Pokémon Tamagotchi using Digispark - Help needed

Dear: Theo

I see what your problem is. Would it hurt to just use a different microcontroller or am I missing something. Microcontroller ATTINY would work fairly good for this.

From: Noah

Hey,

thanks for the reply. What advantages would an ATTINY have? In general it would be great if the microcontroller would fit somewhere inside the housing of the Gameboy.

Dear: Theo

There are many advantages towards using atmega Atiny. First of all attiny is small and can probably fit in your gameboy. Second of all it has more pins so it will solve your problem. Third reason is that it can preform well enough to fill your needs. The only problem with it is that you are going to need to design a PCB to fit your needs but you already were going to do that since you choose the project you choose.

From: Noah

Does an Atiny really have more pins?

And a Digispark does fit just beautifully inside the Gameboy housing.

I have several of these laying around in my home, so i thought it would be reasonable to use them.

Besides, do i really need to order a custom PCB? There would not be much circuitry added exept

some resistors, at least that's what i think.

I'm the creator of the Digispark - to clear up a few things:

The Digispark is an ATTINY development board it uses the Attiny85 microcontroller and allows it to be programmed over USB with the Arduino IDE

The Trinket made by Adafruit - which is what Noah posted a photo of - is exactly the same hardware - Adafruit released this version after the Digispark's success. The Digispark has a much bigger user community behind it at digistump.com/board

The Digispark you have pictured is a counterfiet clone - you can tell because it does not have our web address "digistump.com" on the back. Most of these don't work or fail quickly due to improper parts (mostly the zener diodes and protection diode). If you'd like to get the real thing go to digistump.com - we also support all users of real digisparks through our wiki at digistump.com/wiki and our forums at digistump.com/board

You may be able to do something like this to get two outputs from one pin: Batsocks - Controlling Two LEDs per uC pin

We also sell a expander kit that adds 8 more outputs to the Digispark

To get your 5v outputs to 3.5v you could use a resistor divider (voltage divider), you could put a 3.5v zener diode from that pin to ground, or you could use a level shifter chip.

Hope that helps direct you down the right path.

Thank you for your reply Erik!

When i purchased my Digispark i did not know that it was a fake, sorry about that. Just got one from ebay since it was the easiest way do purchase one.

Also thanks for your hint about using a resistor divider, i will read into it.

It seems that the expander kit is the most straight foward  way of doing it, that's why i ordered an original Digispark + I/O expansion.

Some workaround has to be made since the depth of the expansion ontop of the Digispark probably makes it too bulky to fit at the spot i intended it to be.

Theo -

Thanks for your support!

You can wire the expander shield with wire so that you can place it anywhere - just connect Digispark -> Expander as follows:

GND->GND

5V->5V

P0->P0

P2->P2

Those are all the connections needed for the expander.

Thanks,

Erik

Hey,

it took some time for me to update my project, but here we go:

I soldered really thin wire to some testing points on the board of the gameboy for following pins, with their randromized chance to be pressed in brackets:

1. Ground

2. Up (25/200)

3. Down (25/200)

4. Left (25/200)

5. Right (25/200)

6. A (50/200)

7. B (40/200

8. Start (10/200)

He runs like a charm, with the Digispark hanging on an USB source and the Gameboy on a 3V 200mA power brick.

Now again, any tips how to run both on one source? I have plenty of spare power bricks with differentvoltages, so any tip would help.

Besides, i want to add some type of lightsource, maybe a LED strip. Also if you want to know, he is still at the first town and can't make it to the second town and he has a level 43 Bulbasaur,so he didn't evolve

In addition, i want to add some sort if input to control the chances of a button to be pressed, maybe some Potentiometers? I imagine them to be placed in between Gameboy and micro controller, so it can read the resistance.

Are the pins capable to pull this off?

Would like to get some feedback from you, i'll keep you up to date.

Best Regards,

Theo

Hey,

after some time i started to get back to my old project, but this time using a Gameboy Classic, since it would fit perfectly into the box i posted above.

But quickly after starting i ran into a problem.

It seems like the old Gameboy Classic uses a more complex circuit when it comes to button inputs, as you can see here:

In my first attempt i just connected both grounds of the Digispark and the Gameboy Color, and i wired each button i needed to a digital pin.

Unfortunately this does not work on the classical Gameboy.

I still have problems with the power management, but since the Gameboy Classic uses 4 AA batteries, it would come closer to the 5V needed for the Digispark.

Luckily i found a spot where an Arduino Micro would fit inside, so it can be one unit insdead of the ugly workaround i used on my first attempt.

So, if anyone could help me on this project i would be very thankful.

Best regards,

Theo