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I feel like a dipshit for not including this little gem in my submission.

Oh well, here it is...

In the GBA Develop and Backup category, Lik Sang still has the MBV2 cable.

If you want flash memory cartridges and writers for GBA, CDworld and Game Gizmo still have them.

I was kicked off of EBay for something similar -- I was selling my beloved Dreamcast which came with the serialpc cable that can be used to boot your DC with your own software (i.e. NetBSD or Linux). Now, you COULD in THEORY, download an entire disc via the serial cable in about 24 hours or so.

Now, the first auction that they yanked contained references to some games that I had "backed up". Well, I'll agree with them that they were in the right to yank that auction. Well, I reposted the auction, assuming that their reference to "infringing items" meant these backed-up CDs, so it still had the serial cable on it.

Well, shortly after posting that auction, they canned it, AND canned my logon, saying that I had repeatedly posted infringing items! I had a couple of terse emails with my buddy "Nigel" at eBay, who argued that the infringing items where still on there -- the coder's cable! (Note: they didn't specify what was infringing on the first email, I had just assumed it was the backups) Anyway, after doing some research on the cable I found that it was possible to backup games -- over 24 hours! Anyway, I gave into them, and sweated out my 6 months suspension.

However, after reading this article about backing up GD-ROM data with a broadband adapter -- should these be outlawed, too?

eBay is certainly attempting to cover themselves, and while I support their right to refuse service to anyone, under any circumstances, and I realize that eBay is more a privilege than a right, I don't appreciate it as a consumer.

Lik-sang still has pre-modded (Region-free) Gamecube consoles for sale. Did Nintendo give them permission to sell those?

Special discs that allow you to play imports without mod chips

Forget the keyboard. Get the PS/2 (the port, not the game console) adaptor.
It will allow you to connect a regular pc mouse or keyboard to the DC.

Where?
Lik-Sang, of course..

oh.. wait.. Microsoft... Right..

Seriously.. what's the speed on those gamepad sockets? Anyone tried to map them as an USB port?

Besides, it's being developed for MULTIPLE PLATFORMS.

By "multiple console platforms", do they mean "multiple DVD/miniDVD based console platforms, that is, only for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube" or do they include Game Boy Advance? Because if it's available on GBA, it's available on Windows and Linux: just buy the cartridge, plug it into your Visoly linker, and run it in VisualBoyAdvance.

because most movies are bigger than the 4.7 GB of space you get on a blank DVD recordable.

I realized this two minutes after I submitted the comment. However, you'll still find a lot of single-layer (4.7 GB) DVD movies out there.

Or you could get one of those players that plays MPEG-4 movies, such as a PlayStation2 console or this set-top DivX player.

You seem to misunderstand. PocketNES is a NES emulator that runs on the Gameboy Advance. Flash cartidges (aka "backup" carts) for the Gameboy Advance are easily purchased over the internet. Lik-sang is a respected source for such GBA flash carts.

Using PocketNES with a 512Mb flash cart would allow you to put basically all of your favorite NES games on one tiny little cart. No carrying around a bulky card swiping device with tons of cards. Just one small cart plugged into your GBA gives you hundreds of classic NES games.

Considering that classic NES games can be purchased for under $10 from Ebay or used game stores... you can legally own and use the roms with PocketNES as long as you own the original cart.

Find some roms here and there....(No links)

A little flash reader here....

You got it.

I would agree with you.. but theres one small problem.

Its called "PS2 DVD Region Free." A PS2 swapdisk that allows you to select which region you want. I got this for my imported r2 and r3 dvds (all of which have english subs, love you ghibli.) It works fantastically, ive never had a problem playing anything with it.

Oh, it also costs less then 20 Dollars.

No, there must of been another reason. Perhaps it was simply a token gesture, who knows.

9 wires only

Full BIOS update possible

Works with all import games (US, JAP and PAL)

Original BIOS remains unmodified

Works with online games

Import games works with standard AV cable in full color

The only "ModChip" 100% safe for future upgrades

Allows to use home-made software on the Xbox

Parallel port built-in - upgrade BIOS anytime without soldering

Play Import games

Play Backup games

There's discussion on the Xbox mod forums about all of this. Some people seem to think this is a good solution. For $60, I'd give it a shot.

