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WonderSwan Advance

pecka writes "There is an article about a guy who took apart his WonderSwan Color and inserted Gameboy Advance motherboard and screen into the WS case so he can play WS games along with GBA's ones. And yeah, it's in French so you better use Babelfish." I'd call that an impressive hack!

24 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I hope that sounds better in Japanese by Imperial+Tacohead · · Score: 3, Funny

    They're not always random. Some makers of that kind of clothing apparently have a rather disturbing sense of humor. Walking through Berkeley with a half-Japanese friend of mine one day, she started giggling for no apparent reason. I asked her why, and she said that a passing white girl's t-shirt said "whore" on the front. On the one hand, I didn't think it was funny, but on the other hand, you get what you deserve in a case like that.

  2. Re:I hope that sounds better in Japanese by British · · Score: 2

    Wait, did it say "Whore" in English or Japanese? If it was in Japanese, that's hilarious since she(shirt wearer) probably doesn't know what it means.

  3. Re:The WonderSwan FAQ by pallex · · Score: 2

    They are free to put what they want on their webpages. Surely you arent suggesting that website content somehow becomes a legally binding contract which you are subject to just because you`ve viewed it?

  4. Re:I hope that sounds better in Japanese by factor-C · · Score: 2, Informative
    You don't understand what you're talking about. The Japanese grammatical structure is quite different from that of English. What you see on their clothes are English words written in Japanese grammatical structure. A Japanese person that knows the literal definition of the English words will know exactly what it means. In English, we say: Bob has long hair. In Japanese (literally translated to English) they would say: Long hair Bob has. It gets a lot wierder than that as you get into more complex sentence structure.

    Basically those sayings are translated for a Japanese person that understands the literal definition of the words but uses Japanese grammatical structure. Knowing this, it may still seem strange, but then again we often associate nuances to words that are not part of their literal definition, so we may deem their choice of words inappropriate when they are in fact in keeping with the literal definition.

    --
    ...
    string* plamenessFilter =
    *plamenessFilter = "Flaming Death!!";
  5. Ignorants by M3wThr33 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Man... you would think some of you people understand the overseas world of video games. The wonderswan is the brain child and swansong of Gunpei Yokoi, designer of Metroid, Kid Icarus, Game & Watch, the dubious Gameboy and Gameboy Pocket and the Virtual boy. Sadly, after the Virtual Boy he left NCL and went to Bandai to design a handheld called the WonderSwan. Featuring dual joypads serving a similar function as a Lynx's, but could also be additional buttons. It had 16 level grayscale, but held horizontal like a Game Gear. It also had PDA abilites with datebooks and calculators. The main reason it still survives in Japan is the fact their is a color version and it sports the handheld version of Final Fantasy with numerous improvements as background battlegraphics, save ANYWHERE, and the bonus game can be done to give a small amount of money upon completion. I can't recall on the status of the 2 and 3. Unfortunately, Bandai has no plans to bring it here, as Americans are much less prone to accept a new radical handheld device from any company other than the Big N. If you are wondering about the status of the illustrious designer, he passed away a few years ago in a car crash, but his innovation lives on.

  6. Ooh! Victor Mature alert. by pallex · · Score: 2

    Its not racist because you arent laughing at them on grounds of race; you`re doing it because then t-shirt is funny.

  7. Re:The WonderSwan FAQ by pallex · · Score: 2

    "Bernie Stolar, the guy responsible for the Dreamcast lauch...and other things that Sega Saturn fans know too well (that's another story...) sign on with Mattel for the launch of the Wonder Swan."

    Dreamcast, Saturn, Mattel - Wow! With him behind you, it cant be long before this device blows the GBA out of the water. Move over Nintendo! :)

  8. GBA games ONLY by jx100 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The unit can ONLY play GBA games. The guy just chopped up a GBA motherboard and stuffed it into a Wonderswan case.

    1. Re:GBA games ONLY by _Bean_ · · Score: 2, Informative

      God I hate people like you. Perhaps you should read the article. Of course if the slashdot editor had done his job the article summary would be correct and we wouldn't have this problem.

    2. Re:GBA games ONLY by Dahan · · Score: 2, Informative
      From Nintendo, I guess. See the © 2001 Nintendo at the bottom?

      Really, it only plays GBA games. It's just the shell of a Wonderswan. Take a French class, then go read the article :)

    3. Re:GBA games ONLY by itarget · · Score: 2, Informative

      He's quite correct, actually. It's just a GBA inside a wonderswan case with some rewiring.

      If this is what threw you (not sure what the babelfish translation would look like, but I imagine it would be misleading):

      "il a fallut retravailler l'intérieur pour la mise en place des 2 cartes mère"

      He means that he had to rework the interior to make room for two motherboards, not cartridges.
      In french, cartridge == cartrouche, not carte.
      There's just one cartridge port, for gba cartridges, sort of sticking out the back. The wonderswan motherboard's only purpose is to handle the sound and buttons (then passing on the signals to the gba board behind it)

      On a side note, it looks like it could be accidentally snapped off if a little too much pressure were applied horizontally across the top of the cartridge (like a slipping finger). That would suck. :-P

      --

      "Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
  9. This is a WonderSwan by CoreyGH · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here are some pics of the WonderSwan from their japanese website for those wondering what it is. And this is the hompage for the WonderSwan.

