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Game Boy Advance RGB LCD Project
JohnHegarty writes: "Ever wanted a large backlit screen for the GBA, or even watching it on a 28" TV?
Here is a project to use a GBA on a PlayStation screen." Another example of the lengths people will go to to mock the term "pocket sized."
What he's actually done is connected a slightly bigger and brighter screen to the original LCD connector. Doesn't seem all that wonderful really.
It does invalidate your warranty, but the pictures on this page show you how impressive it is. Those of you with a PPC will know what the lighting is like.
It claims to get 10 hours gameplay with the light on, which isn't bad in the slightest.
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You probably should have went ahead and LOOKED at the article. The "playstation screen" is refering to the portable ps1 that sony is putting out. It's basically a ps1 with a small LCD attached. Retailed for around $150 USD. It's a pretty neat setup. The articles talks about hooking a GBA up to that, and using that's TV outs to up hook to a TV. But the playstation screen, does indeed refer to the portable ps1 LCD.
Read the article! It is not a television, but a Sony PSOne portable Playstation screen.
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
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What I'm kinda wondering is how well the PSOne may adapt to taking the RGB singals from arcade games as an input. It would be very interesting to see, bot from a visual standpoint (even though the screen is smaller), but also from the aspect of a portable JAMMA kit.
Mind you, "portable JAMMA" is a bix of an oxymoron. The main thing preventing it are the PCBs themselves. They're not ruggedized, and they are often quite big.
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The fact that people feel the need to mod the game to make it more enjoyable means that Nintendo hasn't done their job.
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In this case, yes. the mod is something that everyone can appreciate. it is something that if it's cost had been integrated at Nintendo rather than having to be produced independently and installed haphazardlly would probably have only added about five dollars to the unit price(i'm talking about the Afterburner here, not the PSOne screen). I can't think of anyone(not a single person) who has seen a gameboy with and without the afterburner that wouldn't have been willing to pony up the extra five for that feature when they bought it.
That hardly applies to all mods though. Ever since the video game generation grew up into hackers and consoles started to appeal to adults, there have been techies that will take any excuse to poke around inside the machines.
If somebody takes the trouble to install a burner and a larger hard-drive in their X-Box, that doesn't mean that microsoft hasn't done their job, even if every other X-Box owner thinks it's pretty cool. The cost and other issues of making that mod standard(or even an official option) would simply outweigh the benefit to the users(and the company).
Even if a system is ever "perfect"(is the exact balance of what most people want and what they're willing to spend), there will be countless geeks who mod it just on principle.
Sega was never planning to market a beowulf cluster of Linux Dreamcasts, nor should they have.
lysergically yours
That hardly applies to all mods though. Ever since the video game generation grew up into hackers and consoles started to appeal to adults, there have been techies that will take any excuse to poke around inside the machines.
I agree totally. Some of the mods I've seen, such as the portable wooden Playstation we saw a little while back were cool and neat, besides making a template for people who wanted to do something similar.
The GBA display hack, on the other hand, is a case of Nintendo just not providing what people want or need. It would be as if Apple had released the iMac without a floppy drive, but also without the option to add a floppy drive via USB. Most people just put up with it. Those who want the technology and are unwilling to put up with it change the technology.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
No, you don't get it. First off, the mod attaches the PS1's portable LCD screen, not a television. As a side-affect of attaching the LCD screen, you can also plug the thing into a TV if you so desire.
As for getting the PS2 instead and saving yourself some money...that misses the point entirely. The whole reason to get a GBA, regardless of whether you mod it or not, is to play the games available on a GBA. There are plenty of titles available on the GBA that won't be showing up on the PS2 (or any other system) for a very, very long time - if ever.
As for why you might want to attach the LCD screen... It is fairly common knowledge that the screen on the GBA basically sucks. It is small and dim. There is no backlight of any kind. This is usually cited as the one and only major flaw with the GBA. Attaching an LCD screen would eliminate this flaw. Granted, it reduces the portability, but it greatly increases the playability.
yrs,
Ephemeriis
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Hi guys, I'm glad my project made it to Slashdot.org. I should clarify a couple of things. The Innovation GBA adapter did already output the S-Video, composite video, and preamplified stereo sound, so you could go out and buy one now and play the GBA games on your TV. What I did was, I tapped the recently discovered RGB video leads and fed the signals to the PSOne LCD which uses them to drive the display. I am glad that in times when a back/front light is needed to make the games on the GBA more enjoyable, people are making their own solutions for this shortcoming. I have already got a few e-mails that I had inspired people to get out their soldering irons and do some work, even if it's not in this area. Expect a big update on the site later today. Also, I will be wrapping up the development on this project today so a video should follow shortly. Thanks to those that appreciate the work that went into this and for the record the final cost on this project is about $250. Kon