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  • Author Author: tariq.ahmad
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The Game Guy Mini, Upgrading the Unportable Game Boy! -- Episode 577

element14 Community member Joe Ostrander saw the "Unportable Game Boy" that Andy made in a previous video, and decided to make a new and improved version. In this episode, Andy builds a console from Joe's upgraded design and demonstrates its features, including several enhancements that were requested by viewers.

Watch the Video:

Supplemental Content:

Bill of Material:

Product Name Manufacturer Quantity Buy Kit
SMD Level Shifter SN74LVC245ANSR TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 1 Buy Now
Crystal, 4.194304 MHz, SMD, 11.5mm x 4.7mm, 30 ppm, 18 pF, 30 ppm, ABLS Series ABRACON 1 Buy Now
CAP, 27PF, 50V, MLCC, 0201 MURATA 2 Buy Now
Surface Mount Tantalum Capacitor, 1 µF, 50 V, 1411 [3528 Metric], ± 10%, 6 ohm, B KEMET 2 Buy Now
Raspberry Pi Pico, Microcontroller Board, RP2040, 32 bit, 2MB Flash, ARM Cortex-M0+ RASPBERRY-PI 1 Buy Now
RES, 10K, 0.5%, 0.1W, 0603, THIN FILM ROHS COMPLIANT: YES YAGEO 2 Buy Now
RES, 1K, 0.1%, 0.1W, 0603, THIN FILM ROHS COMPLIANT: YES YAGEO 3 Buy Now
RES, 500R, 0.1%, 0.1W, THIN FILM, 0603 ROHS COMPLIANT: YES YAGEO 3 Buy Now
Surface Mount Chip Resistor, Thick Film, RC Series, 47 ohm, 100 mW, 1%, 50 V, 0603 [1608 Metric] RoHS Compliant: Yes YAGEO 2 Buy Now
Surface Mount Thick Film Resistor, RC Series, 180 kohm, 100 mW, - 1%, 50 V, 0603 [1608 Metric] RoHS Compliant: Yes YAGEO 1 Buy Now
SMD Chip Resistor, 510 ohm, ± 5%, 100 mW, 0603 [1608 Metric], Thick Film, General Purpose VISHAY 2 Buy Now
SMD Chip Resistor, 1 Mohm, ± 1%, 100 mW, 0603 [1608 Metric], Thick Film, Precision PANASONIC 1 Buy Now
 

Additional Parts:

1 x Super Gameboy Famicom cartridge
1 x NESPi case
1 x Gana VGA TO HDMI
7-pin NES socket1 x 
1 x 32-pin SMD GB cartridge slot
1 each x Custom Main Board, Power Dist, and NES Socket PCBs (Designs Available on Github)
1 x  4-Pin SMD 3x4x2.5mm Tactile Push Button (optional)

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  • Terrific project! I am not sure how to contact Joe Ostrander so hopefully he’ll read this. Would it be possible to remove the VGA-HDMI converter middle-man and have a direct DMG->HDMI vidéo signal? It has been done with a fairly cheap FPGA: Tang Nano 4K: https://github.com/Martoni/GbHdmi. It would be the same price overall as while the Tang Nano 4K is more expensive than the RP2040, you don’t need the VGA to HDMI converter anymore. That would be a nice improvement to an already very nifty project!

  • in reply to supertazon

    That's a really neat project, I might have to try that out.  FPGAs are pretty cool and I'd like to play around with them some more someday.  I really liked that Andy chose the Pico for the original project though -- it's easy to write code for and it's cheap :)  

    I'm not sure how much switching to an FPGA would help in this project -- the Pico does a decent job of generating the video signal and the vga2hdmi is super cheap (like $10).  If the goal was to replace the vga2hdmi converter, then an HDMI/DVI transmitter IC could be added to the main board instead.  You could definitely shrink things down a bit more by putting an RP2040 and that directly onto the main board.

    Another video option would be to output HDMI directly from the Pico using the PicoDVI project.  I tried PicoDVI at one point but ran into some issues.  I can't remember what the exact issues were, but I think I was just too much processing time.  It was enough of a challenge for me to combine all the code to be able to run on 1 Pico and maintain timing.  Maybe someone else might be able to get PicoDVI integrated without it breaking.

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  • in reply to supertazon

    That's a really neat project, I might have to try that out.  FPGAs are pretty cool and I'd like to play around with them some more someday.  I really liked that Andy chose the Pico for the original project though -- it's easy to write code for and it's cheap :)  

    I'm not sure how much switching to an FPGA would help in this project -- the Pico does a decent job of generating the video signal and the vga2hdmi is super cheap (like $10).  If the goal was to replace the vga2hdmi converter, then an HDMI/DVI transmitter IC could be added to the main board instead.  You could definitely shrink things down a bit more by putting an RP2040 and that directly onto the main board.

    Another video option would be to output HDMI directly from the Pico using the PicoDVI project.  I tried PicoDVI at one point but ran into some issues.  I can't remember what the exact issues were, but I think I was just too much processing time.  It was enough of a challenge for me to combine all the code to be able to run on 1 Pico and maintain timing.  Maybe someone else might be able to get PicoDVI integrated without it breaking.

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  • in reply to Joe_O

    Thank you for your thorough response!

    Yes the idea is mainly to have as few intermediate chips as possible to maintain a high quality video signal. Usually VGA to HDMI adapters can have their issues.

    From my understanding it seems that PicoDVI would be the best course of action in this case! I’d love to look into that but have zero experience in Pico programming whatsoever. If anyone is up to the task it would be awesome!