Nintendo Gives you the Power of Flash - Nintendo Power Rewritable Cartridges

Courtesy of Wikipedia, Photo by Muband

Three times Nintendo released a product where you could write new games to existing media. The first was the Famicom Disk System, where users could bring in their disks to Disk Writer kiosks in stores and have new games rewritten to the floppy disks. This system began in 1986 and was modestly successful, newly written games were cheaper than buying either new cartridges or new disk games in boxes. The disk system's popularity waned by the 1990s, but Nintendo revived the concept with the Super Famicom Nintendo Power cartridge in 1997. A few years later they released the Game Boy Nintendo Power cartridge in 2000. They discontinued the service on February 28, 2007. In this article I will discuss how the service worked, how the flash cartridges worked, and how they can be flashed today.

The New ModRetro Chromatic & Accessories

Last year the company known as ModRetro released an FPGA-based Game Boy and Game Boy Color handheld console. Those consoles were advertised as limited editions and sold out on the ModRetro website. I bought and reviewed one and had an overall favorable opinion of the device. Now eight months have passed and ModRetro is releasing not only a new batch of consoles but also accessories for all Chromatic consoles. I ordered a new console and the new accessories to put them to the test. What has changed? Are there improvements?

The New Chromatic

Let me start with what has not changed. When you order a console the items you get in the box will be the same: the console, 3xAA ModRetro-branded batteries and the Tetris cartridge (which I reviewed separately). That is about it in terms of what is unchanged. Even the box for the new units is slightly redesigned. The old box showed off games that were available for sale on the ModRetro site, but the new box shows screens for a game called "Mega - The Viper Wars" that either does not exist or has not been released.

When the console was originally released last year its price was $199.00 regardless of color or markings. Six standard color variations were offered on the site and with either English or Japanese markings. There was a GameStop variant for sale on GameStop's site and a "Logan Paul" edition sold on the ModRetro site. Both variants were priced at $199.00 but only had an English marking option. All these consoles have a "1st EDITION" marking on them.

The new edition of the Chromatic console is offered for a base price of $199.99 and in all the standard colors (Midnight, Wave, Leaf, Inferno, Volt, Bubblegum) plus a new Cloud color (very SNES-like color scheme). Only English console label markings are available for this edition. These are only available from the ModRetro site. These new Chromatics no longer have a "1st EDITION" marking and only have two color stripes on the bottom left-hand corner of the console instead of three. The middle stripe is gone and the end stripes no longer straddle the edge of the console. This should reduce wear as these colors are printed over the magnesium alloy shell.

The new edition of the Chromatic comes with a Gorilla Glass screen in the base model. An upgrade to a Sapphire Glass screen is available for an extra $100.00. All 1st Edition Chromatics, including the GameStop exclusive, came with Sapphire Glass screens. The Sapphire Glass screens have a small "SAPPHIRE" marking below the bottom of the active display. The GameStop variant is still available for purchase at the original $199.00 price, so if you want a Sapphire Glass screen and do not want to pay the premium, you can still buy that variant at the time of writing.

The main advertised difference between the Gorilla Glass and Sapphire Glass screens is the hardness of the screen. Gorilla Glass comes between 6-8 on the Mohs scale, Sapphire Glass between 7-8. The Mohs scale measures scratch resistance but Gorilla Glass is officially rated with a Vickers Pyramid number, which measures the impact on the screen. Most generations of Gorilla Glass measure between 550-650HV. In short, Sapphire Glass is harder and heavier than Gorilla Glass and offers superior scratch resistance but Gorilla Glass is cheaper and is less prone to shattering on impact.

Comparing both displays, both are equal to my eye in terms of clarity. Gorilla offers slightly superior brightness than Sapphire at the same brightness levels but there is more backlight bleed from Gorilla. Gorilla is less reflective, which may be important if you are in a setting with a lot of ambient or bright light. If in sunlight, find some shade and you should have a nearly equivalent experience with either screen.

