game boy

160 Articles

Bringing A Ruined Game Boy Cart Back To Life With Tons Of Soldering

September 15, 2021 by 17 Comments

Retro consoles and handhelds are full of nostalgia and happy memories for many. However, keeping these machines and their media going can be a difficult job at times. [Taylor] was challenged to rescue a copy of Kirby’s Dream Land for the original Game Boy, and set about the task.

The cartridge was badly corroded, with many of the traces eaten through, rendering the game inoperable. First, all the components were removed, and the board was cleaned. This allowed easy access to the traces across the whole board. Then, the job was to delicately remove some solder mask from the parts of the traces still remaining, and bridge the gaps with fine copper wire. Even worse, several vias were damaged, which [Taylor] tackled by feeding jumper wires through the board and executing a repair on each side.

It’s a simple enough repair for the experienced hand, but virtually magic to a retro gaming fan that doesn’t know how to solder. [Taylor] has given us a great example of how to deal with corroded carts properly, with enough detail to be quite educational to the beginner.

We’ve seen other great work in this vein too, like an Amiga 2000 brought back from a horrible creeping green death. If you’ve done your own retro rescue, be sure to drop us a line!

Continue reading “Bringing A Ruined Game Boy Cart Back To Life With Tons Of Soldering” →

GateBoy Is A Game Boy Emulated At Gate Level

September 7, 2021 by 26 Comments

Old game systems are typically the most popular targets for emulation. With huge communities of fans wanting to recreate the good times of yesteryear, most old systems have all been brought back to life in this manner. However, some simply dive into emulation for the technical challenge, and [Austin Appleby] has done just that with GateBoy.

GateBoy is a project to emulate the Game Boy logic gate by logic gate. It’s a lower level approach that builds upon earlier work [Austin] did on a project called MetroBoy, which we featured previously.

The emulator was created by painstakingly reverse-engineering the logic of the Game Boy. This was done by poring over die shots of the actual DMG-01 CPU silicon. GateBoy emulates most of the chip, though avoids the audio hardware at this stage.

Presently, GateBoy runs at roughly 6-8 frames per second on a modern 4GHz CPU. As it turns out, emulating all those gates and the various clock phases at play in the DMG-01 takes plenty of processing power. However, compilation optimizations do a lot of heavy lifting, so in some regards, GateBoy runs impressively quickly for what it is.

[Austin] still has plenty of work to do before GateBoy is completely operational, and there are some strange quirks of the Game Boy hardware that still need to be figured out. Regardless, it’s a fantastic academic exercise and a noble effort indeed. Meanwhile, you might like to check out the Game Boy emulator that runs just one single game.

Pokemon Time Machine Lets You Really Catch ‘Em All

August 25, 2021 by 14 Comments

Since 1996 the Pokemon series of games has moved through eight distinct generations, which roughly parallel the lineage of Nintendo’s handheld gaming systems. While the roster of “pocket monsters” has been updated steadily, players have had the option of bringing captured Pokemon from the older games into the newer releases. But there’s always been a gap in this capability. Due to hardware differences, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color generations of games were physically unable to communicate with the titles released for the Game Boy Advance.

But soon, that may no longer be the case. [Selim] is hard at work on Lanette’s Poke Transporter, a hardware and software solution for bringing Pokemon from the first and second generation games onto the third generation GBA games. Once they’ve been loaded there, players can move the creatures all the way up into the contemporary Pokemon games via official means.

The first Pokemon to make the generational leap.

The project was started in July of 2020, with [Selim] first focusing on the logistical challenges of bringing such early Pokemon into the newer games. Because so much changed between the different generations, there are many sanity checks that need to be made during the transfer. For example, the moves and techniques that the creatures are able to learn isn’t necessarily consistent between these early entries into the series. But after about a year of effort, the software side worked reliably on emulated games, and it was time to start thinking about the hardware.

Ultimately, [Selim] wants to create a physical device into which players can insert their Pokemon cartridges and trigger an automatic transfer. The code is already able to read and write to the cartridges, and has been ported over to Arduino so it doesn’t need a computer to run. A few prototype PCBs have been created, and beyond the inevitable bodges, it seems like they’re functional. There’s still breadboards and jumpers for as far as the eye can see, but this is the first step towards producing a dedicated Pokemon “time machine” that can transport them from the late 1990s to the present day.

With [stacksmashing] recently showing that the Raspberry Pi Pico is fast enough to emulate the Game Boy’s “Link Cable” accessory, and the protocol for trading Pokemon over the wire fairly well understood, we wonder if one day this technique couldn’t be done in real-time between linked handhelds. If you can make two copies of Tetris connect to each other over the Internet, it seems like you’d have enough time to fiddle with a Charizard’s stats.

Game Boy Advance SP Case Mod Adds Battery Capacity And Modern Interfaces

August 24, 2021 by 5 Comments

While there’s nothing quite like running retro games on their original hardware, using older consoles in today’s day and age can be a hassle due to incompatibilities with modern chargers and headphones. [tito] and [kyle] worked together to update Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance SP with a whole bunch of new features, tightly packed inside a 3D-printed replacement backshell. (Video, embedded below.)

The original 600 mAh battery has been replaced with a 1600 mAh pack for several hours of additional screen time. A Qi standard wireless power module as well as a USB-C connector allows charging the battery without carrying the original mains adapter. A Bluetooth module enables the use of wireless headphones, and a 3.5 mm jack enables classic earbuds as well, a feature lost when the SP replaced the original GBA.

