticeable delay compared to a direct link between Game Boys, but it functions very well. We didn’t see this link system work for a battle, but it would be interesting to see if it is possible. If so, you might never have to go to a Pokemon League meeting again!

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Hackaday Links: March 8, 2015

March 8, 2015 by 23 Comments

Nintendo is well known for… odd… hardware integration, but this video takes it to a new level. It’s a Gamecube playing Zelda: Four Swords Adventure, a game that can use a Game Boy Advance as a controller. [fibbef] is taking it further by using the Gamecube Game Boy Advance player to play the game, and using another GBA to control the second Gamecube. There’s also a GBA TV tuner, making this entire setup a Gamecube game played across two Gamecubes, controlled with a Game Boy Advance and displayed on a GBA with a TV tuner. The mind reels.

TI just released a great resource for analog design. It’s the Analog Engineer’s Pocket Reference, free for download, if you can navigate TI’s site. There are print copies of this book – I picked one up at Electronica – and it’s a great benchtop reference.

A few months ago, a life-size elephant (baby elephants are pretty small…) was 3D printed at the Amsterdam airport. A model of the elephant was broken up into columns about two meters tall. How did they print something two meters tall? With this add-on for a Ultimaker. It flips an Ultimaker upside down, giving the printer unlimited build height. The guy behind this – [Joris van Tubergen] – is crazy creative.

And you thought TV was bad now. Here’s the pitch: take a show like Storage Wars or American Pickers – you know, the shows that have people go around, lowball collectors, and sell stuff on the Internet – and put a “Tech” spin on it. This is happening. That’s a post from a casting producer on the classic cmp message boards. Here’s the vintage computer forums reaction. To refresh your memory, this is what happens when you get ‘tech’ on Storage Wars. Other examples from Storage Wars that include vastly overpriced video terminals cannot be found on YouTube. Here’s a reminder: just because it’s listed on eBay for $1000 doesn’t mean it’ll sell on eBay for $1000.

BeagleSNES For Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES, And – Yes – SNES

March 3, 2015 by 18 Comments

By far the most common use for the Raspberry Pi is shoving a few dozen emulators on an SD card and calling it a day. Everybody’s got to start somewhere, right? There are other tiny, credit card-sized Linux boards out there, and [Andrew] is bringing the same functionality of the Raspi to the BeagleBone Black and BeagleBoard with BeagleSNES, an emulator for all the sane pre-N64 consoles.

BeagleSNES started as a class project in embedded system design, but the performance of simply porting SNES9X wasn’t very good by default. [Andrew] ended up hacking the bootloader and kernel, profiling the emulator, and slowly over the course of three years of development making this the best emulator possible.

After a few months of development, [Andrew] recently released a new version of BeagleSNES that includes OpenGL ES, native gamepad support through the BeagleBone’s PRU, and support for all the older Nintendo consoles and portables. Video demos below.

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