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Games Entertainment

Flash Carts For Gameboy 52

Posted by timothy from the looking-for-game-girl dept.
Brett Profitt writes: "Ever want to program for the Gameboy? What about uploading up to 3 roms to a cart and playing them later? Visit this web site to get info about how you can build your own Gameboy cart with flash memory. btw, if anyone actually gets one working, how about sending me one?" Unlike some DIY gaming-hardware sites, this one organizes the information readably and meticulously -- and shows some finished work that demonstrates more than a little bit of patience.
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Flash Carts For Gameboy More

Flash Carts For Gameboy

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  • Slighyl offtopic, a friend asked me to write some
    music for his game, and i was wondering what the
    options are for players (or editors, which would
    be better... 'coding' music is 'interesting' ;)

    - Jaymz (Score: -1. Offtopic :)
  • Lik Sang (www.lik-sang.com) sells the GBXChanger as well as backup units for other game systems. The shipping from Hong Kong can get a tad expensive though.

  • Actually, if I recall correctly, you just have to use a licensed developer's code number in the header, as opposed to the Nintendo bitmap... And of course, a huge list of these is readily available from any one of the numerous GB dev sites.
  • Except for the small problem that the NeoGeo is 10^16 times more powerful than the GameBoy.
  • I ordered something along those lines from cd64.com [cd64.com] a while back. The software (Dos/Windows only boys...ugh), the adaptor (goes in a parallel port) and the cartridge were $80 inc. shipping from Hong Kong. The card holds 64m (That's megaBITS!). I ran it with about 8 games at a time for a while, but now it won't boot with more than one. Good luck getting tech support - no phone contact, and the web page says they only answer "selective" emails (which means my 8 "Defective product" emails were ignored.)

    Nevertheless, a nice toy...

    (Be sure to buy a power supply somewhere for it! Don't bother with the 9v! Trust me! I struggled for literally minutes! I should use fewer exclamation points!)
  • They can't force people into a license if you're not using anything of nintendo's actually make the part/addon/rom

    I seem to recall someone mentioning that the gameboy (maybe, it could have been another nintendo platform) actually required the first few bytes of the roms to all contain a bitmap of the nintendo logo. (perhaps it was just a text that said Nintendo, or somesuch)

    Was there any truth to this? If so, it seems nintendo could get you on copyright violiation for making your own game without their permission (since you would need to use the bitmap/phrase without their permission).

  • Why does working on commercial GBC games not make him a hacker?
  • I think the problem doesn't lie in development but in distribution. Games that people make with things like Bung's Dr. Gameboy and this flash cart project aren't going to be mass released for obvious reasons (man power, cost required for the carts alone). I doubt Nintendo really cares about a few hobbyist's development code. The only time they've actually gotten down on unauthorized games is when they're distributed (anyone remember color dreams and their nes games?)
  • I've seen a stand at the 'Compute UK' Computer fairs that sells the carts.. 16, 32 or 64mb versions and the paralel port adaptors and software to transfer your 'romz'... I'd probobly buy one if I could afford £80 for the 64mb one...

    -Amphetamine


    Wirehead Studios
    http://www.planetquake.com/wirehead

  • Sorry, the real link to Bung Enterprises is

    http://www.bung.com.hk/ [bung.com.hk]

  • How about something that could possibly work, like a GameGear emu on the GB????

    Wiwi
    "I trust in my abilities,
  • Hey! that works pretty well, i finally understand slashdot [endeneu.com] now!

    (and i'm not even fat! how about that)

  • No$GMB is another good emulator to use, deeply ingrained with a debugger; it also allows you to run multiple gameboys simultaneously (on a 486 at that).

    Get it and many other emus's at:

    Archaic Ruins [parodius.com]
  • Well, it is not necessarily piracy.
    For example, some of my friends bought similar devices to develop some (free) software - their music editor has become somewhat known.

    Of course, this helps piracy - but nearly everything that relates to computers helps it, so ...
  • Yeah you have to, but there are ways to work around it, and put in a different logo and have it still work
  • This is the same deal as Galoob's situation with Nintendo back in 92 or so. Galoob made the game genie, which simply changed the values of memory addresses by putting itself between the cart and the system, for a variety of effects.

    Nintendo sued Galoob, claiming galoob had no right to release something that Nintendo didnt say they could, and lost. It falls smack-dab under reverse engineering provisions. The case is actually cited by Napster in its recent appeal for the stay of the shutdown injunction, and is also being cited in MPAA vs whoever and RIAA vs whoever cases, I believe.

    lilnobody

  • flashcards are the best way to learn the Gameboy
  • Good, point -
    I blew up a perfectly good game and flash chip myself before buying much cheaper programmable cartridge from hongkong.

