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. 

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. 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Screen Persistence and the GBA - LCD Abuse

The Game Boy Advance has a TFT LCD screen, and in its last variants, the screen was backlit.  TFT screens offer faster pixel response times over earlier passive matrix technology.  The GBA TFT LCD screen was improved over the earlier screens used for the Game Boy Color, but developers took advantage of the response time of these screens on occasion to make for interesting effects.  Let's take a look.

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.

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.

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.

EverDrive GBA X5 - The Ultimate GBA Flashcart

In July of 2016, Krikzz finally released his long anticipated EverDrive flash cart for the Game Boy Advance.  He called it the EverDrive GBA X5 and sells it for $99.99 on his site and through his authorized vendors.  I bought mine on his annual Black Friday sale for 20% off, so it ended up costing me $87.00, shipping to the USA (from Ukraine) included.


The "X5" in the name represents a new branding of his product lines.  His new products will be released with an X3, X5 and X7 designation.  Each designation indicates the feature support of the flash cart relative to a desired feature set for flash carts.  The designation is not tied to the products released for any particular console.  For example, the Mega EverDrive X7 has save state support whereas the X5 and X3 do not.  Furthermore, the MegaEverDrive X7 and X5 support saving games without resetting the console whereas the X3 requires pressing reset to save or you lose your save games.  Krikzz has not officially used the X designation for his products except those released for the GBA and Sega Genesis.  There is no such thing as a GBA X7 or X3 and Krikzz has no current plans to make any other GBA flash carts.

Metroid Classic NES Series vs. Metroid in Metroid: Zero Mission - Not the Same

When Metroid: Zero Mission for the Game Boy Advance was released on February 9, 2004, it was no secret that the original Metroid was included as an unlockable extra.  Several months later on October 26, 2004 Metroid was released along with seven other NES games for the GBA in the Classic NES Series.  People complained that buying the standalone version of Metroid was of little, if any value given that Zero Mission also contained the game and was not significantly more expensive.  However, that turns out not to be the case.

Getting Out the Digital Crayons : Color and the Game Boy

When the Game Boy was released in the U.S. in August of 1989, it had three big advantages.  First, it came bundled with Tetris, the Killer App.  Second, with the console at $99.99 and cartridges at $19.99 the price was right.  Third, the battery life of 20-35 hours was very impressive, especially compared to the competition (Sega Game Gear, Atari Lynx and NEC Turbo Express), which could barely muster 6 hours.  The only disadvantage to the Game Boy was its four-shade monochrome screen, but compared to its predecessors, the Microvision, Game & Watch and Tiger Electronics toys, it was a huge leap forward.  That drawback was not enough to keep people from buying millions of Nintendo's handheld system and few of the competition's handheld systems.

1.  Super Game Boy

Nintendo planned to introduce a successor color console as soon as was practicable, but the monochrome Game Boy could not be quickly replaced.  It took some years before LCD screen technology produced an affordable and practical color screen.  Nintendo's first attempt at color was an add-on for the Super Nintendo, the Super Game Boy.  The SGB could play GB games on a SNES, with SGB providing GB hardware and the SNES providing controller input and audio and video output.  Any GB game could have a 4-color palette set from 32 choices or the user could make up his own palette.  The user could also choose a graphical border from a set of 9 borders.  The borders could have up to 64 colors.  Nintendo's non-SGB enhanced games like Tetris and Metroid II would pick a default palette from these 32 choices.  See here : https://tcrf.net/Notes:Super_Game_Boy

However, GB games could take advantage of some of the SNES's features, such as the SNES's sound chip, input from the 2nd controller port, custom borders and an ability to provide more color to the game than the built-in palettes could provide.  While the GB itself had three palettes of four shades available to the background and sprites, the SGB could not colorize these directly.  Instead, it could apply a 4 color palette to every 8x8 pixel area. 4 color palettes were available with one common color.  Thus at any time, up to ten separate colors could appear inside the Super Game Boy gameplay window.

