Game Boy Video Out Adapter

April 12, 2010 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRKB5FT3Feg]

A bit light on the details, but we enjoyed seeing this video out device for the Nintendo Game Boy. A parallel cable connects to a modified Game Boy and transmits signals to the adapter which is housed in an old VHS cassette. We gather that some Super Game Boy hardware does the signal processing but from there your guess is probably better than ours.

[NeX] mentions that he originally wanted a screen to be included in the cassette. We’ve seen custom portables with small screens before, but he’s also developed a bare bones hand-held without a screen so that’s where the inclusion in the cassette would have been handy. We also wonder how the images will look on a big TV of the 50+ inch size. [NeX] has been pretty busy with the hacking lately, don’t miss the wire porn of his homemade Game Boy project.

[Thanks Jose]

Emulator In NES Cartridge – So Clean It Looks Factory Made

October 12, 2009 by Mike Szczys 36 Comments

nesP_NES-emulator-in-game-cartridge

We extend our congratulations to [airz] over at the ben heck forums. He put together a mod that fits an emulator into an original NES cartridge and utilizes a butchered original NES controller; and he did an amazing job!

He is using a cheap but full featured emulator board. It comes with 4 gigs of memory but also has an SD card slot. NES, Game Boy, and Game Boy color ROMs can all be played on the 2.8″ color LCD but the system also features a TV out connector for use with a larger screen as well.

The cuts that [airz] made in the case are amazing, easily eclipsing the last cartridge emulator mod we saw. The holes for the controls look as if the plastic was molded that way. For realism he also cut off the PCB interface on the business end of the cartridge and glued it in place. Apparently it took three cartridges, two controllers, and two of the emulators to make it this nice, but if you want to make an omelet…

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Vintage Hack – Game Boy Camera

September 23, 2009 by James Munns 33 Comments

Screenshot

Back in 2005, a member of a French robotics team named [Laurent] wrote a wonderful how-to that we somehow missed on using the Game Boy Camera as a vision device for a robot. The images above are actual shots from his project. The Game Boy Camera features a stunning 128×123 pixel resolution in a gorgeous 4 color gray-scale palette. Possibly the most attractive feature of this hack is that it is still possible to get a hold of these cameras for under ten dollars on ebay.

He connected the camera sensor to an Atmel AT90S4433 using a combination of digital and analog signals, and then used the microcontroller to echo the data back to his PC. His write up includes schematics for wiring up the sensor/microcontroller, the datasheet for the sensor, his C code for the whole project, and an easy to read pin out of the GBC connector. Although his project simply offloaded the image to a computer, it would be entirely possible to have the microcontroller respond to the image or simply just log and store it. It would also be just as easy to replace his Atmel chip with your own favorite microcontroller, as long as it has a couple Digital I/O ports and at least one Analog port (or an external analog to digital converter).

UPDATE: Good catch r4v5, it would require an ADC, not a DAC.

Super Game Boy Boot ROM Dumped

September 18, 2009 by Mike Szczys 31 Comments

gameboy_boot_rom_dump_hardware

[Costis] managed to dump a copy of the boot ROM for the Nintendo Super Game Boy. This small piece of code (256 bytes) writes a graphic to the display at boot time as it loads the ROM on the game cartridge. He was able to dump the code by finding the exact point at which the device locks down the boot ROM. Just as that point approached he overclocked the device causing it operate so fast it couldn’t write the lockout bits into the register. Once past that single point of security, he executes a code that writes the boot rom out to a different address that he is able to read from. He’s got a copy of the dump along with the explanation up for your enjoyment.

[Thanks Anthony]

Game Boy HDD Update: The Guts

September 8, 2009 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

gameboy_hdd_cover_image

Last week we showed you the ingenious hard drive enclosure made from a broken Game Boy. We caught up with [_n3o_], the person responsible for this mod, and he was nice enough to share some pictures of the inside of the project. Let’s get down to business and take a look. Continue reading “Game Boy HDD Update: The Guts” →

80 Gig Drive Inside A Game Boy

September 4, 2009 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

[_n3o_] put together a nice external storage mod by fitting a 2.5″ drive into a broken Game Boy. This mod fooled quite a few people because it appears that the device still plays games with the drive stuffed inside of it. Sadly, this is not the case. The reflective backing has been removed from the screen and replaced by a piece of paper with a graphic printed on it. The LED from the hard drive was moved to the battery indicator for the Game Boy for added realism. There is no build log for this project but [_n3o_] did give a short explanation of it in a forum post. You can see two more pictures of the project after the break. Continue reading “80 Gig Drive Inside A Game Boy” →

Game Boy Pocket Backlight

January 4, 2009 by Eliot 22 Comments

gameboy

[palmertech] and [Bibin] have both completed backlight projects for the Game Boy Pocket recently. The most difficult part of the transplant is carefully removing the reflective backing on the LCD. After a thorough cleaning, a diffuser and backlight panel were added. [palmertech] used a backlight salvaged from a DS, while [Bibin] built his own using LEDs. You can see his backlight in the video embedded below. There’s a disassembly video too.

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