The internals bear a comment or two, but there are some improvements. There is one less screw needed to unscrew in order to get the mainboard out of the case. The D-pad trace near the pivot has been moved enough that the pivot cannot wear against it and break the trace. My new Chromatic's mainboard has a microSD card slot soldered onto the board whereas the old Chromatic's only had pads.

There are other minor changes from the old consoles to the new ones. The black RF shield in the back is thicker. The gaps between the power switch and IR window and the shell are tighter. You are also less likely to get a scuffed IR window due to a softer liner used in the new Chromatic's box. The battery cover no longer has the rubber pads on the sides to help hold in the batteries. The metal tabs on the battery cover are in different places and thicker. The bottom of the new enclosure has a plastic piece screwed in to help latch the battery cover. There is a slight ridge or lip behind the volume wheel on the new Chromatic's bottom shell. 

The speaker on the new Chromatic can reach a significantly higher volume than the old Chromatic. However, there is still a lot of noise when both the audio jack and the USB port is connected to the same PC. This makes streaming video and audio less than ideal because the console cannot transmit audio over USB.  As of Firmware v4.0 audio can be streamed alongside video over USB, making the audio quality no longer an issue.

There are slight improvements to the build quality. There is no roughness around the power LED. There were no scuffs on the plastic bits like the IR window or the Tetris cartridge that came with my console. The EverDrive GB X7 worked fine with the new Chromatic.

Accessories

In addition to the new consoles, ModRetro is offering three new accessories, all in their own boxes or packaging with the same colorful, cutesy style as the console's box.

The long-awaited "Rechargeable Power Core" (the battery pack announced alongside the original Chromatic) is finally available for $29.99. The battery pack was mentioned with the initial announcements of the Chromatic but has been MIA until now. This pack fits into the battery compartment of any Chromatic, no tools required, and can be charged by the USB Type-C connector. There are contacts in the battery cavity to make contact with the battery pack and the battery can be easily removed for instances when the console will not see use. This limits unnecessary drain from the battery pack.

The Chromatic can use standard Alkaline, Lithium or rechargeable AA batteries (three required) but cannot charge the latter. ModRetro claims 16 hours of gameplay on a full charge and recharging takes 2-5 hours. These numbers are dependent on the game being played and the power source connected to the Chromatic, respectively. The battery has a 2250mAh capacity and adds about 1.5 oz to the weight (no more than AA batteries) of the Chromatic. It comes with a braided USB Type-C to USB Type-C charging cable, 3.25 feet long.

The second new accessory is a link cable, sold for $14.99. I believe ModRetro made their own so they would not have to listen to customer complaining of flaky vintage cables or poor quality modern cables or have to recommend Analogue's link cable. The Analogue link cable is high quality but it is a competitor's product. Unlike the Analogue link cable the Chromatic link cable does not have a switch for GBA compatibility. GBA link cables are wired differently from GB/GBC cables and require a switch to support GBA and GB/GBC consoles. The Chromatic Link cable is advertised at 6.5 feet, which is slightly longer than Analogue's 4.75 feet. It is also a braided cable as opposed to the plastic sheathed cables from everyone else. Analogue's cable also supports GBA multiplayer and the original Nintendo GBA link cables were shorter than the 8-bit link cables.

The ModRetro site says that its link cable is not compatible with the original Game Boy but that is not the whole story. The Game Boy DMG connector is only physically different from the link cable connector on the later 8-bit Game Boys. The same cables are used for the Game Boy Pocket, Super Game Boy 2 and Game Boy Color. The Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Player and Analogue Pocket are compatible with these cables when playing Game Boy or Game Boy Color games. Nintendo made an adapter, DMG-14, that can convert the smaller GBP/GBC plug into the larger DMG plug. I was able to play a multiplayer game of F-1 Race between the Chromatic, the ModRetro link cable and a DMG-14 in an original Game Boy. I had no trouble using the ModRetro link cable, even with the Game Boy Printer. The link cables are compatible with non-Chromatics.

