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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."

8 of 94 comments (clear)

  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. 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 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.

  5. 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!

  6. 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.