Slashdot Mirror
Turn Your GBA Into A Game Console
Kon writes "Here's a site that has photos and describes some very nice mods for the GameBoy Advance
(original model), which make it function more like a video game console, yet still
remaining portable. These mods include a Neo Geo joystick attachment, power management
mod, and an RGB LCD monitor attachment. If you're not too squeamish you can try
them as well, using the instructions which are provided."
Less trouble that way.
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
Coming next: how to buy a Sony Walkman and nail it to your wall!!
Is it just me ir is this completely missing the point!
I never apologise, I'm sorry but that's just the way I am - Homer
...well. From a technical achievement, that's very good. Impressive, lots of good stuff going on. From an 'improving the GBA' perspective, that's really kinda dumb. If you're going to do all that, just get a PS1 for the same price and not all the work, and you've got just about the same amount of portability.
The idea behind the GBA is the portability. Seriously. Tacking on all that extra stuff does not make the GBA better.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
Don't forget about the PocketNES emulator for the GBA that allows you to play over 8000 NES games on the GBA in full speed. One 256Mb flash cart can hold over 1000 NES games.
he's didn't make a webserver mod for his GBA, cause with the roughly 3 megs of images, the slashdot effect will be like dropping a 600 tonne boulder on an ant.
Canadian Cynic, canadian politics is less boring than you
PA said it well in their Addendum To The Manual
(Warning : contains a bad word or two)
I would have imagined hooking up the dead GBA to an external LCD screen would have been on the top of your list of priorities. Or are you one of the people who has that "common sense" thing everyone's talking about, and threw out/had professionally repaired/exchanged that GBA.
Karma: Excellent^(-t/Tau), Tau=Wittiness/Trollishness
perhaps one could use units like this to demonstrate gba games..
a bit polishing though.. but at least it would be an eyecatcher for sure.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'd be even more impressed if they could make a portable Gamecube. That would even be useful aswell as cool!
The GBA is a game console, albeit a portable one. I can turn a functioning GBA into something not a game console, but turning one into a game console when it's already one is -1 Redundant.
But this one *does* feel pointless, even if it's marginally cheaper than the alternative.
Gamecube + Game Boy Player + Battery pack + LCD screen.
That's maybe 3-5 hours of game time on a single charge, but you can then play any GBA/GB games as well as the full GameCube library.
Granted, it suffers of a horribly reduced hack value, but for some reason, I'm OK with that.
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
This has to be like the dumbest "mod" I have ever seen. If the regular GBA isn't big enough or have a full featured gamepad, get a gameboy player, see you can get a screen for the gamecube and a battery pack. That would cost about the same and not void any warranties. This mod is moot.
I hate sigs.
With the GameCube now priced the same as the GBA, one might as well just skip the "turn your GBA into a console" bit and go straight to owning a console! =)
"Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
I'm serious, that guy is a genius.
I've actually been working on a similar project - turning a notebook into a computer. I don't have any pictures at the moment, but in a nutshell, it pretty much involves tying a ball and chain onto my PowerBook G4. How do you like MY apples?
Gameboy? Nothing still beats the The GAMEMAN!!! 3-foot, 100+lbs full-scale working version of the Gameboy!
i would have found a sega game running on a nintendo platform using a sony ps1 monitor odd.
amazing how the competitive markets change.
There's a Penny Arcade for every situation. God (or lack thereof) knows I'm not going to try a mod where chances are decent I'm just going to break my GBA. The mod gets point for geekness, but is definitely on the impractical side.
as I would title it:
"Turn lots of time, money, resources, into a less useful GBA with a marginally larger screen."
I mean, what the hell. Make it 4x as large and 10x as clumbsey. Must be a second cousin to this guy - the Civic mod .
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I saw this Portable Playstation on TechTV the other day. It has the polish the GBA mod lacks.
mr.
I'm always disappointed when I see these 'mods' where all they do is rip out the internal components and solder a few wires to the controller. How much engineering skill does that really require? Just a drill, a soldering iron, and some basic electronics. I mean really, you can't do very much considering all of the GBA is integrated into mostly one chip. I think a more interesting mod would be where you actually interface with the GBA directly through it's game card slot or it's input ports. Sure it would take a lot of research studying protocols, but you could do so much more than just put a bunch of console systems together.
I guess it's impressive though for what it is but I wouldn't consider it a complete solution for making the gameboy into a game console. It looks too bulky.
Now, if the guy had produced a cartridge with a real, full-sized slot for, say, Atari 2600 (insert your favourite old console here) carts which were than played with an emulater, that would be a "console hack".