Beginning with Donkey Kong, games used the Super Game Boy to apply more colors than the built-in palettes.  However, the most colorful screens were typically static screens.  The application of color to a tile was based solely on the tile's position on the screen.  In order to avoid tiles changing color depending on their location on the screen, games with SGB support typically applied a four color palette to the active playfield area.  One exception to this limited color applied to the "window", a hardware feature of the Game Boy's PPU which allowed for stable status bars.  Because the tiles within the window were stable regardless of sprite activity or screen scrolling, window tiles were typically more colorful than the active playfield area. 

Most games released after Donkey Kong would provide some level of Super Game Boy support, but eventually the support was limited to palettes and borders.  These borders and custom colors would not be seen on a Game Boy Color, Advance or Player.

There are games that saw a re-release for the Super Game Boy with support for SGB features.  Centipede, originally released separately, was later released in a multicart with Millipede, is one such game.  Super Breakout was similarly updated when released in a multicart with Battlezone.  Asteroids and Missle Command were released separately as pure GB carts, then in a multicart with SGB support.  Tetris 2 was released first as a GB game, but quickly updated with an SGB compatible version.

2.  Game Boy Color

The Game Boy Color supported a color screen and had a 15-bit palette of colors available.  Each background 8x8 tile can select from 8 palettes with 4 colors each, and each 8x8 sprite can select from 8 palettes with 3 colors each.  Thus up to 56 colors can be shown on the screen at any one time.  However, this functionality is strictly limited to GBC games.

When the Game Boy Color was released, Nintendo allowed for some ability to colorize GB games.  When a GB booted up, the GBC would apply either the default palette entry or a palette entry customized for a particular game or set of games.  The boot ROM of the GBC would compare the hash of the ROM with a table and if there was a match, it would apply a custom palette.  While there were over 1,500 GB games, including variations, the boot ROM table only had entries for 84 of games.  Nintendo's own titles always got an entry, but some third party games also received some entries.  Weirdly, there are several games that will use a custom palette only for their European version.  For example, Mega Man 1,2 & 3 will show a custom palette with Mega Man in blue, but only if the European cartridges are inside the Game Boy Color, Advance or Player.

If there was no match, then the GBC could be told to apply one of twelve palette entries by pressing the A or B button, with or without a directional on the Game Boy Color's boot screen.  The player would have to be quick to do this, otherwise the game would load with the default palette.

This colorization scheme allowed for separate 4-color palettes for the background and two 4-color sprites palettes.  Thus up to 12 colors could be available, but sprites tend to use transparency for one color, thus typically 10 colors are used.  Because the sprites and backgrounds can be directly colored, the GBC can typically show more color than the SGB.  Sometimes, the custom palette would have a detrimental effect.  In Super Mario Land, World 1-3, there are tiles that will fall and hurt Mario.  Because these tiles use a sprite palette, they are colored differently than the background palette, making them easy to spot.  The color combinations and list of games that are supported can be found here : http://tcrf.net/CGB_Bootstrap_ROM

In order to provide software for its new system, Nintendo released several of its games with new colorization using the GBC hardware.  Often these titles had the DX suffix after their names.  Thus there were The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX, R-Type DX, Tetris DX.  These games provided substantial enhancements over their older versions.

Other re-released games include Wario Land II, Centipede, Frogger, Legend of the River King GB, Harvest Moon GB, Prince of Persia, Space Invaders, Daffy Duck - Fowl Play, Looney Tunes, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man, The Rugrats Movie, Super Breakout!, Titus the Fox. Pokemon Yellow, while it is a Game Boy Color game, hardware-wise, does little in terms of color beyond its SGB features.

