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Games Entertainment

Game Boy Advance RGB LCD Project 134

Posted by timothy from the if-you-have-to-ask-why dept.
JohnHegarty writes: "Ever wanted a large backlit screen for the GBA, or even watching it on a 28" TV? Here is a project to use a GBA on a PlayStation screen." Another example of the lengths people will go to to mock the term "pocket sized."
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Game Boy Advance RGB LCD Project More

Game Boy Advance RGB LCD Project

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  • Otherwise known as a television
    • You probably should have went ahead and LOOKED at the article. The "playstation screen" is refering to the portable ps1 that sony is putting out. It's basically a ps1 with a small LCD attached. Retailed for around $150 USD. It's a pretty neat setup. The articles talks about hooking a GBA up to that, and using that's TV outs to up hook to a TV. But the playstation screen, does indeed refer to the portable ps1 LCD.
    • Read the article! It is not a television, but a Sony PSOne portable Playstation screen.
    • No silly. When Sony released the PSOne version of the original PSX, they also released a 4-5 inch LCD screen that attaches to the back of the PSOne. It's meant to be a travel system, something you plug into the lighter in your minivan to keep the kids quiet on the way to Grandma's house. Check the link, and you'll see.

      Honestly, this mod would kill pretty much all battery life in the GBA. Running two screens at once, one of them 50% bigger then power specs are meant for, plus backlighting, ugh. Go to TritonLabs (http://www.tritonlabs.com [tritonlabs.com]) for a more elegant backlighting mod.

  • Erm... (Score:2, Informative)

    by ranulf ( 182665 )
    The article says specifically that he abandonded the 20" TV screen project.

    What he's actually done is connected a slightly bigger and brighter screen to the original LCD connector. Doesn't seem all that wonderful really.

    • Given that there already exists a commercial product for connecting the GBA to a television, I'm not surprised...

      ...of course, it uses a composite video signal. Creating a device that uses S-video or even component would be impressive.

  • Playing it in the dark... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @11:21AM (#3672892)
    For those of you who can't afford to go to this length, the Afterburner [tritonlabs.com] backlight upgrade is now shipping.

    It does invalidate your warranty, but the pictures [tritonlabs.com] on this page show you how impressive it is. Those of you with a PPC will know what the lighting is like.

    It claims to get 10 hours gameplay with the light on, which isn't bad in the slightest.

    • The Afterburner is a great product...as long as you are not the one to install it.

      $35 gets you the kit - the backlight, anti-reflective plastic lining, wires, resistor, and the brightness dial.

      To install it, you also need:
      a triwing screwdriver (you can use a flathead, and destroy your screws)
      a dremmel (to sand away enough plastic to make the backlight fit)
      a drill with a very, very tiny drill bit (to install the brightness dial)
      a soldering iron

      My recommendation after getting the sucker to work (and pretty much making my GBA look like shit because, to be honest, I've never soldered before and I majorly suck at it).

      A GBA costs $70. Find someplace online who will install the afterburner *for you*, ship it to them, and let them do it. Should cost you anywhere from $50 to $75 dollars. Make sure it's somebody who's done a lot of them, so they have the practice.

      I think there's a company out there who will ship a new GBA with the afterburner installed for $150 - that sounds the best option to me.

      Of course, if somebody could just convince Nintendo to make a GBA+ with the backlight already installeed, that would save even more time. But I'm not holding my breath.

      • The Afterburner is a great product...as long as you are not the one to install it.

        Lik Sang [lik-sang.com] sell GBA's with Afterburner already installed for 109 USD (74.83 GBP). You can also find places who will fix it for about 35 GBP (probably about 50 USD).

        Personally I'd look on EBay [ebay.com] for an unused/unwanted GBA, buy one of them and then pay someone to install it. Since you're invalidating your warranty anyway, there's no real point to getting a brand new one - it'll also work out quite a bit cheaper.

      • The Afterburner is a great product...as long as you are not the one to install it.

        I'll agree with the first part. I love my afterburner. The second part, well, that depends on the person. Myself, I had no problems installing it at all. I spent maybe an hour and a half one night modding my GBA case to make room the the light and the dimmer. Maybe another hour and a half the next night getting the soldering done, installing the dimmer, and finishing everything up. It plays great. Everybody I've shown it to thinks it looks great. Especially people who have stock GBA's.

