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Nintendo DS Modded to Play GB and GBC Carts

Posted by Zonk on from the original-tetris-on-the-DS- dept.

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."

18 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. I am suspicious... by Eshock · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I am suspicious... by GoRK · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Z80 CPU of the GB/GBC is basically built into the silicon of the GBA processor. It has really nothing to do with being a seperate chip of any sort. The modification works because the DS in "GBA Mode" is hardware identical to a GBA. The only other difference is that GB/GBC carts take 5V instead of 3V, which it appears is the main function of the jumper wires in this mod.

      It's likely though that after nintendo burns up their (presumable) back stock or order commitments of GBA CPU's that they will switch to a CPU that does not contain these extra elements and this modification may become impossible.

  2. Re:Why?? by pluke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's very nice to have one machine that does everything. I would be interested in seeing if Nintendo did anything special for the GB and GBC games playing environments like they did for for the GBA. I wonder if they are going to phase it in as the GBA is slowly phased out. Is the GB and GBC hardware actually used by the DS to support anything else, ala MegaDrive (Genesis for my american friends) and its sounds processor being the old mastersystem processor?

    --
    "all through my house i set up traps, it seems like the rats have a map, so now i feed the rats crack" - Donald D
  3. Re:Why?? by Goosey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you have a DS, or want a DS for playing DS/GBA games... But you also have GB/GBC games then why would you want to carry two handhelds around when you could only carry one?

    Not to mention the article also includes a tip on increasing the wifi range, which certainly seems useful regardless of if you are interested in GB/GBC games or not.

    Sounds to me like another case of CBIMCAE (Complaining because I must complain about everything)

    --
    --- "End Of Line" - MCP
  4. Fake crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Just FYI it was deleted from a moderator of that community because it's bullcrap.

  5. Joke? by eikonoklastes · · Score: 5, Informative
    From livejournal.com
    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!!!
    1. Re:Joke? by eikonoklastes · · Score: 3, Informative

      Follow the thread...

    2. Re:Joke? by lewiscr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Responding here, since I don't want to register to post at LiveJournal. For what it's worth, I have no idea at all about the DS or GBA. I don't own either and don't plan on it. IAAEE (Electrical. Engr.)

      I agree that the post sounds suspicious, but I'd like to play devils advocate. The refutation sounds almost as suspicious as the orginal post.

      > Well, grounding an already grounded wire and grounding the antenna isn't going to get you anywhere my friends.

      That depends on the current involved and the capacity of the traces. The extra current drain might be required to handle running the cart at 5V instead of 3.3V.

      I can't think of a good reason for grounding the antenna, but I can think of some plausible areas to investigate. Since the DS's processor contains the GBA's processor (stealing data from other posts). It's not uncommon for pins on these dual-mode processors to required grounding when it doesn't make sense to use the pin in that mode. You usually only find this information in the processor manual though, so it's unlikely he'd stumble acrossed it through expermental hacking.

      > How does connecting 2 points on the CPU allow you to magically get a Z80 to work, as well as having the correct voltage of 5v on GB/GBC games and 3.3v on GBA games correctly detected?

      This is an unusual way to change processor modes. The usual way is by grounding a pin or forcing it to Vcc. I would guess that one of the 2 pins is a mode pin and normally open or connected to Vcc, and the other pin is a Ground pin (possibly Vcc if the mode pin is open). By bridging the two, it's pulling the mode pin to the reference voltage of the other pin. Even if the pin was Vcc and is being pulled to ground, the current is general low enough that it would affect the battery life.

      As I mentioned above, I'm not saying the hack is legit. I just think the counter arguments are as flimsy as the orginal arguments. Have fun hacking!

    3. Re:Joke? by Eil · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And will ruin your DS, thereby voiding the warranty.

      This is a NON-STORY and Zonk, the editor, should have some common sense beaten into him for posting it to the main page.

  6. Bad News and Good News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The bad news is this story is BS.

    The good news is, you can play GB and GBC games on a DS if you have a flash cart. ...And you can take that to the bank!

    1. Re:Bad News and Good News by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

      It shouldn't be that difficult to write a gba rom that wraps gb(c) roms.

      There is such an emulator for Game Boy mono ROMs, but it doesn't support GBC-only (transparent plastic) titles.

      (Like an mp3 player NDS cartridge that uses GBA cartridges as disks.)

      If you just want to play music from a flash cart on your Nintendo DS, you don't need to go into DS mode. Get GSM Player, which works on anything that can play GBA flash carts, and fit 150 minutes of music on one 256 Mbit cart (or less if you have games on the same cart).

    2. Re:Bad News and Good News by Guspaz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Following links fom within there, it appears that the DS's encryption has been hacked (Just today even), and working cart readers have been made. So progress is being made.

  7. Re:Why? by MyDixieWrecked · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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

    because they've still got a shitload of SP units sitting on store shelves and people still need a reason to buy the SP (other than the low price point), I assume.

    --



    ...spike
    Ewwwwww, coconut...
  8. Re:This makes me happy! by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nintendo DS reads GBA flash carts just fine, so Goomba works as well on a DS as on a GBA. Two caveats:

    • Flash2Advance and EZFA flash carts are ordinarily written to through a cable connected to the GBA's link port. The GBA, GBA SP, and GameCube Game Boy Player have this port, but the DS doesn't. I'd suggest buying the EFA (Extreme Flash Advance), which is written to through a connector on the cart itself. if you want to run PocketNES and Goomba on a Nintendo DS.
    • There exists no publicly known way for GBA flash carts to access any DS specific features. This means you won't see SNES Advance ported to run natively on the DS any time soon.
  9. Adapters by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    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:

    • Sega Power Base Converter to play Master System games on Genesis/Mega Drive and a similar attachment to play Master System games on Game Gear.
    • Super Game Boy to play Game Boy games on Super NES/Super Famicom. A few Game Boy games even had enhancements specifically for Super Game Boy.
    • Game Boy Player to play almost all Game Boy, GBC, and GBA games on GameCube, but a few video-heavy GBA titles intentionally freeze on Game Boy Player because the publisher doesn't want people videotaping the FMVs.
  10. GBA Video by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  11. Re:This makes me happy! by Guppy06 · · Score: 2, Funny

    "one thing that really held me back from getting a DS thus far is my large collection of classic Gameboy games"

    WTF? Do you have a ceremonial hammer you smash your old consoles with whenever you get a new one? Is your SP going to vanish into thin air the moment you get your receipt for your DS from the store clerk? Or do people actually go through those "Trade in your old system and save $0.02!" deals at EB?

    The DS isn't supposed to replace or compete with the GBA, it's supposed to be "something else."

  12. Indeed a hoax. by Spykk · · Score: 2, Informative

    He came back with pictures after being accused of lying, but they have been debunked. Info avaialable here.