When will we all learn how to make a simple link to the page we're talking about?

The DivX Cube (Aluminum Mini Computer) is one of the first good looking all-in-one PC solutions to create your own audio and video station which can perfectly be integrated into your existing home theatre system.

Why would anybody want that overpriced, crippled alternative??

Yes and yes. Lik-Sang sells box VGA converters for a mere fifty bones. i> With the Xbox VGA Box, you can connect your Xbox console to a VGA monitor for a much brighter display. The adapter supports Auto switching between TV game or PC connection and automatic PAL/NTSC detection. It is compatible with PAL and NTSC consoles, 50/60hz.

Actually, there are quite a few PSX->USB convertors that will work without modding your pad. These convertors map the PSX directional input to USB buttons, so you don't have the L+R or U+D axes problem.

I know these work from experience
I hear these work
And I hear these work too

Or Here, if you don't feel like giving RupertJ a commission on everything you buy there.

As far as I know, Lik-Sang only ran out of these things recently. The actual product link is here. Perhaps this is where you can pre-order these new ones? Also it should be noted that not all American DC games are compatible with the Japanese BBA (most notably PSO).
I remember discovering that I had gotten the money to order one from Sega.com a week after they'd stopped production. Blargh.
-- Yukanojo (who keeps forgetting his password)

Have a look here: Open Xbox - PC - Bioxx

Odd that it's just now coming out, eh? ;-)

Next

Dungeon & Guarder

I keep getting killed though... it isn't easy!

That person will go out and buy a copy of Super Mario Advance so they can play it without emu bugs and on the bus, during coffee breaks, etc.

unfortunatly, you can get flash cartridges for GBA or GB, that will allow you to play any game you download, bug free.

The other reason nintendo can't do this is that they don't own the rights to most of the games released for the NES. They would have to keep track of the rights of all the games and then send small royalties out to all those companies...

By the way, nothing against Super Mario 3 (definately one of the best in the series and one of the best NES games ever), I am really glad they are releasing Yoshi's Island like this. Have you played it before? Its an amazing game, and definately a worthy member of the series. It always seemed like it was released and marketed more as a offshoot of the series instead of a bone fide sequel. I'm looking forward to it being in my portable library. Besides, a Mario All Stars for GBA is almost assuredly on the way.

Another thing - if you want SMB3 on your GBA now, head over to lik-sang, get yourself a flash cart and linker, and then download the PocketNes, a GBA NES emulator.

Pricey indeed. The complete specs for the A1000 they put together is on their site. I'm sure if you badger them for the complete specs on the NES or A2600 they'll tell you. There's no custom-manufactured hardware in there; this is just a pricewatch or ebay affair here, folks. Even the "adapted" NES controllers they're selling for $40 (!!!!) are available on the net, or you could even make them yourself. But, whatever, the 40-50% profit they're making is alright with me, if I find the urge to have a PC in an NES case, I'll do the research and build it myself...

If you're interested in Small Form Factor (SFF) stuff, I'd suggest this forum.

1. Eden EPIA w/chasis and powersupply
2. PS Joy Converter (USB)
3. Playstation Controller
4. Debian Linux
5. FCE Ultra

Then check out GP32 ("GamePark 32"), which IMHO is the GBA done right. It supports RF wireless gaming and has a bunch of other cool features that make it a way more desirable handheld console than the GBA.

On the flip side, it costs more than twice as much (~USD 160) and has far fewer games (almost all in Korean!).

You can buy one for yourself at Lik-Sang.

>So bypassing Macrovision is legal on VHS, but not on DVD, is that correct?

Yes and no.

Yes for sure on VHS.

With DVD, it is illegal if you bypass it _inside_ the DVD player (usually by reprogramming the BIOS so that it refuses to turn on the Macrovision chip). But, if you buy a Time Base Corrector ($$$ unfortunately) and place it on the Composite or S-Video outputs of the DVD player that is legal because at that point the signal is in the analog domain.