Japan received a colorized version of Balloon Fight (Balloon Kid overseas) for the Nintendo Power rewritable Game Boy Pak.  The game was never released as a standalone cartridge.  Konami colorized most of its Game Boy games and released them in Europe in four Konami GB Collections.  Volume 1 contained Castlevania: The Adventure, Gradius, Konami Racing (F-1 Spirit) and Probotector (Contra : The Alien Wars). Volume 2 included Block Game (Quarth), Frogger, Parodius and Track and Field.  In Volume 3 you could play Bikers (Motocross Maniacs), Guttang Gottung (no idea what this is, it might be unique), Mystical Ninja (Ganbare Goemon), Pop'n Twinbee.  Perhaps the best collection was Volume 4, consisting of Antarctic Adventure, Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge, Gradius II: Return of the Hero & Yie Ar Kung-Fu.  Castlevania II on this cart is interesting because the U.S./European GB version had the holy water as a weapon, but the colorized version found on this cartridge had the Cross, which was in the Japanese GB version.  Interestingly, Capcom had intended to colorize its Game Boy Mega Man games and was going to release them as a Game Boy Advance cart (Mega Man Mania or Mega Man Anniversary Collection), but the cart never materialized.

Finally, there are hybrid games that first saw a release with GBC support in mind.  By allowing cartridges to be backwards compatible with the Game Boy while being able use the full color features of the GBC, Nintendo allowed its monochrome, 1989-vintage machine a few more years of life.  The hybrid games are really GBC games with a black & white option.  Thus the contrast may not be ideal where the color version uses dark backgrounds, as in Mega Man Xtreme.  There may be odd color choices, like the white beard for Arthur in Ghosts 'N Goblins that makes him look like Santa Claus.  The game may not run as smoothly because the GB runs at 4MHz and the GBC runs at 8MHz.  Blaster Master: Enemy Below is one game that is sluggish on the GB where it is fairly smooth on the GBC (the NES game is smoothest of all).  Graphical tricks may not be present in the GB because the GBC has a much better ability to perform "raster" tricks in hardware.  Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 was the last hybrid game released, on September 15, 2001, thus giving the Game Boy (from July 31, 1989) twelve years and forty-five days of continuous support.  That is second only to the Playstation 2 and (perhaps) the Atari 2600.

The Game Boy Advance acts exactly like a Game Boy Color.  The Game Boy Player for the GameCube acts like a Game Boy Advance, even though it is similar to a Super Game Boy.  It does not support any Super Game Boy functions, but it does allow you to play Game Boy Color games on a TV.

Half of Me, Useless to Thee

Some vintage computing and gaming devices came with two interconnected components.  They came with two distinct physical elements that combined together to function.  Here I will give examples of what I mean :

Roland MPU-401 Units

The original Roland MPU-401 unit housed all its circuitry (microcontroller, RAM and firmware) in a metal box.  This box connected via a male  to male DB-25 cable to an interface card or cartridge for the computer in question.  The unit had DIN connectors for MIDI IN and OUT and was intended to connect to MIDI devices.  The interface card (MIF-IPC, MIF-IPC-A) was always a simple bit of circuitry to provide an input and an output port to the MPU-401.  Typically, when a Roland MPU-401 is marketed for sale, it will only come with the unit, and not an interface card.  While the circuitry in the unit handles all the intelligent MPU-401 commands, without an interface card, a PC has no way to connect to it.  Designing a prototype interface board is possible, but not necessarily something that just anybody can do.  Recently, there are clones available for the MIF-IPC-A, which is compatible with just about any PC with an ISA slot.  However, they are really pricey for a simple card with no custom chips.

