Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo DS Modded to Play GB and GBC Carts
Steve E. writes "Apparently someone has made the first hardware mod to the Nintendo DS. An entry over at the Nintendo DS Livejournal Community gives detailed instructions on how to modify a DS to play legacy cartridges." From the post: "1. Disassemble your Nintendo DS. This step is fairly self explanatory, if you can't figure out how to take your DS apart, you should stop here."
This seems a little suspect, in order for this to work Nintendo would have had to have included the GBC chipset on the DS, then disabled it for some reason. It can't be done via emulation because of voltage differences between GBA and GB carts.
While the ability to play advance games was nice, one thing that really held me back from getting a DS thus far is my large collection of classic Gameboy games (many of which are still very fun! Link's Awakening anyone?).
This isn't the type of news that is gonna make me run out and buy a DS immediately, but it is enough for me to give it consideration next time I decide to spend over a hundreds bucks on a toy.
--- "End Of Line" - MCP
Sounds like another case of Y?BIC (why? because I Can) or DSOTAOS (Do Something Outrageous So I can appear on Slashdot)...
The friendliest digital photography forums on the net!
Anyone got a mirror?
Let me be the first to say, "Shut the fuck up, Donny"
oops, I guess you can shut up now
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
"Error
No such entry."
Why didn't Nintendo make the DS able to play GB and GBC games to begin with? Especially since there are still many people who play the old games.
~ Mooga
Just FYI it was deleted from a moderator of that community because it's bullcrap.
I don't want to hear any more non-sense about DS being able to be modded to play GB/GBC games. This is nothing by krap. Why? Well, grounding an already grounded wire and grounding the antenna isn't going to get you anywhere my friends. the pictures where taken from http://www.lik-sang.com/news.php?artc=3530. The voltages do not match between the DS/GBA and the GB/GBC. Remember how the GBA units had a physical switched that was pressed when you inserted a class game? This switch turned off the ARM7 CPU, turned on the Z80 CPU, upped the cart voltage from 3.3v to 5v, and changed the wiring configuration used on the link port. Grounding an already grounded pin on the cart and grounding the DS's antenna, how exactly will that accomplish all of this anyways? ITS NON-SENSE!!!
The bad news is this story is BS.
...And you can take that to the bank!
The good news is, you can play GB and GBC games on a DS if you have a flash cart.
That'd be great, but TFA is a 404 now.
oops, I guess you can get a clue now
The story is indeed a fake, that was so short lived that no one even seem to have a mirror of the original page around.
Yet it got published on slashdot, apparently deemed worthy of it based only on a weblog entry by some random guy, and a few guy backing his assertions.
Even with a defective bullshit detector, the absence of any picture attempting to proving that it indeed worked should have been enough to warrant at least a little wait for some kind of proof before slashdotting this.
Now for a mandatory tetris history nitpick:
The gameboy tetris wasn't the "original" one by any stretch of the imagination, as can be verified there.
I remember playing it on amiga quite some time before everyone started raving about the gameboy version.
I was looking forward to GB and GBC games _finally_ droping in price a bit (you'll still plunk down $30 bucks for a MegaMan game at a lot of places). When I bought my GBA, I was looking forward to lots of cheap, $5 dollar games. These days I'm lucky to find something for $15....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The Game Boy Z80 processor and Game Boy Game Paks also run at 5.0 volts rather than the 3.3 volts of the rest of the GBA's circuitry.
Or they were planning on offerign some sort of stacked-cart like the old Game Genie as a "special offer" for legacy players - something very few will want, but might pay a lot for.
It has a history:
that's what you get for not having nothing to do all day other than hitting refresh on slashdot.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
What games are known for [intentionally freezing on Game Boy Player]?
Not "games" per se. Unlike the PlayStation 2 and Xbox video game consoles, the GameCube cannot output Macrovision Video copy protection signals.
it would appear that the community mod deleted the post. however, in the meantime, the original poster has submitted photos and a link where you can read the text of the original mod instructions, along with extra photos.
DON'T BELIEVE HIS LIES
THANK YOU CAPTAIN OBVIOUS.
Yes, it'll void your warranty. YOU'RE DISASSEMBLING YOUR UNIT. And even more so, SOLDERING SHIT.
And I disagree, Zonk had every right to post it. Quit crying about the editors and go blow a load in a hot dog bun.
It was reposted with pictures of it in action. Take a look.
Article's hotlinked photos are now Goatse like.
Believe me they weren't when it was first posted. It was a fairly informative article basicly saying:
A) The chip that they are jumping the links on has RFU labeled by it (RF Unit very likely), CPU is elsewhere on the board. (I think under the DS slot was mentioned)
B) One of the case's screws is behind the serial number, in all the photos the serial numbers is whole and not broken, suggesting the case has never actually been opened.
C) No colors, if it was in a GBA the pokémon game would be colorazied. Leads to the idea that it is a flash cart with Goomba(I think thats what it is called, it's a GB emulator (only GB mono, no GBC only games), and like many other GB emulators it "yellows" the image, on a GBA it is nice and white background) stuck in a pokémon cartridge.
Forgot if this was mentioned in the dehoaxing article:
Look at his pictures of the insides
Now look at Lik-Sang's pictures of the insides. At least the one showing were to run the wires. It looks as if they took the Lik-Sang photo, chopped off the Lik-Sang logo and added the lines. (they are to similar for it to just be a coincidence, I mean the pen mark is the exact same one and where the left side chops off)
Also on the similar insides, the barcode on the other internal picture has the same exact numbers as the Lik-Sang one.
So the insides are very clearly taken from Lik-Sang.
He came back with pictures after being accused of lying, but they have been debunked. Info avaialable here.
Realized that the picture with the barcode, all the insides might have that same barcode.
However, not every picture of the inside stops on the same exact line that the Lik-Sang photo starts on.
Responding here, since I don't want to register to post at LiveJournal.
LiveJournal allows anonymous comments.
If you're too lazy to read the debunking, here's the rundown. You have to break your serial number sticker to even get at the screws to open the DS, and the pictures don't show a broken sticker. As for the screenshots with Pokemon running, they're taken using an emulator called Goomba. You'll notice that the game supposively running on the DS isn't colorized even though the GBA automatically colorizes GB games. Goomba doesn't.
Most damning of all, the connections this guy says he's making are actually on the the wireless adaptor, not the CPU.
I think [GBA Video titles freezing on Game Boy Player is] less about videotaping and more about publishing rights.
I suspected that too until I read this:
Unlike on the Xbox and PlayStation 2, there is no Macrovision chip in the GameCube.
For anyone reading this, hopefully you read this, and this
[an error occured while processing this directive]