So, basically this is legal (and sold in the US), however, this is not legal and is only sold outside the US. [Fortunately, I live in Canuckville so I can link to that. If you're American and click on that you can probably go to jail for it. ;-) ]

I know, its stupid. Welcome to the world of crappy stupid laws. Canada just got their own making it illegal for me to associate myself with American TV. Too bad our charter of rights isn't worth the paper its printed on...

A cartridge that could be loaded with downloaded ROMs and played would be nice, though...doesn't somebody make such a device?

$69 at lik sang

Ha Ha Ha!

I've got the afterburner backlight so I can actually see my screen!

I've got the 256Mbit flash cartridge so I can load roms onto it!

I've got PocketNES v7a NES emulator with over 100 of my favorite NES games installed!

It all cost $69 (GBA) + $35 (afterburner) + $159 (256mbit flash) + $45 (linker for copying roms to flash) = about $300! Hey, that's kinda expensive. BUT WORTH IT.

HA HA HA!

They already have one - it's not official, but it is there. Everyone's favorite HK reseller, Lik-Sang will be selling pre-modded GBAs with the afterburner kit built-in.

Have fun!
--pi

They already have one - it's not official, but it is there. Everyone's favorite HK reseller, Lik-Sang will be selling pre-modded GBAs with the afterburner kit built-in.

Have fun!
--pi

They already have one - it's not official, but it is there. Everyone's favorite HK reseller, Lik-Sang will be selling pre-modded GBAs with the afterburner kit built-in.

Have fun!
--pi

There is already a NES emulator available for the Gameboy Advance called PocketNES. This emulator is great - it runs at full speed and has great sound support. You can even link up another GBA and play 2 players with just one cartridge. You have to have a Flash Advance linker in order to play on your GBA hardware though.

CD-R + cdrecord + mkisofs + Image of a DOS floppy and you're "in the zone".

Rare?

Why not just get a real gaming system? Or better yet, a PC?

I already have a PC (Acer TravelMate 721TX, 333 MHz PII with 128 MB RAM, which I bought when I entered college three years ago). It's just barely fast enough to run VisualBoyAdvance at a semi-playable speed. And it's a lot heavier than a Game Boy Advance system. And $200 rechargeable battery packs don't seem to live very long.

The cradle to copy Game Boy Advance cartridges into your PC (so that you can run them in VisualBoyAdvance) costs $45. For only $65 more, you can get a real Game Boy Advance system with a real Afterburner light.

Want your GBA backlit?
go here
Want to play your GBA on a TV (cause we all know that 240x160 looks great on a 27 inch TV!) then go here (or here if you are in a PAL region).

So you can pay about 80 bux for the TV adapter and 35 for the backlight on a REAL GBA LCD...or build this ugly contraption...your choice

Want your GBA backlit?
go here
Want to play your GBA on a TV (cause we all know that 240x160 looks great on a 27 inch TV!) then go here (or here if you are in a PAL region).

So you can pay about 80 bux for the TV adapter and 35 for the backlight on a REAL GBA LCD...or build this ugly contraption...your choice

Want your GBA backlit?
go here
Want to play your GBA on a TV (cause we all know that 240x160 looks great on a 27 inch TV!) then go here (or here if you are in a PAL region).

So you can pay about 80 bux for the TV adapter and 35 for the backlight on a REAL GBA LCD...or build this ugly contraption...your choice

Lik Sang sell GBA's with Afterburner already installed for 109 USD (74.83 GBP). You can also find places who will fix it for about 35 GBP (probably about 50 USD).

Personally I'd look on EBay for an unused/unwanted GBA, buy one of them and then pay someone to install it. Since you're invalidating your warranty anyway, there's no real point to getting a brand new one - it'll also work out quite a bit cheaper.

I dipped into lankwei.com (as mentioned in the original article), and found this page with info on various flash ROM products. Not exactly cheap...

-----
Apple hardware still too expensive for you? How about a raffle ticket?

[GBA has platform games, and] So does a PC [link to Boycott Advance, a GBA emulator].

Yes, but you still have to buy the cartridge reader for $45 from a Visoly dealer such as Lik Sang. A GBA doesn't cost much more than that. And even then, VisualBoyAdvance is a bit more accurate than Boycott Advance (for GBA) and Marat's VGB (for GB/GBC).