        If you really have no experience soldering (I don't have much myself) and no experience with a dremel, having it installed probably isn't a bad idea. But if you have even moderate skills and patience, you should be able to do it without any problems.
      • Penny Arcade said it much more succinctly [penny-arcade.com].
      • The Afterburner is a great product...as long as you are not the one to install it.

        I agree entirely... A friend and I spent 4 hours in the clean(ish) room at my dad's work getting the thing installed, and even though we were super careful, we still got visible dust in there.

        It probably didn't help that we got wasted at a bar before hand...

        I'm kidding, you silly people! It takes more than 6 Kamikazes and 3 shots of Jaegermeister to get me drunk!

        Anyway, we had some parts left over afterwards, and it rattles a bit now, but the GBA is way more usable than when I bought it. Even though the B key doesn't work anymore...

        -If
    • I ordered an Afterburner the day pre-orders were avaiable, and received mine about two weeks ago. Installation was a breeze. The screen looks *so* good now. You can actually play the Gameboy Advance in all light conditions. I found that even in bright light, you had to continuously adjust the angle of the device because of nasty glare and reflections. And of course, in dim light, it was a no show. With the new light kit, however, not only can you play in the dark, but I find it much easier to play in bright light because of an anti-reflective coating that is also provided in the kit.

      Well worth the $35!

    • It claims to get 10 hours gameplay with the light on, which isn't bad in the slightest.

      I haven't run any scientific tests, but the battery life seems pretty good with the Afterburner installed. However, I also switched to NiMH's at about the same time as I installed my AB so I can't say how much it dropped by. I probably get 6-8 hours out of a pair of 1800mAH batteries. Which is fine, since it's easy to carry around a spare pair. The light itself is just two surface-mount white LED's, so it probably isn't drawing more than 20mA tops. It's not like you can cram a couple of incandescent lights, or a CCF tube into a GBA easily.
    • Let me just say it is next to impossible to get the antireflective film on the front of the lcd perfectly. The slightest defect in putting the film on creates 'amplified' visual artifacts on the screen. This kit is not (in my opinion of course) the end all be all.
      • Eh, that's an overstatement. Lot's of people have gotten their AR film on perfectly, myself included. I'll admit that it might be easy to screw up, but it's far from next to impossible. To be honest, I was a little suprised. I've put WriteRight protectors on the front of my GBA in the past to protect it against scratches, and I never once got one of them to go on bubble-free. But I can honestly say I got the AR film on perfectly the first time. Go figure.
    • I installed an afterburner last week. They are quite impressive. The installation is not difficult, if you TAKE YOUR TIME and RESEARCH the process in advance. You really have to plan out several of the steps beyond what the directions tell you. In fact, after reviewing the instructions and the info on the web, I went with a totally different approach to installation then the directions suggested.

      The best tips are to use scotch tape to peel off the backing on the AR film and light surface. You don't want ANY fingerprints. Also be sure to use canned air to blow dust off everything prior to mounting it.

      Applying the AR film was easy with a trick I found. Do NOT remove the backing yet. Use tape to peel off a very small part of the backing on the sticky side. Position it right on the edge. Use a long piece of tape and stick it to the remaining part of the backing. Then slide the black card along the surface while pulling the tape to peel the backing. Do that in one quick motion and you get a perfect, dust/bubble free application.
      • I installed mine, have three small air bubbles and some smudges at the edge of the screen. (OOPS!) The picture still kicks the s*** out of the unlit.

        Big RECCOMMENDATION:

        The directions reccommend putting the top cushion back on before applying the AR film. Don't. Had to redo mine twice, and that's where the air bubbles got in.

        Playing your GBA without an Afterburner is like renting VHS tapes. Sure, it works, but you know there's something better out there.

        Hammy.

  • Whoopee... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've always wanted to play low resolution games on a large screen TV - wow!
  • I admit, I'm not a really a huge console gamer (except when it comes to Halo, and all you anti-Xbox trolls can suck an egg). Yet why would you want to play a GBA game on the big screen?

    I guess people will do it just because they can, but if you're going to play a low quailty side-scroller, why not play something on the good ol' NES or SNES. About the same quality, and you get that whole nostalgia value too...

    Or you could play Halo, while drinking Steel Reserve 211, like a real man.
    • The big problem is the GBA screen is it's biggest drawback. It's not backlight, therefore it is very hard to see, in fact it can be almost impossible to play unless you has massive amounts of light. This is really a good hack to get a bigger LCD on it, thus allowing you to actually PLAY the handheld.