The final new accessory is the Mod Kit, also $14.99. This includes 9 pairs of A & B buttons, 2 D-Pads, 2 D-Pad Membranes, 4 button membranes, a Start and a Select button, an IR Window, a Power Switch and a Menu button. There is also included some stickers, a double ended bit driver with a 3.8mm security screw bit and a tri-wing bit and an end cap for the bit driver. These parts can be used to customize the look and feel of the cartridge or to fix broken parts. One set of membranes have a softer action press than the other. One of the D-Pads has a short pivot post and the other has a longer pivot post. Once you start breaking open the cardboard covering the back of the blister pack, you will need to find a new way to store these parts.

Button colors are subjective but the big improvement here is the longer D-Pad stem. This eliminated the issue of being able to press opposite directions, which can break some games. The black membranes are supposed to be softer than the gray ones, but I have not noticed much of a difference in the short time I have used them. The included screwdriver is magnetized.

The Koss Porta Pro headphones are still available but only in the standard six color variations. Speaking of Chromatic, there is no red or violet/purple console available or green, blue or yellow buttons in the ModKit. (A red Chromatic was shown during the Classic Tetris World Championship event last year.) I think ModRetro might come up a little short in its spectrum-encompassing branding.

The Chromatic's box states "Designed in California, Assembled in Mexico." The packaging for the Chromatic accessories says "Designed in California, Made in China." It is likely that the "assembly" on the console's box means the assembly line functions of putting the console together (placing the buttons and membranes, screwing in the PCB and shell) and putting it in its box, not soldering electronic components to the PCB. It is more likely that board soldering is done in China but Mexico is not impossible.

Firmware Update v3.2

The new Chromatic and the Battery Pack tell you to update your firmware and give you stickers with QR codes to do this. There last firmware for the Chromatic was released on May 21 (v3.2), so you do not need to rush out to update your old Chromatic if you have updated it since then. My new Chromatic was on the latest firmware out of the box but that may not always be the case going forward. Make sure to update your Tetris cartridge, just in case. ModRetro keeps a changelog documenting updates for any games it sells.

The v3.2 firmware update brought many fixes to the platform but the webcam-identified video based output now no longer uses the RGB color space but the YUV color space with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling. This results in blurrier color but makes the "webcam" compatible with macOS and Discord, as a ModRetro representative explained. Black and white and grayscale are unaffected and still perfectly sharp. The captures I made of the system with launch day firmware are as sharp as a tack. ModRetro is looking at workarounds to the problem but the firmware upgrade tool does not allow for downgrading firmware. The v4.0 firmware is unchanged in this regard. See the link above for details on how to downgrade the firmware (it is not easy).

There is a change to the Chromatic's custom color palettes for monochrome games. The Right + A + B palette is unchanged from prior firmware but the Left + A + B now evokes a Game Boy Light. Another newer option in the menu allows for smooth transitions. This is useful in a game like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening where there is a lot of flicker when Link goes in and out of houses, caves and labyrinths. 

 Conclusion

The new Chromatic offers some quality of life improvements over the old Chromatic. The screens are not so different that you may feel left with second best if you do not fork over the extra $100 for the Sapphire screen. The accessories improve on the console experience. At this point the console's only major flaw is one of its main advertising points, the USB video capture. At present the capture is fuzzier than it needs to be on the horizontal axis with color video and could be fixed. and audio quality is bad if it is connected to a line input to the same PC that is capturing video. Connecting just the line in to the PC without the USB connection allows for high quality audio capture, for what it is worth. This can be fixed in software by permitting USB video and audio capture together as a proper capture device, but this has to be implemented by Gowin, the maker of the FPGA, in its development kit. If this is done the Chromatic would be far better for streaming and capturing GB and GBC gameplay than it currently is.

I bought my new Chromatic and one of each of the accessories on July 10 and received my console on July 31. As a prior Chromatic owner I received a 15% off coupon, before it my order was $259.96, after application it was $230.95 (including $9.99 shipping).

In terms of FPGA handheld placement, the new Chromatic is still well-behind the Analogue Pocket in terms of features and value for money. If I did not have a Pocket I would much rather use the Chromatic over the FunnyPlaying FPGBC. The Chromatic's screen is incredible, bright, sharp, 1:1 pixel resolution (no scaling) and no lag. The simulation quality is excellent and the cartridge slot is deep enough to keep your original cartridges firmly in place. If you want a modern way to play your Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges on the go, the Chromatic is the best option after the Analogue Pocket in my opinion.