[links to Super NES, Genesis, N64, and Game Boy emulators]

For one thing: Do NOT use iNES or NESticle. They have a bug in their VBlank handling that causes some games to skip their delay loops or perform other weird actions.

For another thing, cart readers for Super NES, Sega Genesis, and N64 were extremely hard to come by last time I checked.

[PlayStation emulator]

It's easy to read most PSX games (they're ISO 9660 file systems for Christ's sake), but many PSX games do not work well with a keyboard. If you're going to carry a USB PSX pad (Gravis GamePad Pro) with your laptop, why not just carry a GBA?

Since you look a little confused, let me help you. If you want quality portable classic NES gaming, I suggest the following:
PocketNES NES Emulator for the GBA
Gameboy Advance
Flash GBA Cartridge for "burning" NES, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance games
Note that you could burn all of your favorite NES, GB, GBC, and GBA games to that one Flash Cartridge because the Flash Cart comes with a multi-rom menu feature.

With all of that gaming on the go... the great battery life, nice controls, etc... what else would you need? Also, note that running the NES emulator directly on the Gameboy Advance's hardware is far better than running it ontop of a non-realtime operating system such as Linux and WinCE. Gaming, imo, requires a realtime OS or no OS at all. I mean, who really likes those pauses in the middle of a heavy action sequence in your game?

Anybody want to pool money for a GCN development kit??? ;)

Too expensive. You can get a pretty good set of GBA development hardware for under $300 at Lik Sang. Given that you probably already have a Windows computer (and if you don't, get one for $1000 at dell.com), I'll break down what else you need: $110 for a GBA with a pre-installed Afterburner internal light, $40 for an MBV2 cable to test out small (< 128 KB) programs, $100 for a flash cartridge and linker, and in the neighborhood of $30 for S&H from Hong Kong via EMS Speedpost. While you're saving up, you can learn the basics with Devkit Advance (GCC hosted on Windows or Linux and targeted for GBA) and VisualBoyAdvance (emulates the GBA's runtime environment).

Anybody want to pool money for a GCN development kit??? ;)

Too expensive. You can get a pretty good set of GBA development hardware for under $300 at Lik Sang. Given that you probably already have a Windows computer (and if you don't, get one for $1000 at dell.com), I'll break down what else you need: $110 for a GBA with a pre-installed Afterburner internal light, $40 for an MBV2 cable to test out small (< 128 KB) programs, $100 for a flash cartridge and linker, and in the neighborhood of $30 for S&H from Hong Kong via EMS Speedpost. While you're saving up, you can learn the basics with Devkit Advance (GCC hosted on Windows or Linux and targeted for GBA) and VisualBoyAdvance (emulates the GBA's runtime environment).

Anybody want to pool money for a GCN development kit??? ;)

Too expensive. You can get a pretty good set of GBA development hardware for under $300 at Lik Sang. Given that you probably already have a Windows computer (and if you don't, get one for $1000 at dell.com), I'll break down what else you need: $110 for a GBA with a pre-installed Afterburner internal light, $40 for an MBV2 cable to test out small (< 128 KB) programs, $100 for a flash cartridge and linker, and in the neighborhood of $30 for S&H from Hong Kong via EMS Speedpost. While you're saving up, you can learn the basics with Devkit Advance (GCC hosted on Windows or Linux and targeted for GBA) and VisualBoyAdvance (emulates the GBA's runtime environment).

Not only that, but with the TV de Advance you can play those great 2D gameboy games on your TV in your living room, just like the old days.

I think the biggest (only?) reason for the superior graphics was that NEO-GEO modules are much bigger (physically and logically) than those of any ROM-based console ever. E.g. Metal Slug 3 has 708 Mb. 708 Mb, IN ROM CHIPS! Compare that to the puny 16 Mb Genesis or SNES Modules.

The Game Boy Advance (16 MiHz ARM processor, Super NES-like graphics chipset) may soon top that. Right now, you can buy Visoly flash cartridges that hold 512 megabits. The biggest current games are only 64 megabits, but that will change as prices fall.

Here's a remote at Lik-Sang, but its "not available". You can get a remote in this VCD pack, though. And its only $25!

Here's a remote at Lik-Sang, but its "not available". You can get a remote in this VCD pack, though. And its only $25!