  • Very interesting (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fabiolrs ( 536338 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @11:24AM (#3672905) Homepage
    GBA = $100
    TV = $75
    Adapter = $200
    Total = $375

    PS2 = $200
    TV = $75
    Total = $275

    i really dont get it! :)) isnt a GBA meant to be portable? My 29" screen isnt exactly what I call portable device... :))

    (prices not exactly the same on real life)
    • GBA = $69.99
      but you still have a point.

      GBA + AfterBurner = $109 roughly

    • Read.
      The.
      Article.

      It's not being attached to a TV.
    • Geek factor: priceless

    • Re:Very interesting (Score:2, Informative)

      by Ephemeriis ( 315124 )
      No, you don't get it. First off, the mod attaches the PS1's portable LCD screen, not a television. As a side-affect of attaching the LCD screen, you can also plug the thing into a TV if you so desire.

      As for getting the PS2 instead and saving yourself some money...that misses the point entirely. The whole reason to get a GBA, regardless of whether you mod it or not, is to play the games available on a GBA. There are plenty of titles available on the GBA that won't be showing up on the PS2 (or any other system) for a very, very long time - if ever.

      As for why you might want to attach the LCD screen... It is fairly common knowledge that the screen on the GBA basically sucks. It is small and dim. There is no backlight of any kind. This is usually cited as the one and only major flaw with the GBA. Attaching an LCD screen would eliminate this flaw. Granted, it reduces the portability, but it greatly increases the playability.

      yrs,
      Ephemeriis
  • I can't believe I actually saw something referenced here without having to google cache trawl for it. I feel ... priveledged.

    The mod itself is interesting. I think that pressure on Nintendo to improve the screen situation is probably a longterm better course of action, but folks around here like to take things into their own hands (and disassemble them, modify the hell out of them and make them do things that nobody else had even imagined).

  • You're all missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 10, 2002 @11:32AM (#3672961)
    As usual, no one on slashdot reads the article - just the buzzline

    He gave up on the 20 in screen, the resolution looks terrible on that size.

    What amazed me was the brightness of the interact lcd compared to the GBA screen. Nintendo must have spent 20 cents on that screen, its truely worthless. I'm betting people will go this route to improve their display - I've seen a mod someone is selling that installs a very bright light in their GBA. I still think the first pre-order hasn't been completed yet, tells you something about demand for a better screen. Nintendo really screwed up on the screen.
    • There is something known as battery life. A brighter screen would have meant a shorter battery life. I for one would rather play for an 1 hour plus ( not sure how long it is really ) with average brightness, than 10min at full brightness, especially if the room is lit. Of course nintendo could have added a brightness control and that would probably have pleased a whole bunch of people.
    • The GBA screen is truly awful. I have to wonder what they were thinking since it's practically impossible to see the game in "normal" lighting conditions - everything is just too dark. Even with special lights, the screen is so shiny you just see glare from the lights. I have to say the screen has really turned me off the platform.


      How much would it have cost them to implement a decent backlight? I doubt it would have been more than a dollar of electronics.

  • cool (Score:1)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    I think in a few years normal consoles will be small enough that we will just have a single device that plugs in to normal TVs, LCD monitors, or even its own portable mini-screen.

    And they'll run Linux, of course.

    :P

  • Good games, baaad platform. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @11:37AM (#3672988)
    The GBA games I've seen are about on par with SNES and Sega-genesis era system requirements. These include platform games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, and Super Mario World, IMHO some of the best video games ever produced.

    In fact, since the days of 16bit processing, games have not expanded in playability as fast as they have expanded in terms of special effects, graphic capabilities and system usage.

    Despite the fact that you can now play Sonic in a glorious 3d world on the Nintendo Game Cube, the playability and enjoyment factor just isn't the same as the old side-scrolling platform Sonic games. Sonic 2 and 3 on Genesis are incredible, infinitely playable games. I fire up a Genesis emulator about once a month and play them through again just for kicks. I occasionally find something new when I play.

    Since this is the kind of game best suited for the GBA and the people at Nintendo and Sega *do* understand the difference between 'playable' and 'dazzling', it's not surprising that they've chosen this platform to 'ressurect' some of these older sprite-based game engines.

    That said, it's a shame that they didn't include RGB or composit out on the GBA, because the size of the GBA's display just doesn't do these kinds of games justice. It's true that they don't have particle and polygon-based graphics. It's also true that the games are playable on a small screen albeit with lots of lighting. What Ninentdo seems to have missed is that the first time we played these games, we did so on larger displays. The games are just more enjoyable if you don't have to squint against the glare of a halogen spotlight to see them.