You can purchase perfectly functional replicas of the interface board here : https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/

Roland MPU-IPC Line

Roland later released the MPU-IPC, MPU-IPC-T and MPU-IMC.  In this case, while there was a combo of an ISA card and an breakout box, this time all the circuitry was placed on the ISA card.  The breakout box contained just the physical MIDI ports and some passive components.  Usually, when these are advertised, only the breakout box is listed.  The box on its own is useless.  The card without the box also has no practical purpose unless you are trying to explore the MPU-401 as a programmer.  Fortunately, if you have the card, it is feasible to solder together a MIDI OUT port so you can connect your MT-32 or other MIDI device to it.  Even implementing a MIDI IN port is feasible with an opto-isolator.  The MPU-IPC-T's manual, freely available online, gives the schematic for both it and the MPU-IPC.

The Roland LAPC-I is not useless without its breakout box, the MCB-1.  The MCB-1 is useless without its card.  However, they were sold separately, whereas for the MPU-IPC packages, card and box came together.  The only thing you miss with an MCB-1 is the ability to connect external MIDI modules.  The same applies for the IBM Music Feature card and its breakout box, but in IBM's case, the card came with the box.  I have read that you can repurpose a common gameport-to-MIDI adapter to substitute for an MCB-1 because they both use a DA-15 connector.  This pinout would almost certainly work :

LAPC I DA-15 Connector
+5v - 8, 11
GND - 9, 11
MIDI IN - 14
MIDI OUT - 13

Sound Blaster DA-15 Connector
+5v - 1, 8, 9
GND - 4, 5
MIDI OUT - 12
MIDI IN - 15

Wireless Controllers : Atari Remote Control Wireless Joysticks to Nintendo GameCube WaveBird Controller

Each Atari Wireless Joystick has an antenna jutting out of it and, compared to a wired joystick, a huge base housing the RF circuitry and the battery compartment.  The receiver is a black box with a retractable metal antenna that plugs into the joystick ports of the 2600.  The 2600's power adapter plugs into the receiver, which then has a cable which channels the power to the console.  The range on these controllers was so poor that they were not worth the all the hassle.

Due to the unwieldy nature of Atari's RF solution, for the rest of the 1980s and 1990s, most controllers used Infrared Receiver Technology.  This is the same type of technology found in your cable remote.  Some controllers had an IR transmitter built into them, which did not add nearly as much weight and bulk (even with batteries) as the RF solutions did.  All required a receiver to be plugged into a controller port. Nintendo released a 4-player adapter called the NES Satellite.  The Satellite had a base where you could plug in four controllers.  It also had a receiver which plugged into both of the NES's controller ports.  Similarly, the SNES Super Scope also used a wireless IR receiver to determine the "gun's" position.

The WaveBird controller was the first modern wireless controller.  It used RF signals in the 900MHz and 2.4GHz bands and did not require an unobstructed line-of-sight like previous IR controllers.  The range was superior to IR controllers, supporting operation 20 feet from the console.  It no longer mattered where the player was in relation to the receiver or what was between him and the receiver (within reason).  The WaveBird was not substantially larger than the regular wired GameCube controller, unlike the Atari Wireless Joysticks.  Unfortunately, the receivers are really small and often times get lost and thus are not included with every WaveBird auction.  By the seventh generation, all wireless controllers used Bluetooth technology, with the transmitter/receiver located in the console.

Game Boy Player

The Nintendo Game Boy Player attaches to one of the ports underneath a Nintendo GameCube.  It allows you to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance Cartridges on the GameCube and on a TV screen, similar to the Super Game Boy for the SNES.  However, while the Super Game Boy contained everything it needed to run inside its cartridge, the Game Boy Player includes a software disc.  This disc must be present in the GameCube and must load before you can use the Game Boy Player.  The Player screws into the underneath of the GameCube, but the mini-disc and its small case tended to get lost.  The GameCube's copy protection must be bypassed to use a backup of the software disc.  This is the only official way to play Game Boy Color or Game Boy Advance games on a TV screen.

However, you need not despair anymore if you have the Player and don't have a disc.  You can run Game Boy Interface, which can do even a better job than the real disc!   Start here : http://retrorgb.com/gameboyinterface.html

Games Designed for a Particular Peripheral : R.O.B.

(I am not going to go through every example of a game that works with only a certain peripheral, but a few special cases come to mind)

Nintendo released R.O.B., the Robotic Operating Buddy, with the NES Deluxe Set back in 1985.  R.O.B. came in this set with the pack-in game Gyromite.  R.O.B. was also released alone and without a pack-in game.  It is not uncommon to find loose R.O.B.s or Gyromite or even Stack-Up cartridges.  However, without the special accessories for each game, R.O.B. is useless.  Because the Gyromite accessories came with systems, they are more common than the Stack-Up accessories.  However, finding complete sets of accessories is also a hit or miss affair.  Gyromite has five pieces (two gyros, gyro holder, gyro spinner, controller stand) and Stack Up has ten (five blocks and five stands).

Games Designed for a Particular Peripheral : Miracle Piano Teaching System

The Miracle Piano Teaching System was a peripheral for the NES, SNES and Genesis, and also worked with the PC, Macintosh and Amiga systems.  The Miracle Piano was a 49-key MIDI keyboard and came with software either on cartridge or disk.  It is enormous as far as peripherals go.  It also came with a custom cable to plug into the console's controller port and a foot pedal.  On a PC, a pair of MIDI ports would work.  All sound would be generated by the keyboard's speakers.  The piano itself is the same regardless of the system it was intended for, only the software and cable differs from system to system.  Loose carts do appear as well as loose pianos, but the cables tend to get lost.  Pinouts for the cables can be found here : http://pianoeducation.org/pnompcab.html

Hand-held gaming mods : Success and FAILURE!

If failure is one of the basic freedoms, as the Fourth Doctor tells D84, a sentient robot in the Robots of Death, then I have had been feeling very free lately.

Lately I have had a resurgent interest, as regular readers of this blog may note, in the Game Boy line.  I had a Game Boy Pocket and finally decided to try to install a backlight into it.  I ordered my backlight from Hand Held Legend, and it came very quickly.  I wanted a white backlight so as to minimize the color change when the backlight is installed.  While it will not look exactly the same, the Pocket's screen is close to true grayscale.

Before I could add the backlight, I discovered that the A/C power socket was not providing power to the system.  Batteries would work, so I guessed it was a bad connection.  I did not have a multimeter handy which I could use as a continuity tester.  The only schematic I had was for a Game Boy Color, and while the power section is very similar, there are differences.  I was able to fix the issue by soldering a wire from the positive pin to the positive battery terminal.  I do not believe that socket is connected exactly in this way and I may have destroyed an Official Nintendo Game Boy Pocket AC Adapter getting it to work.  I believe that at the very least there is a diode between the positive pin and terminal.  Fortunately, I had bought a Radio Shack (Enercell) 3v/700W AC adapter that worked.  You need to get an Adaptaplug Type A and the tip must be positive.  Unfortunately the wire I used for the patch was a bit too thick at .22 or .24AWG to snake it comfortably around the case.  Most Game Boy cases are tight, and tighter than they look when it comes to mods.

Okay, I fixed the AC power socket so I could use my 64MB GB Smart Card.  With the AC attached, there are no issues with contrast fluctuations with the screen.  I have read that this is also a concern with the vastly superior EverDrive GB, one of which I hope to obtain by this Christmas.

Now came time to install the backlight.  To install a backlight in a Game Boy or Game Boy Pocket, you need to remove the reflective and polarizing layers from the glass Liquid Crystal Display.  In order to remove these two layers, you have to wedge a razor blade between the layers and the glass, get a corner separated and then carefully pull the layers from the glass without destroying the screen.  The screen has connections horizontally and vertically, and the layers are affixed to the screen with some kind of adhesive.