    If you want to do more than playing games - why dont make something from this cart instead:
    Gameboy Terminal Server [sourceforge.net]
    It should suit both hardware, linux and gameboy freaks at the same time.
    (But don't forget to get a few games or a flashcart to enjoy some entertainment between hacking.)
  • Wisdom Tree [christianlink.com] makes bible games for Gameboy and does not have a license from Nintendo. According to the amateur GB dev faq, the big N sued them and lost.

    You have to put a bitmap of the Nintendo logo in a ROM header for it to work on the hardware (this image is displayed when you boot up the system). Apparently this doesn't hold up in court as any kind of IP.

  • Maybe its just because I've learned programming starting with c++, and un-learning object oriented design in order to code in C is hard enough, but the prospect of taking another step back to asm is daunting as all hell. But saying that z80 ASM is "pretty easy"? Isn't asm just a bunch of memory addresses held together with the equivalent of gotos from BASIC?

  • I just recently started looking into programming for the gameboy and have found out there's a huge online community. In fact, the biggest development tool out there (the c compiler gbdk) is a sourceforge project. From what I understand there is no 'official' gameboy compiler because commercial gameboy games are ALL written in assembly! I don't know about you, but I'd much rather mess around with pointers in C than fiddle with registers in asm! I know, I know, real programmers twiddle the bits on there hard drives with tiny magnets. Still, I opt for a compiler. If you absolutely have no desire for any speed of exectution, theres also a BASIC interpreter out there for gameboy.

    Nintendo claims that the gameboy is the best selling game system of all time, and considering how many there are out there in the world, its really not all that suprising that it has such a strong development community. Still it sends shivers down my spine to see people taking a closed source model and turning it around, making it accessable to all.

    I've also heard rumors of a gameboy emulator for palm. Can anyone confirm this? I think something like this would really open up the floodgates to legitimate gameboy development, since you would no longer need fancy flash rom carts or eprom burners to get some code running on an actual portable.

    Anyway, here's the best gb development sites I've found on the net so far...

    The motherload for gameboy development:
    GameBoy Devrs [devrs.com]

    A great forum for gameboy developers:
    GBdev bulletin board [quangdx.com]

  • If you had an NES or SNES cart with enough flash memory, imagine being able to make a cart with your 3 or 4 favorite games on it, and being able to change it whenever you want.... *drools*
    -colin
  • In theory couldn't someone put a neo-geo emu on a gameboy cart. Think of the fun only one platform needed!!
  • I built my cart two years ago from information that I curled from the web.
  • Hi.

    I am a typical Slashdot reader. I have a couple of accounts, and I am posting this from my 'troll' account because it is rather off-topic, and deserves to be modded down. But this is a serious post, and I encourage you to read on:

    As a typical member of the /. community, I have submitted almost every type of post, ranging from preeminent insights to over-the top and vulgar flames. I've trolled, been trolled, shot from the hip and been torched when speaking-of-that-which-I-do-not-know. But for me at least, there is one situation I find myself in time after time. I suddenly have an insight into some topic that has no relevant story to post in. I post anyway, only to lose karma and have my insights buried as (-1: Off Topic), and few regular readers ever get to see them. I've taken to operating a couple of UIDs in order to burn or preserve my karma as appropriate, but I find it all rather cumbersome. I like this UID, and I dislike logging in different accounts several times a day.

    I have been waiting for Slashdot to open up some persistent sids on recurrent topics, and maybe even list them on the front page. I've written this suggestion to Hemos and Taco both, though it probably just got lost in the noise. So, in the spirit of Open Source Everything©, I hereby introduce my own unsanctioned Open Editorial Decision©. See, I realized one day that the trolls had taken to making their own sids, so I thought to myself, 'how can I harness this phenomenon in a positive, productive way?'

    And so I've decided to create the following sids:

    Open Source Advocacy [slashdot.org]
    Operating Systems [slashdot.org]
    Hardware [slashdot.org]
    Sci-Fi / Anime [slashdot.org]
    Slashdot Culture [slashdot.org]
    Technology and Politics [slashdot.org]
    Trollsville [slashdot.org]

    Now there is a place for us to go to vent our spleen, contribute, rant, spam, joke about, whatever you may want( within the limits of legality, of course) and yet remain entirely on-topic.