    I, for one, would like to see every handheld in the future ship with either a RBG or Composite video out plug so that you can play the game on a TV or a 'portable' LCD screen. The fact that people feel the need to mod the game to make it more enjoyable means that Nintendo hasn't don their job.
    • My team just released our second game for GBA, an action RPG, third person isometric perspective. The characters were all rendered in 3D (all part of the challenge of fitting a game into a 4 meg cart), and we had a rudimentary partcle system.

      It's a small box, but you can do some pretty crazy things with it.

      (The game is for a movie that comes out this month, staring a CG dog. 'Nuff said.)

      • Assuming it's the same dog *I'm* thinking of, is your new game anywhere as good as the old 16-bitter for Sega Genesis, or a Bow-wow like they made for SNES?
      • The game is for a movie that comes out this month, staring a CG dog. 'Nuff said.

        Ruh-roh! Rou wan me to go see the movie? Ri don't think so! Not even for ree Scooby snacks!
        • Hell no! I want you to buy the game...};^)
    • -------QUOTE-------
      The fact that people feel the need to mod the game to make it more enjoyable means that Nintendo hasn't done their job.
      -------END QUOTE----

      In this case, yes. the mod is something that everyone can appreciate. it is something that if it's cost had been integrated at Nintendo rather than having to be produced independently and installed haphazardlly would probably have only added about five dollars to the unit price(i'm talking about the Afterburner here, not the PSOne screen). I can't think of anyone(not a single person) who has seen a gameboy with and without the afterburner that wouldn't have been willing to pony up the extra five for that feature when they bought it.

      That hardly applies to all mods though. Ever since the video game generation grew up into hackers and consoles started to appeal to adults, there have been techies that will take any excuse to poke around inside the machines.

      If somebody takes the trouble to install a burner and a larger hard-drive in their X-Box, that doesn't mean that microsoft hasn't done their job, even if every other X-Box owner thinks it's pretty cool. The cost and other issues of making that mod standard(or even an official option) would simply outweigh the benefit to the users(and the company).

      Even if a system is ever "perfect"(is the exact balance of what most people want and what they're willing to spend), there will be countless geeks who mod it just on principle.

      Sega was never planning to market a beowulf cluster of Linux Dreamcasts, nor should they have.

      • That hardly applies to all mods though. Ever since the video game generation grew up into hackers and consoles started to appeal to adults, there have been techies that will take any excuse to poke around inside the machines.

        I agree totally. Some of the mods I've seen, such as the portable wooden Playstation we saw a little while back were cool and neat, besides making a template for people who wanted to do something similar.

        The GBA display hack, on the other hand, is a case of Nintendo just not providing what people want or need. It would be as if Apple had released the iMac without a floppy drive, but also without the option to add a floppy drive via USB. Most people just put up with it. Those who want the technology and are unwilling to put up with it change the technology.
    • Very true (mee too!)

      The gameplay of Super Mario World took me by storm and the 3D versions of Mario and Sonic don't compare.

      3D means it's almost impossible to make those clutch jumps etc.

      I think cool idea compared to your RBG or Composite out would be a USB or Firewire out. Hook up your next-gen handheld to your PC and viola... it's on your screen. The bandwidth on USB 2.0 and Firewire is enough and the games could even be played in a window while using the handheld as the controller (doesn't the GBA kind of do this now with the GC?)

      The Dreamcast was/is cool because it had SEGA games that focused not on glitter but on games... the other two guys either pump out titles (sony) or focus on graphics (ms).
    • How far we've come in this brave new world...

      Back when I was 11 and playing w/ my SNES, I thought that I'd never see the day when Sonic was on a Nintendo console.

  • Proof (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TomHandy ( 578620 )
    Both this project and that Afterburner project (http://www.tritonlabs.com/) seem to be proof that there is currently no good way to make a high quality, cheap, backlit screen for something like the GBA. This project is too unwieldy in terms of battery life and portability, and the Afterburner project, although it integrates directly into the GBA after some modification and soldering, results in the screen being sort of washed out. There will certainly be a backlit GBA at some point, but I think these projects prove that Nintendo is not crazy for not trying to include a backlight in the production GBA, because the technology to do this WELL just isn't there yet. -Tom
    • I don't notice washed out colors on my GBA after the install of the Afterburner... curious where you might get that notion.