    1. Re:This is a WonderSwan by Jonathan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What's even more bizzare is that Wizardry:The Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, which more or less invented CRPGs when it was released in 1981 (God, twenty years ago!) for the Apple ][, has been ported to it! (I can't read Japanese, but I followed the Wizardry link)

  10. Re:The WonderSwan FAQ by NotAnotherReboot · · Score: 3, Redundant
    http://db.gamefaqs.com/portable/wswan/file/wonders wan_a.txt

    That's the correct link to the FAQ.

  11. I hope that sounds better in Japanese by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 5, Funny
    WonderSwan? WTH?

    Do they have a companion home console system named SuperDuck or UberSquirrel?

    I can just imagine the games they would make featuring "WonderSwan" and her sidekick "MegaGoose."

    --
    main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    1. Re:I hope that sounds better in Japanese by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 3, Funny
      Oh, that's right. I forgot that Japanese people love the look and sound of English words, but many have no idea what they mean. I learned this from Dave Barry's book "Dave Barry Does Japan" (very funny book, I recommend it) which includes the following actual quotations from T-shirts worn by unsuspecting Japanese citizens:

      I am Plump Mary.
      We're Bone Nob. We're happy our original dance.
      Nurse Mentality
      We hope to always have an open
      A souvenir goods make us happy anytime. Don't you Think So?
      Boneractive Wear

      If you head over to www.engrish.com you can see more examples of this hilarious stuff.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    2. Re:I hope that sounds better in Japanese by SilentChris · · Score: 2
      Oh come on. You don't think the Japanese make fun of Americans when they come over and try to say "Sayonara"? :)

      I think this stuff is hilarious. Mojo Dojo from Powerpuff Girls is another example.

    3. Re:I hope that sounds better in Japanese by Jonathan · · Score: 2

      It isn't bashing. Go to Japan some time and see for yourself. Granted, Westerners sound like idiots trying to say even basic Japanese things like "Domo Arigato", but at least they don't wear t-shirts with more or less random collections of Japanese words on them.

  12. names by telstar · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Wonder Swan has almost as bad a name as Game Cube or Dreamcast. I mean, I realize that the name of the thing probably sounds like Klink Klank Klong in the native tongue, but Wonder Swan? Come on...

  13. Human translation of the first few paragraphs by itarget · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Wonderswan Advance is a unique machine made with two consoles; the WSC and the GBA.

    It possesses two motherbards. One for connecting the controls of the original wonderswan, and the second as the heart of the unit running the games.

    These 2 boards were soldered onto each other with about 40 solder points. Normally I would have soldered at least 50 points, but techncal problems prevented me from doing so.

    The front face of the wonderswan, as you can see in the pictures, is blue-grey while the back face is transparent. You'll notice that a number of modifications were made to the unit to fit the motherboard of the GBA. The cartridge port as well as a number of components required me to enlarge the cartridge slot and make a number of holes to ensure that everything would fit properly. The final product isn't exactly of the best workmanship, though I must say that I didn't have the steadiest of hands while making it. I'm quite satisfied with the result, however; especially seeing as it's only a prototype.
    Back on the front of the console, you'll notice in the photos that the power, start and sound buttons are missing. Why? It's simply because I had make room for the GBA's screen, which is much thicker than the wonderswan's original screen. I moved the start and sound buttons to the top left directional pad's Y1 and Y2 buttons, while attaching the GBA's L&R button to the remaining two between them. Playability suffers in some games like F-Zero due to the awkward position of the L&R buttons. The game remains playable nonetheless, and I can tell you it's pretty funny seeing F-Zero running on a wonderswan!

    Concerning the plastic viewing window for the wonderswan's screen: I was afraid of losing a lot of the viewing area on the GBA's screen, but as it turns out, I didn't lose any from the sides and only lost three lines on the top and bottom.

    As you know, there's a black border surrounding the screen on the GBA to counter the effect of shadows falling on the screen from along the edges of the screen cavity. The wonderswan doesn't have this. The problem with these shadows is that it becomes hard to tell where the screen ends... but unfortunately a black border wasn't put in the wonderswan to save on screen real-estate. I think I'll add a black border; I'll lose a few more pixels but the shadows will have less of an effect and it'll improve esthetics.

    The unit only lasts a maximum of 7 hours, which is less than either of the original consoles, and that it uses two 1.5v AAA batteries.

    The weight of the unit right now is about the same as a GBC. As I said above, the wonderswan advance is very compact, even though the cartridge sticks out the back 4-5mm.

    (He then goes on to tell how he did it, and why. The short of the why is that he loves the WSC hardware but not bandai's poor support of the system)

    --

    "Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
  14. how about an NES handheld? by jchristopher · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This is not exactly on topic, but I had to throw it in here because it's just so damn cool. Here is a link to a company selling a handheld that plays the original 8bit famicom/NES games. I can play all my games again! (NES consoles long since broken). Crazy thing is it actually takes the full NES cartridge.

    Same place has all sorts of shit imported from Asia - LCDs for your car for DVDs or Playstations, mod chips, all sorts of weird cellular stuff, etc. I don't work there or anything, just thought it was cool.

    1. Re:how about an NES handheld? by Zigg · · Score: 2

      Heh, check it out, 20.63% off if you buy 5.

      I think I'll hold out for 20.64%, personally.

    2. Re:how about an NES handheld? by jchristopher · · Score: 2

      Time Doctor, how about a URL for the procedure you just described? Sounds cool but is it do-able by your average joe?

  15. Re:The WonderSwan FAQ by Nameles · · Score: 2, Informative

    Erm.... Look at the bottom of all GameFAQs pages. No linking directly to FAQs