    I know this is rather pushy of me, but it really is for the best. Now, if you find yourself with a brilliant insight for the Slashdot crowd, and there aren't any relevant stories to post it on, you've a place to go without thrashing your karma.

    I have already made FP! introductory posts at each of the sids. C'mon by and tell me what you think. Especially the Slashdot staff- I realize you may be irritated at my forthright feature-creep, but there are so many worse things I could be spending my time on, while this is actually positive, useful, and will hopefully increase banner ad revenues for you. Oh, and I assure you, I hereby state that I hold no claim to the design or ownership of any aspect of this idea. I just wanted a feature, and utilized the 'Open' philosophy to my advantage, with the tools on hand.

    Thank you very much,

    -=(V)0(V)0cr0(V)3=-
  • EasyBuy2000.com has a lil' device for ~70 US dollars. (direct: http://www.easybuy2000.com/store/products/nintendo 64/nintendo64_gbtrans.html) It's got 32 megs worth of memory, and they say 2-8 color games or 40-100 b&w. It can d/l roms (thru parrallel port) or "copy them directly." Methinks it must mean directly to the "backup" memory card, no way Nintendo would let something like this sell if those ROMs touched the PC. It's also got a thing that'll let you play GB games on the N64, kinda like the one they had for the SNES i s'pose. And yeah, those are the same guys that carry the MP3 CD player.
  • You can pick up a blank 32meg cartridge & a pc interface with software from here [easybuy2000.com] .. Looks pretty cool - Although I have not personally tried it & Its $73 bucks for the kit. ..This is just for "game backup" purposes, and does not have any creation tools.


    --------------------------------------
  • The EasyBuy2000 (also known for their MPTrip MP3 discman) website has had flashable roms in carts (aka, the "Gameboy Back up System") for a while now. This link [myaffiliateprogram.com] will take you there.

    More information from their web site:

    Download ROMS from the internet into a special cartridge and play it on your handheld Gameboy (color roms will play in color!).Also this unit will allow you to copy a Gb game directly.
    GB Xchanger (the device which programs the special GB cartridge).It plugs in the printer port. (via a cable)
    GB Genius card (32 Mb) can hold 40-100 games black&white or 2-8 color games.
    Software which allows the transfer of roms from the Pc to the cartridge.

    So, again, old news.

  • Now i can download any game i want and put it on a cart. Nintendo has finally lost an advantage (at least, from their point of view) over playstation. Previously only PS ganmes were this copyable, but now nintendo's situation is even worse. Does anyone know how much Sony lose to piracy? (Not that it stops me)
  • Welcome to the slashdot master plan, you have been warned, slash has more bugs than that one....
  • Your the bug like bloody Javascript:

  • That's pretty cool, now I can walk around with only one cartiridge for all my games.
    Releated links that may interest you:
    It's ages since I played on my gameboy!!
  • Uh, how did I get logged in as you?
  • If you dont want to build one, Bung [bung.com.hk] used to sell the Xchanger and 64mbit flashcarts for a pretty reasonable price. Unfortunately, for several reasons, Bung suspended business and now you have to poke around the net [google.com] for resellers. Shouldn't be too hard to find them, though.
  • Technically, YOU DON'T need an Nintendo license to produce games for their systems. It's been proven in the past court cases. Nintendo just wants a piece of the pie. Galoob, Codemasters, and several religious game makers DON'T have licenses. They've all produced Nintendo GAMES. Naturally, Nintendo challenged them in court...and lost. They're not using Nintendo tools. They're NOT using privileged Nintendo information. Technically, you don't even need a license to develop. It just helps to have one come publishing time. The GBC indie/unlicensed scene is growing much bigger. A number of games developed WITHOUT A LICENSE are now seeking licensed publishers...Mythri, Knights, Rhino Rumble, & Freakz are all prime examples of games developed Gameboy Color. One of Nintendo's biggest claim is that the re-writeable carts and writers such the Bung 64M and GB Xchanger, respectively, can be used for piracy. In fact, these flashroms and writers are PERFECT for putting together a game in finished format THAT YOU CAN SHOW TO A PROSPECTIVE PUBLISHER. Pubs like finished works. A working game on a real cart goes a long way towards getting a publishing deal. While the developer may not be licensed or even used licensed tools, they can still work with a licensed publisher.
  • Used to be? THERE STILL IS. It's even bigger than before. Bung carts and writers are still available from MANY sources worldwide. I just purchased some recently. A number of indie developers are using them to make GBC games that'll be published by licensed developers. Some of the indie developed games include Mythri, Rhino Rumble, Knights, & Freakz. Most, if not all of them have already been previewed by major web sites. They're all searching for publishers and will likely find some too. The indie developers often produce games with more technical whiz-bang and depth then the big guys. Indie developers do it out of love for the biz. Most of these bigger indie games DO get published. We just see them being published by bigger names. Vatical and Eidos are just a couple of companies that use indie tools and indie developers for Game Boy Color games. You'd only notice this by actually reading the game credits.
  • Jeff Frohwein of http://www.devrs/gb/ ISN'T really a hacker. As a matter of fact, he's worked on a number of COMMERCIAL GBC games. Spy Hunter is one of them. His Hicolor graphics routines were also used in the recent Tomb Raider GBC game too. Read the credits.
  • The english was pretty good, but it might be hard for fat people to understand. Fortunately I tranlated it into miguelspeak (the language of fattys) here. [endeneu.com]
    --Shoeboy
  • Nothing nintendo can do about it. They can't force people into a license if you're not using anything of nintendo's actually make the part/addon/rom. You can go out, buy a gameboy, use it to develop your stuff on, and thats it. Nintendo has no authority to make you pay licensing fees, except to use their trademarks and "IP" which you wouldn't need if you did it all on your own.

    -- iCEBaLM
  • Uh..

    Nothing the MPAA can do about it. They can't force people into a license if you're not using anything of the MPAA's actually make the DVD. You can go out, buy a DVD ROM, use it to get VOBs to run DeCSS on, and thats it. The MPAA has no authority to make you pay licensing fees, except to use their trademarks and "IP" which you wouldn't need if you did it all on your own.

    Am I the only one seeing the parallels between the two? If this whole MPAA thing goes through, then we can certainly expect Nintendo to come after users of their products in any way they don't like. Scary stuff.

  • Short: It's legal. The use of the bit pattern that produces the name Nintendo is termed "fair use."
    Long story:

    Search google.com for
    [Sega trademark security system lawsuit ]
    to read about a test case for requiring certain IP to be in every ROM. The court ruled Accolade was not liable, as Sega's technique attempted to bring copyrights to the scope of patents.


    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • The Gameboy Color demoscene is made possible by these and they've been at it for quite a while. For some interesting info about it, have a look here [aol.com]. For programming info (hey now that I'm posting links anyway =)), the C-based GBDK can be found here [tripmode.com], along with info on how to code for the GB in Asm.
  • I seem to recall that Nintendo charges licensing fees in order to do development work for their hardware.

    I realize this doesn't concern the hobbiest coder, who just wants to play around with their own gameboy. What happens though if somebody releases custom ROM files or even ROM carts, either for sale or open source. Would they then be a target for the Nintendo law-machine?
  • I tried learning GB programming recently. I wish someone would put together a good site for beginners who want to code on the GB, cause most of the current informational sites are geared towards people who already have at least some experience in it. And man I'd like to start, SO bad!

    Here is a site [pipex.com] I'd love to see continued, or for anyone to build a similar one. Any GB developers reading this: Please make a totally though tutorial on GB Development and I will be happy. MAKE ME HAPPY!

    sig:

  • Re:Is this legal? (Score:3)

    by tzanger ( 1575 ) on Saturday July 29, 2000 @07:00PM (#894987) Homepage

    Nothing nintendo can do about it. They can't force people into a license if you're not using anything of nintendo's actually make the part/addon/rom. You can go out, buy a gameboy, use it to develop your stuff on, and thats it. Nintendo has no authority to make you pay licensing fees, except to use their trademarks and "IP" which you wouldn't need if you did it all on your own.

    Actually this is untrue.

    The Gameboy processor runs a little routine in ROM which scrolls down the "Nintendo" logo. The bit pattern for the logo is in your ROM. After scrolling it, it then checks the bit pattern against a ROM copy and if they match, will go to execute your code. It is very easy to change the logo to whatever you want, but the game won't run. I guess their arguement is that the bit pattern to display "Nintendo" is copywright/trademarked and will get you on that front.

    It is possible, through the use of a microcontroller or little bit of hardware (cap, resistor and maybe a transistor or gate) to display a different logo and still have the game run. This is done by having one area of the ROM appear at the proper location on powerup, but shortly thereafter (after the scroll), flip over to the "Nintendo" bit pattern so the pattern matches that in ROM and the game runs. I've done it myself and it's not hard. How much this protects you legally is another issue, however.