The new backshell fits exactly on the original console, making it about 10 mm thicker. Although this makes it slightly less portable, it is apparently more comfortable to hold for those with big hands. The new functionality is implemented using off-the-shelf circuit boards, connected together with flying wires that are soldered to the required points on the GBA’s circuit board. The original connectors and switches remain in place and functional, and the entire operation can be undone if you want to return the device to its original state.

Others have added USB charging to the original GBA, or even stretched that handheld to become twice as wide. But adding significant new functionality previously required replacing the handheld’s entire contents.

Continue reading “Game Boy Advance SP Case Mod Adds Battery Capacity And Modern Interfaces” →

two hands holding a wider version of a purple gameboy advance

The Stretch Limo Of Game Boys

August 19, 2021 by 6 Comments

Here at Hackaday, we see all sorts of projects, some born out of a deep necessity or itch that couldn’t be scratched. Others are born out of a world of “why not” and it is perhaps these projects that put the biggest smile on our faces. The WideBoy Advance by [Elliot] of Retro Future is one such project.

Starting with a working Game Boy Advance and a donor one with a busted motherboard, the frankenstein-ification could start. A Dremel split one case in half and removed the sides on another, while trusty old car body filler helps fill and smooth the gaps. A particularly clever trick is to use the Dremel to create channels for the filler to adhere easier. Several areas had to be built up with filler and glued in bits of plastic as a base. As you can see in the video below, the countless hours of sanding, priming, sanding, and more priming led to a beautifully smooth finish. The choice of purple paint really sells the impression of a factory-fresh Game Boy Advance.

The working circuit board was desoldered and the donor board was cut into pieces to fit in the extended sides. Using some magnet wire, connections were bridged over to the original motherboard via the test points on the PCB. [Elliot] didn’t opt to swap the screen to an IPS display or add a backlight. These quality of life improvements are nice, but a dead giveaway that Nintendo didn’t make it. The goal is to get the user to wonder, even if just for a second, what if Nintendo just happened to make this wide one-off handheld console.

[Elliot] made it simply because he found it interesting and enjoyed the form of the thing he made. Is it a hack? Is it art? Probably a little bit of both. This isn’t his first modified Nintendo handheld either. He previously made a long Nintendo Gameboy DMG-01. We love seeing all the wild hacks and tweaks made to Game Boy line, such as this Game Boy Color inside the DMG-01.

Continue reading “The Stretch Limo Of Game Boys” →

Game Boy Color Makes Itself At Home In A DMG-01

August 6, 2021 by 2 Comments

When we last checked in with [Bucket Mouse], he had just finished cramming a Game Boy Advance (GBA) SP motherboard into the body of the iconic Game Boy DMG-01, complete with an aftermarket IPS display. Unfortunately, after a few weeks of using the system, he ran into a few issues that sent him back to the drawing board.

This time, he’s revamped Nintendo’s classic handheld with the internals from its successor, the Game Boy Color (GBC). Obviously that means this new build can’t play any GBA titles, but that was never actually the goal in the first place. It might seem obvious in hindsight, but owing to their general similarity, it ended up being far easier to fit the GBC hardware into the Game Boy’s shell. Though we still wouldn’t call this an “easy” swap by any stretch of the imagination…

Whether you want to follow his footsteps towards portable gaming bliss or just want to live vicariously through his soldering iron, [Bucket Mouse] has done an absolutely phenomenal job of documenting this build. While he cautions the write-up isn’t designed to be a step by step instructional piece, there’s an incredible wealth of information here for others looking to perform similar modifications.

The build involved removing much of the original Game Boy’s connectors and controls, such as the volume wheel, Link Port, and even headphone jack, and grafting them onto a GBC motherboard that’s been physically trimmed down. At a high level it’s not unlike the trimmed Wii portables we’ve seen, but made much easier due to the fact the GBC only used a two-layer PCB. It also helps that [Bucket Mouse] has once again used an aftermarket IPS display, as that meant he could literally cut off the LCD driver section of the GBC motherboard. Of course there have also been several hardware additions, such as a new audio amplifier, power regulation system, LiPo charger, and 2000 mAh battery.

There’s a lot of fantastic details on this one, so if you’re remotely interested in what made the Game Boy and its successors tick, we’d highly recommend taking the time to read through this handheld hacking tour de force. His previous build is also more than worthy of some close study, even if it ended up being a bit ungainly in practice.

A LiPo Cell Makes A 4AA Pack For A GameBoy

July 31, 2021 by 14 Comments

Electronic toys of yesteryear were fantastic objects of desire, but came with the fatal flaw of requiring batteries. Batteries that cost more than the average youngster’s pocket money and for which the pestered parent were usually unwilling to fork out every couple of days to support an incessant playing habit. It’s something [Sen] has addressed for the Nintendo Game Boy, and rather than cutting the device up and soldering wires, the result is a unit that neatly slots into the existing 4AA battery enclosure.

The Nintendo rechargable Game Boy pack.
Much more convenient than Nintendo’s own effort!

Electrically it’s a simple case of wiring up an Adafruit module and a pouch cell, but that’s not the essence of the job in this case. Instead a huge quantity of work and iteration has gone into CAD design to the perfect-fitting pack. It’s sure to be a boon for today’s Game Boy player, but much more than that it should be of interest to owners of far more devices that take four AA cells. Most of us probably keep a few packs of AAs for just those moments, perhaps meanwhile something like this could be a handy thing to have instead.

More traditional conversions resort to extreme measures, as with this Game Boy Color.