      The colors look "lit" as in viewable, so the red is red and not Maroon, but other than that I can only assume that you are judging by the photos circulating.

      The Afterburner project shows that it is relatively easy to add at least a frontlight, which is a workaround made more difficult by Nintendo's refusal to use a backlit LCD in the first place.

      From what I understand, the backlight relies on the LCD being semi-transparent, since the GBA LCD is not, a frontlight had to be devised. he key is to get a light source and then a distributor of that light. With a backlight, you put in a CCD and a diffuser. Assuming that this would raise the Price of a GBA to $150, (Price of a GBA and Afterburner + a little to pay the sweatshop laborers) users of the GBA have already voted with their feet and said the extra cost is worth it.

      Why couldn't Nontendo release a Lit and Unlit version??

      Also, Adam(?) over at Triton Labs knew next to nothing about LCD lighting a year ago. If you look over the pages at his site, It was about 6-8 months ago that he discovered a backlight wouldn't work for the reasons described above. So, in 6 months, he designed, manufactured, and shipped this kit, but for Nintendo it would have been "impossible".

      Also, with the manufacture of so many 1600x1200 LCD's 22" diag. fully backlit, why couldnt have Nintendo used a 3" diag LCD with a backlight again?? They are already using an LCD... The backlight is that much an issue??

      You must also think that Un-integrating IE is just as technically unfeasable as MS has been saying.

      ~Jason M.
  • What I'm wondering is how well the PSOne may adapt to taking the RGB singals from arcade games as an input. It would be very interesting to see, bot from a visual standpoint (even though the screen is smaller), but also from the aspect of a portable JAMMA kit.

    Mind you, "portable JAMMA" is a bix of an oxymoron. The main thing preventing it are the PCBs themselves. They're not ruggedized, and they are often quite big.
    • this might provide an alternative to the superguns and novas for home jamma users. my girlfriend has for arcade rigs and spent forever looking for a suitable jamma rig to play them on. cabinated were out of the question but the superguns werent. go to the arcade section to see her current setup [tripod.com]
    • Something like that already exists dude.

      You plug the PCB into a box which has RCA out's to the TV and has small arcade sticks as controllers. Fits nicely on the lap.
      • Well, I brought up two points. First was wondering if the PSOne would work well in handling the RGB signals from an arcade monitor. The second was a reference to a portable JAMMA design.

        Your response was "Something like that already exists dude." Kinda, yes, no, not really at all.

        I don't believe anyone is packaging an LCD display, using RGB input, for arcade PCBs. Yes, you could use "a box which has RCA out's to the TV" (otherwise known as an RGB->NTSC converter which you'd find as part of the wiring in a supergun) to do an svideo or composite video out. But that wasn't the point. The point was using the RGB signal and not having to go through the circuity (such as JROK's RGB to NTSC converter) to do the trick.

        You'd be direct driving a display with RGB inputs, and not messing the video signal with conversions. And the PSOne appears to have the correct horizontal scan rate in order to work with arcade PCBs.

        To address the subject line, use your wisdom and intellect before applying google to get DUMB answers.

        Back to the issue of portability, that'd be one less mess of circuits to deal with (rgb->ntsc converter) and you could integrate a display into a supergun quite easier than arcade pcb -> converter -> LCD NTSC display (which would probably end up with a really bad picture because of all the conversion).
  • I believe this was announced last week on MyHomeTechie.com [myhometechie.com].

    It's amazing what passes for news here ; get up to speed!

  • If you're waiting for the bus or train or something the GBA screen works fantastic with sunlight. But if you're waiting for someone to respond to an IM or for your program to compile or for your friend to email you back or something, the screen works absolutely terrible with indoor lighting. We're not mocking the pocket size, the situation is that Nintendo dropped the ball with the LCD on this bad boy, and alternatives are desperately sought after.

    Afterburner works for two hours @ best and only with games with bright palettes (Castlevania shows no improvement whatsoever). My two hour spec may be off because I use rechargeable batteries, but prior to Afterburner I was seeing 8 hours nonstop play before having to recharge.
    • You should consider properly installing your Afterburner before making comments like this.

      The light is amazing, it helps every single game. I notice _no_ wash out in any of my games. Many people did have trouble installing it but the process is really easy, if you're patient. I've done a couple installs and averaged about two hours per. Following the directions and not rushing things led to a couple flawless installs. Read up on the latest tips in the forum and be prepared to spend a couple hours doing the actual install and you'll be 100% satisfied with the results.

