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  • Author Author: tariq.ahmad
  • Date Created: Date Created
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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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  • in reply to supertazon

    It looks great.  It is nice to see the revised pcbs built.

  • Your project is really fascinating! Also the custom PCB is incredable.

    I have one question though: Could this not be achieved by utilizing the entire SuperGameBoy motherboard instead of extracting the chips to mount them on a custom PCB?
    The ICD2-R chip on the SuperGameBoy handles both video and key input, so all necessary components are already present.
    This approach could make it more accessible to beginners, since there is no soldering of smd parts involved.

    What do you think about it?

  • Happy New Year everyone :)

    If anyone is interested in a minor upgrade, there's now an RGB332 version of the PCB & code:

    RGB332 tree-->  github.com/.../RGB332

    Also... If anyone is interested in assisting on a related project, check out:

    https://github.com/joeostrander/picodvi-dmg

    It's basically an HDMI (DVI) version of this.  I sort of put it on hold a while ago because I had issues with implementing audio over HDMI.  The video works great, but the audio quality isn't really up to snuff.  I haven't pushed my audio implementation into the repo, but if there is any interest, maybe I'll make a new branch and send it.

    Special thanks to supertazon for some awesome suggestions and finding bugs, etc.

  • I'm loving all these builds! It's really cool to see the updates and improvements that have been added.

  • in reply to supertazon

    Awesome outcome. looks like it was an official product! I especially like how the gameboy cartridge resembles the nes cart .

  • in reply to Joe_O

    Of course, a huge thank you to Andy for starting it all! For the label I designed it with Inkscape using vectorized logos I found online. I then had it printed by a local print shop on a transparent vinyl. Here's a pic of the front:

    image

    I uploaded the PDF and SVG on GitHub, you can get them here: github.com/.../

  • in reply to supertazon

    Don't forget Andy in the thanks, he started it all :)  ... and yourself too I'll add some of the improvements we worked on to the code repo soon.  The more people that get involved, the better it gets!

    Looks great, nice work!  Do you have a pic of the front?  How did you do the label?

  • image

    imageimage

    Finally finished building mine with the link port included! Really awesome work by Joe and Markeno! Thanks to Joe for all the troubleshooting!

    I recorded a video of me playing Kirby: