#166422 - noname224 - Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:48 pm
Is it possible to modify a Nintendo DS to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges?
#166424 - DiscoStew - Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:59 pm
The DS hardware does not have any GB/GBC hardware in it. It was scrapped, leaving just the GBA hardware along with the DS's own hardware.
By modifying, if you meant adding that hardware, and somehow getting it to all work together without any problems, then sure......but I assume that isn't what you meant.
_________________
DS - It's all about DiscoStew
#166426 - noname224 - Sat Feb 07, 2009 11:25 pm
What I meant was modifying the GBA slot a little so that the games fit, and then installing an emulator on the DS (or at least running one off a flash card).
#166508 - elwing - Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:30 am
what you suggest seem hard/unpraticle, but there are GB GBC emulator working nicely.
#166569 - noname224 - Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:59 pm
But if there are emulators that can play roms, then why not actual cartridges too?
#166570 - DiscoStew - Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:21 pm
If the appropriate connections are still in the GBA slot for being able to read the GB/GBC data, then it would only require that the emulator use those connections in a way to read that data from the cartridges.
Unfortunately, it has to be designed into the emulator, and for current emulators, that is not part of the development.
_________________
DS - It's all about DiscoStew
#166591 - josath - Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:15 pm
GB/GBC carts cannot be read in the GBA slot in a DS. It does not have the needed circuitry to access them. The main issue is GB/GBC carts are 5V, and GBA carts are 3.3V. It's theoretically possible to build an inexpensive hardware adapter, but nobody has done it thus far. Even if the adapter were built, you'd then need to modify the emulator to be able to support it.
#167036 - zzo38computer - Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:06 am
| josath wrote: |
| It's theoretically possible to build an inexpensive hardware adapter, but nobody has done it thus far. Even if the adapter were built, you'd then need to modify the emulator to be able to support it. |
If such an adapter were built (which I think should be done), then a emulator that is modified to support it can be built-in to the adapter cartridge (possibly with a interface to modify the emulator built-in in case some cartridges don't work). The emulator does not have to deal with mappers anymore because it can use the mappers in the real GameBoy cartridge instead!
_________________
Important: Please send messages about FWNITRO to the public forum, not privately to me.
#167194 - thegamefreak0134 - Thu Mar 05, 2009 4:36 am
Does that kind of control over the pins even exist in GBA mode? Do the pins for a GBA cartridge and a GBC cartridge work the same, not counting the voltage pins? It seems like in order to handle the mappers directly, you would need finer control over the hardware than the GBA hardware would let you have while running in GBA mode. So unless the pins work the same way in both modes, I don't think you'd be able to mod the card reader in the DS to read a GBC cart directly like you would like.
That said, I also don't pretend to be an expert on how mappers work, this is just theory I'm pulling out of my rear from reading a bunch on the subject a while back.
Although a novel concept, it seems like this is more trouble than its worth. Props to you if you can make an adapter of course, but I wouldn't expect it to work the way you describe it.
_________________
What if the hokey-pokey really is what it's all about?
[url=http:/www.darknovagames.com/index.php?action=recruit&clanid=1]Support Zeta on DarkNova![/url]
#167212 - sgeos - Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:26 pm
As I understand it, all the bank switching hardware is on the GB cart, so I presume the adapter would just memory map the GB cart in a way the DS could read it (including all voltage conversions, etc). At that point the supporting emulator could live in a slot 1 device