The ModRetro Chromatic Review - A High End Alternative GBC FPGA Handheld Solution?

The Game Boy and Game Boy Color systems have had a very active "afterlife." Screen mods, homebrew games and clone consoles are just some of the developments that have gained prominence in the past 10+ years. The idea of cloning a Game Boy or Game Boy Color is not a new one, hardware clones have been around for at least 10 years. More flexible FPGA technology has resulting in two consoles which can play original GB/GBC cartridges, the Analogue Pocket (2021) and the Funny Playing FPGBC (2023). Now a new challenger enters the arena in the form of the Chromatic from a company called ModRetro. Let's see what it has to offer and how it measures up against the competition.

FPGBC - The Budget FPGA Handheld

Portable or handheld devices which play retro video games are very common these days. Companies like Anbernic and Powkiddy make multiple consoles which can emulate some very advanced video game consoles. The Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch can also emulate or run retro video games. These things are a dime a dozen these days and come in all shapes and sizes, but they all rely on software emulation. Until recently there has been one FPGA handheld console, the Analogue Pocket. In the past several months, a new challenger has entered the arena, the FPGBC from FunnyPlaying. In this article I will give my impressions of the device and review it on its own merits compared to the console it is trying to simulate, the Game Boy Color.

Rethinking the Video Game Generations and Handheld Video Games

Generations of video games have been defined in reference to home video game consoles which were released over time and their capabilities.  While I have some views on that subject, in today's blog I wish to talk about generations of handheld video games.  Handheld video games have always lagged behind their home console brethren due to their need to work within smaller sizes and smaller power sources.  In this blog video I will trace the hardware developments in the handheld world and categorize them into eras and technologies which make sense.

Nintendo Handheld Console AC Adapter and Battery Chargers Guide

One of Nintendo's greatest strengths with its handheld consoles were their battery life.  Nintendo did not necessarily pursue the most advanced technology that could be packed into a portable gaming device but balanced performance, features, screen type with their drain on the battery technology of the time.  In the beginning, its consoles ran on disposable batteries or via AC to DC adapters.  As time progress and battery charging technology became sufficiently compact, Nintendo started making consoles with batteries built into them.  But in today's blog article I will go over all the official ways Nintendo devised and products Nintendo sold to power its portable gaming consoles.

Re-Modding a Game Boy

One day, while browsing through a local collectibles store, I came across some Game Boys.  I saw that two of these Game Boys were unusual and decided to bring one home to play with.  With this Game Boy I was able to fill a small but nagging hole in my handheld console collection.  So in today's blog post, I will discuss an unusual Game Boy to find in the wild and what I did to fix and improve it.

The Successors: Evolution of Monochrome Handhelds after the Game Boy

When the Nintendo Game Boy was released in April/July, 1989 (Japan/North America), there was nothing like it on the market.  The Game Boy was the first programmable handheld system with sufficient capabilities to play games that were similar to the home consoles of its day.  The Game Boy was intended to be an inexpensive device, so it used a monochrome reflective green screen rather than a difficult-to-manufacture and power hungry backlit color screen like its main competitors, the Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear, NEC Turbo Express and later the Sega Nomad.  Although the Game Boy definitively ruled over the color competing systems, dominating the market until its successor, the Game Boy Color, was released in October/November of 1998, that does not mean it was the only monochrome handheld game console on the market.  Early in its lifetime it had competitors from Taiwan which tried to take away some of its market with little success.  Later, more established companies tried to get on the monochrome bandwagon, only to find that lightning does not necessarily strike twice.  Recently, as retro style gameplay experiences have found a market in the age of the Nintendo Switch, we have seen at least one or two companies try their hand at a monochrome handheld.  In this article we will trace the evolution of the consoles that tried to compete with the Game Boy or invoke its success.

Custom Game Boy Design - Revitalizing Broken or Hard to See Portable Systems

It is a fact that the original Game Boy, its four widely available successors and its contemporary competitors had many excellent games but some truly awful screens by modern standards.  Handheld screen technology has advanced extraordinarily far since the rose-tinted glass days of 1989.  Today modding kits are available to fix or "upgrade" these machines with replacement screens, so let me discuss my own experiences with one.  

Game Boy Link Ports & Cables & Peripherals

When Nintendo released its first handheld console, the Game Boy, it provided a Link Port to allow two players to play games with or against each other.  That Link Port is a simple bidirectional synchronous serial port and was not very fast but it was sufficient to allow two consoles to communicate with each other over a Link Cable.  In subsequent Game Boy models the Link Port became faster but it also took on different shapes.  The Link Port was carried over to the Game Boy Advance, but there were some differences.  In this article I will go over the various cable connectors, the official products which used the Link Port or converted one kind of link port to another and how Link Cables are wired.

The EverDrive GB X7 - The Ultimate 8-bit Game Boy/Color Flash Cart?

EverDrive GB vs. EverDrive GB X7

For too long, the Game Boy and Game Boy Color had been rather neglected by the flash cart builders.  The old cartridges by companies like Bung faded out of existence as Nintendo sued Bung out of existence.  There were a few more recent cartridges like the 64MB EMS Smart Card, but it was really klunky to use and had poor game compatibility.  A few cartridges were more focused on music production than game playing.  In 2014 Krikzz released the EverDrive GB, a flash-based device with an FPGA with enough resources to handle basic games.  I bought one then and was satisfied with it, as I indicated in my review.  Three years later he released the SRAM-based EverDrive GB X-series.  Having finally acquired an EverDrive GB X7, let me share my thoughts and views of the device and try to answer the question, "Is it the Ultimate GB/GBC Flash Cart?"

Early Efforts at Online Interaction on Nintendo Consoles

We tend to think that Nintendo consoles first entered the online arena with the GameCube, its Modem and Broadband Adapters and Phantasy Star Online.  In the west, this is the case, but every Nintendo home and portable console (except that hunk of eye-straining junk called the Virtual Boy) has had some way to access the non-local world.  Sometimes these methods were first party supported, sometimes third-party exclusives and there was even an unlicensed publisher or two in the mix.  This blog entry will give an overview of the subject.  I will describe briefly each device or method, As this blog entry's purpose is not meant to give a comprehensive review of each of these devices.  I will include links for more information to sites and videos with more information.  

Game Boy Interface Revisited

A few years ago, I discussed a piece of homebrew software called Game Boy Interface (GBI).  GBI was written and is maintained by a GameCube enthusiast who goes by the handle Extrems.  Extrems intended to replace the official Game Boy Player (GBP) Start-Up disc for the GameCube which, when combined with the attachment that is fitted underneath your GameCube, allows you to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges using genuine GBA hardware.  Before GBI, if you did not have the official disc, your GBP attachment was useless.  GBI quickly made the official disc essentially obsolete, but the software has been radically revised since I first profiled it.  Let's return and see what's changed and I will give my own personal take on how I like to use the software.  This will not be a fully comprehensive guide because there are features geared toward hardware I do not own and uses I do not put GBI, but if you are new to GBI you may find something here instructive.

Three High-Quality 1080p Game Boy "Consolizing" Solutions Compared

For some reasons, probably strange, many people like to play Game Boy or Game Boy Color games outside their portable confines.  One reason is that the games are good but the original screens for these devices are terrible to look at by modern standards.  Nintendo has on certain occasions tried to satisfy the need to play portable games as though they were home console games, but those solutions are old.  Pure software emulation can easily take the GB to 1080p and beyond, but software is wholly divorced from original hardware.  There are software emulators with dumping cartridge slots like the RetroN 5 and Retro Freak, but they are only 720p solutions.  A promising new mod called the GBA Consolizer is an FPGA-based upscaling solution for the Game Boy Advance but is limited to 720p output.  There was a mod called the HDMYBoy a few years ago but it never got beyond a few prototype units.  For this blog article, I will focus on hardware-based solutions which I have some ability to experience personally and can deliver a 1080p experience.