      Also, I've hit 8 hours with energizer 2 batteries and they haven't had to be replaced yet. Rechargable batteries won't ever last that long probably, depending on what type of batteries they are.

  • Backlid + TV already done (and cheaper) (Score:3, Informative)

    by GweeDo ( 127172 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @11:58AM (#3673094) Homepage
    Want your GBA backlit?
    go here [lik-sang.com]
    Want to play your GBA on a TV (cause we all know that 240x160 looks great on a 27 inch TV!) then go here [lik-sang.com] (or here [lik-sang.com] if you are in a PAL region).

    So you can pay about 80 bux for the TV adapter and 35 for the backlight on a REAL GBA LCD...or build this ugly contraption...your choice

  • PCBs?? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What I'm kinda wondering is how well the PSOne may adapt to taking the RGB singals from arcade games as an input. It would be very interesting to see, bot from a visual standpoint (even though the screen is smaller), but also from the aspect of a portable JAMMA kit.

    Mind you, "portable JAMMA" is a bix of an oxymoron. The main thing preventing it are the PCBs themselves. They're not ruggedized, and they are often quite big.
  • Anybody who is familiar with emulation likely knows about the Super Eagle anti-aliasing engine.

    Which, err, heh. Totally Friggin Rocks. :)

    The output from a Game Boy Advanced is of a high enough quality that when paired up with SuperEagle engine it looks great even on a 19" or so computer monitor. I do not know if a 20 inch interlaced display would be better or worse. . . .

    Of course 2xSaI kicks ass too. :)

    I wish that more companies would just implement those systems in Hardware, they definitely kick ass. :)
  • http://gear.ign.com/articles/356/356041p1.html That's a link to the GBATV review on IGN. It retails for like 80 dollars. The LCD for the PSone has input for external video...so why not just use this? DUH. The RGB is the only thing lacking right? So just get a RCA to RGB converter at www.consolesource.com. Total cost is STILL better than the 200 or more for this project ;)
  • "Another example of the lengths people will go to to mock the term "pocket sized."

    Or it may just be another example of the lengths people will go, to be able to actually see the games they are playing.
  • [Image]
    A close-up of the test cable connector which was shaved to be more like a female connector.

    I am single and living alone, so if I want to build this thing, can I use my Gillette Sensor Excel or do I have to buy a LadyShave?

  • Author's Comments and Clarifications (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kon-Seen ( 584483 ) on Monday June 10, 2002 @01:20PM (#3673556)
    Hi guys, I'm glad my project made it to Slashdot.org. I should clarify a couple of things. The Innovation GBA adapter did already output the S-Video, composite video, and preamplified stereo sound, so you could go out and buy one now and play the GBA games on your TV. What I did was, I tapped the recently discovered RGB video leads and fed the signals to the PSOne LCD which uses them to drive the display. I am glad that in times when a back/front light is needed to make the games on the GBA more enjoyable, people are making their own solutions for this shortcoming. I have already got a few e-mails that I had inspired people to get out their soldering irons and do some work, even if it's not in this area. Expect a big update on the site later today. Also, I will be wrapping up the development on this project today so a video should follow shortly. Thanks to those that appreciate the work that went into this and for the record the final cost on this project is about $250. Kon
  • A close-up of the test cable connector which was shaved to be more like a female connector.
    I wonder what he means by "more like a female connector"......

    Pi
  • Now I can play gameboy on an Alpine 7" car LCD while driving in heavy traffic.

    Mario Kart, anyone ?
    • I was thinking along different lines, and wondering what it would take to mod up one of these displays and have it work with an indash DVD or mobile VCR system. Looking at the prices of the video monitors at various outlet stores, it seems that this could be a great low-end option for those that don't need top end displays in their cars. I know my kids would just be happy to watch a movie on it, even if it wasn't a 42" plasma screen like we have in the living room.
  • I remember nearly two years ago at the Tokyo Games Show, shortly after the release of the GBA, that Nintendo (and games developers) had banks of GBA's with a special cartridge that displayed the GBA screen simultaneously on large overhead displays. This made sense when large numbers of people were wanting to see the games and how they looked.
    Anyone else remember this?
  • OK, first - I have four Game Boys - two are color GB, two are color GBA - and a GameCube.

    Now that The Sims is coming out on PS2, I've been planning on buying one when the game ships.

    So it would be useful to be able to play my French Pokemon Argent on one of my GBAs and display it on the PS2 screen (TV).

    It would be real cool too.

    -

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