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Gameboy Emulation on your MP3 Player

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-thats-what-i-wanna-see-more-of dept.

webmind writes "As some may know there is an open source firmware for the Archos jukebox and the iriver h1x0 harddisk mp3 players called Rockbox. now for the iriver version there is also a gnuboy port.. no more lugging around loads of gameboy cardridges, just upload and play."

16 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds great by Breakfast+Pants · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These things always sound great.. and then the control sucks. SNES emulation on pocketpc's sounds like it would be awesome as hell.. until you find out the direction pad can only press one direction at once and therefore can't get diagonals..

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    WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
  2. Ow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Talk about horrible controls. It's makes the original NES controller look comfortable.

    1. Re:Ow. by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The original NES controller WAS comfortable. The Famicom controller was a little less precise and didn't have the same feel IMO, but the original NES controller was a joy to use. You just had to develop a useful strategy for holding it. :) What other controller allowed you to get good results in button-mashing games by putting your thumbnail between the buttons and rubbing it back and forth like you were trying to polish something?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just buy a gameboy. They're affordable and play all of the games perfectly.

    1. Re:Why? by someme2 · · Score: 2, Funny
      and maybe a fourth [PC] for viewing my desktop background.
      I have one of those! It features advanced super thin display technology. I glued it on the walls of my bedroom and installed "chipwood.jpg".
      --
      You can attach boosters to anything. It just costs more. -
      Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07, @12:26PM
  4. GB mono emulation on GBA by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    no more lugging around loads of gameboy cardridges, just upload and play.

    This has been possible for a long time. The Game Boy Advance with a GBA flash cart can emulate the Game Boy monochrome system; a single flash cart can hold up to 32 MBytes or 64 MBytes of GB ROMs.

    There is also something called the GB Bridge, which translates between GB mono/GBC wire protocol and GBA wire protocol, letting the GBA run GBC games using its GBC hardware, but it doesn't work with most of the newer flash carts.

  5. yes but.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    a cooler hack would let me play mp3's on my old gameboy.

    1. Re:yes but.. by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

      a cooler hack would let me play mp3's on my old gameboy.

      For the old Game Boy systems, there is an MP3 player called SongPro. For the GBA and GBA SP, there is the GSM Player, which uses GBA flash carts.

  6. So does that mean... by game+kid · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...people will actually play Tetris with something besides the classic tracks? BLASPHEMY! (Unless it's a Lil Jon song that says YEEAAAHHHH after every 4-line combo.)

    --
    You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  7. Tetris by Idimmu+Xul · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'd love to see the Rockbox port for the H3x0, who cares about diagnol controls, being able to play Tetris, possibly against multiple opponents using the USB port and hub that it comes with would be totally awesome!

    --
    The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
  8. What I Want... by SubDude · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can I get my Gameboy to emulate a cell-phone?

  9. iRiver one of most under-appreciated MP3 by vision33r · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've owned 3 ipods that I had to get rid of because of consistent freezing and deteriorating battery life. My iRiver iHP-120 over 1 yr just performs rock solid. Yes, it is not white so noobs thinks its not a MP3 player but I don't have to take out of my pocket and finger circle to find songs. Just 1-2 clicks on the iRiver remote control does a dandy job. Now with people working on modding the firmware this little gem of a MP3 player is like the Linux of MP3 player and Ipod is the Windoze.

    1. Re:iRiver one of most under-appreciated MP3 by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have a G1 ipod that works nearly as well as it did on day one as it does now.
      Conversly my iriver has been repaired 4 times due to failures.
      Also if you wish to see moded firmware , the ipod has its fair share of projects
      http://ipod.hackaday.com.nyud.net:8090/ just have a look there.
      irivers are fine players ,lets not sully things with an " A is X and b is Y " argument

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    2. Re:iRiver one of most under-appreciated MP3 by goMac2500 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thats funny. My iPod has an Apple supplied remote too, so I don't have to take my iPod out of my pocket either...

  10. Path of Technology by page275 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, it will come to the point where there is a portable device that contains all features of a PDA, a cellphone, an mp3 player, a game machine ...

    ... Well, just sounds like a notebook with a telephone attachs to it.

  11. Re:ipod by Storlek · · Score: 2, Interesting

    just two colors ("on" and "off", as it would happen)

    The mono iPod has four shades at least. The borders between the days in the calendar are a light gray; and the back of the cards in solitaire are a darker gray. Add "on" (black) and "off" and you have four colors. (Incidentally, the Gameboy uses a four-color grayscale display as well.)

    EveryMac has some very detailed tech specs about the iPod; the fourth generation model has dual 80MHz ARM processors and 32 megabytes of RAM, which I would imagine is more than enough to emulate the Gameboy's 8MHz with 64k RAM. The button limitation would require some creativity, but it wouldn't be impossible.

    --
    Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.