    I know Game Genie gets around the licensing by making you have a cartridge. I believe this use of a bit pattern has been tested in court, but I don't know what the outcome was.

  • Re:Cart racing is cool (Score:3)

    by Tei'ehm Teuw ( 191740 ) on Saturday July 29, 2000 @02:45PM (#894988)
    Go fast turn left! NASCAR is clearly the most exciting to watch.
  • I've been using my BUNG cart kit for the last year to upload up to 30 ROM's to one cart. If you can still buy them in the US, they're a much better investment than to build your own ... work quite well.

    Nothing like having a library of 1000's of games at hand for the gameboy, though I have to admit that the thrill of playing GB has gone. I think that a big part of the 'mystique' about the GB scene from a consumer perspective was in *NOT* having all the cartridges - you buy one, play it for a while, etc. When you've got 1000's of ROM's at hand, and you can choose your own game selection to carry 30 games with you, the GB gets boring fast.

    You start to see just how mundane the game design industry really is, when you've had access to hundreds of games in a matter of hours. I think this same effect is experienced by Game Magazine reviewers, and I start to see just how jaded things can be...

    Maybe the real reason that game mfr's don't want everyone to have every ROM instantly downloadable in a large gigantic mega-library is the fact that by having access to it, people start to see just how crappy things really are in the design realm ...

    I certainly stopped playing GB for a while after I got my cart setup...

  • Re:Is this legal? (Score:4)

    by dbarclay10 ( 70443 ) on Saturday July 29, 2000 @01:00PM (#894990)
    Sort of. But, unfortunately, the MPAA is defending the Movie Industry(tm). Since movies are IP, and you'd be copying movies, then there are issues raised. But, with a game boy, the only thing that could be considered IP when making your own ROM with your own tools are the Game Boy's instruction sets - which have previously been declared as reverse-engineerable(Intel vs. AMD).

    Dave

  • DIY Gameboy programming (Score:4)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 ) on Saturday July 29, 2000 @12:28PM (#894991) Homepage Journal
    I love programming for the Gameboy -- it's really fun to have the ridiculous constraints of the Z80; a nice contrast to hacking high level langauges. There's also a lot of documentation around. I'm using the free RGBASM [get2net.dk] assembler, which is quite good.

    I just bought a GameLink from the UFO guys ( http://www.cd64.com/ [cd64.com] ) on "Fuk Wa" (really!) Street in Hong Kong. Programming and running your creations on an emulator is pretty good, but nothing beats seeing it on an actual gameboy. No linux support for the GameLink, though other devices do have open specs and C code.

    Nintendo recently shut down another company which makes these devices called " Bung [bung.co.hk] "; this is really disappointing to me. It's probably true that most people use these things for piracy, but I really am using mine legitimately.

    On the other hand, I understand that the GB game "Harvest Moon" began as a amateur project. So maybe there is still hope for Nintendo...

  • How to get started programming for the GAMEBOY:

    http://www.loirak.com/prog/gbprog.htm


  • Not exactly news. (Score:5)

    by Toodles ( 60042 ) on Saturday July 29, 2000 @11:58AM (#894993) Homepage
    The GBDEV scene has been out for a very long time now.WHile I dont want to downplay Mr. Ziegler's work (I visit his site veyr frequently), there is more information available for it than you could ever use.

    GB dev is one of the most refined console dev groups out there. The information on the processor (modified z80) is well know and documented, and easy to code for. Complete IDE's are available, using GCC as the compiler, links into a .ROM file, and starts up the emulator to run. Emulators such as the new VGBWIN provide excellent debugging platforms, showing tilesets, memory/variable contents, and easy step-throughs.

    The hardware for this flash cart requires some serious soldering on a very fine point scale; I hate doing it. For those interesting in GBdev, check out some of the sites available like:

    www.otakunozoku.com //z80 asm cribsheet rules, and the RGBDS is a good platform for asm game dev.

    www.vintagegaming.com //for emulators, suggest VGBWIN

    www.consoledev.com //many documents and links

    www.devrs.com // Jeff's been the best and most widely respected hacker on the gameboy. Has all of the links needed to get you up and running.

    Dont worry about the hardware, just download the free (and usually open source) software to compile stuff for game boy, read the documentation available, test your code out on an emulator, and then, after all of this work, if you REALLY want to see it on a real GB, then buy the parts instead of spending the time soldering your own. www.cd64.com has black carts and reader/writers available at a very respectable price.

    Toodles
    Into GBDev, PSXDev, and DCDev

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