Game Boy Colorization Examples

In a previous blog entry discussed the various tools developers had when they sought to colorize Game Boy games.  http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/01/getting-out-digital-crayons-color-and.html  The two main hardware methods were the Super Game Boy and the Game Boy Color.  In a followup to that blog entry, this blog entry let's talk about and show examples of how each method was used.

New Accessories and Ideas for the Game Boy Camera

Courtesy of Wikipedia

The Game Boy, while a modern marvel in and of itself, had a very unique peripheral released for it toward the transition from the monochrome Game Boy to the Game Boy Color.  That device was the Game Boy Camera, a cartridge with an twistable camera lens capable of taking four-color photographs in a 128x112 resolution surrounded by borders.  It could save up to 30 user-taken pictures to its battery-backed memory.  The program included some rudimentary editing tools, simple games and many little touches which were weird by Nintendo's standards.  Nintendo also released the Game Boy Printer, a small thermal printer which functioned as the only official way to memoralize photos outside the cartridge.  While the Camera was considered a modern marvel itself in its day, the Camera has had a cult following ever since.  Let's look at some of the ways in which continued interest in the Game Boy Camera has manifested itself.

Compatibility Issues within the Game Boy Line

In the beginning, Nintendo released the Game Boy and it took the world by storm.  Since 1989, Nintendo has released no less than 9 major followup products in the Game Boy line sold to the public in the eighteen years to follow.  The Game Boy line has a reputation for rock-solid backwards compatibility, but here we will explore issues with backwards compatibility in as much detail as I can find.

SNES "Port"pouri

Space Invaders and the Super Game Boy

Super Game Boy Mode

Arcade Mode

Space Invaders was released for the Game Boy in 1994.  It indicated that it supported the Super Game Boy.  It did so in a unique way, when you selected the Arcade Mode, it launched a slightly cut-down version of the SNES Space Invaders port which had been previously only been released in Japan.  The only thing missing from the game as run transferred from the Super Game Boy and the game that was released on cartridge in Japan in 1994 and the U.S. in 1997 is the VS mode.

Rise From Your Grave : The Game Boy Interface

The Game Boy Player (GBP) is a genuine Game Boy Advance (GBA) console that attaches to a Nintendo GameCube (NGC),  It allows you to play Game Boy (DMG/MGB), Game Boy Color (GBC/CGB) and GBA games.  The device fit on one of the expansion ports on the underside of the NGC and could be screwed into it for a permanent attachment.  It was a very popular purchase, essentially the Super Game Boy 1/2 (SGB) two generations later.  Unfortunately, the GBP does not boot or do anything without the Official Boot Disc (OBD) that came with the system.  While the GBP is frequently sold with a NGC, the disc was often lost.  Burning a replacement disc involves finding an image, modding the NGC with a modchip to bypass its copy protection.  Relatively few people have the skill or the inclination to do that.  However, there is an alternative solution these days, and it is a magnificent one.  In this blog entry, I am going to describe my experiences with the Game Boy Interface (GBI) software.

The Amazing Technology in the Nintendo Game Boy

Truly nothing like the Game Boy had ever been seen before by the general public when it was released in 1989.  Handheld gaming prior to that was confined to simple, single hand-held games like the Coleco mini-Arcades, the Nintendo Game and Watch series and the ubiquitous Tiger Electronics Hand-helds.  These were simple games that were driven by pre-programmed microcontroller chips and drove an LCD display that was only capable of displaying a series of fixed patterns.  Although the patterns could have a high level of detail, the limitations of the display severely limited the complexity and longevity of these games.

The Game Boy's best-known predecessor, the Milton Bradley Microsivion, used a 16x16 display.  The Microvision was not very successful and its games were put on pre-programmed microcontrollers that plugged into the main unit.  These microcontrollers operated at a very low speed of 100KHz, and provided only 64 bytes of RAM and 1-2KB of ROM for a game.  The low resolution of the display also placed severe limitations on the games that could be made for this system.  The Epoch Game Pocket Computer was released in Japan in 1984 and used a 75x64 resolution display, but it was not very successful and only had five games released for it.