The hardest part of the mod is removing these layers without cracking the screen or irreparably damaging the connections between the screen and ribbon cable.  While the screen comes totally away from the PCB, the ribbon cable goes up the back where you need to pull.  You have to get your razor blade in there without slicing the ribbon and pull all the layer off without damaging the ribbon or dislodging the ribbons connections.  I thought I did it right, but after I removed the layers from the Game Boy Pocket's screen, I found I had damaged the connection between the screen and ribbon cable.  There was a large gap in the scrolling "Nintendo", at least 16 pixels wide.  Unfortunately, unlike with an original Game Boy, heating up the area where the ribbon cable meets the screen with a soldering iron will not fix it.  I was able to get the lines appear some of the time by bending the ribbon on the bottom forward quite a bit, but this was obviously not a solution that would work in the long term.  Scratch one Game Boy Pocket.

I was not dispirited by this disappointment, and I knew that my local vintage gaming shop had an Original Game Boy, and I bought it off them for $20.  It was a bit dirty, the screen protector needed replacement and I could see that dirt had found its way onto the screen, but nothing that my used toothbrush and can of compressed air couldn't fix.  Fortunately the backlight I acquired can work in either a Game Boy or a Game Boy Pocket, and can fit inside the area for the screen without cutting.  Unlike the Pocket, the screen does not come totally off the PCB (the Game Boy has two PCBs).  The ribbons are soldered to the PCB, and you need to lift the screen up enough to get at the layers but not so much that you rip the ribbons from the PCB.

People online said that removing the layers from a Game Boy's screen was easier than the Game Boy Pocket's screen.  Unfortunately, I found it to be six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other.  The inner layer did not come off easily, I had to peel it off pieces at a time and probably left razor nicks in the glass.  When I put it back together, I found that I did not have dead pixel columns.  Instead, the lower right corner looked like I had cracked it when I peeled the last of the layers off.  It looked similar to how a broken pocket calculator's LCD looked.  The rest of the screen functioned normally.  Scratch one DMG Game Boy.

The Game Boy after the back-light was installed, I threw out the Pocket before I could take its picture.

In one day I had essentially destroyed two great vintage video game systems.  However, I was still undaunted and determined to mod a hand-held system successfully.  Ten years ago I had bought an Afterburner Kit for my Game Boy Advance.  The complexity of trying to install the front light in my GBA put me off trying it, and once the front-light GBA SP came out, I bought one and the Afterburner went into my miscellaneous console stuff drawer.  Occasionally I would pull it out and contemplate installing it, but I would look at the lengthy instructions and turn back to my backlit GBA SP.  However, determined to have something to show for all my modding efforts, I grabbed a lightly used GBA I acquired and went to work.

The Afterburner is a PITA to install, no bones about it.  The hardest part for me was scraping down the plastic in the screen area.  All those little bits of plastic tend to create dusty conditions that tend find their way in between the screen.  I did not use a dremel because I did not know if I would carve too much and create holes in the front of the case.  That was a mistake.  I apparently lost the included 44 ohm resistor that goes to reduce the screen brightness.

They also give you these really tiny wires, which were difficult to strip with my wire stripper.  In addition to the front light, there is a piece of anti-reflective film that is supposed to go between the front light and LCD screen. Getting this thing on the LCD without bubbles forming was impossible.  Snaking those wires around the PCB was a miserable experience, and soldering the wires to the tiny potentiometer to control screen brightness and mounting it to the case was a miserable experience.  When everything was finally done, the case did not have the same snug fit as it did before I touched it.

I installed the backlight and found the result to be terrible.  The screen looked totally washed out and I had a hard time making out objects on the screen.  Game boy games were a little easier to see.  I thought installing the potentiometer would improve things, but it really didn't.  It was easier to make out the screen from an angle than from a head on view.  I thought I may have screwed up the AR film somehow.  I opened up the system, fiddled around with with and found that things looked better when the AR film was not present!  Maybe my AR film was defective or maybe I lost the proper layer in the last ten years.  I reassembled the GBA and found the results to be more tolerable, although it pales in comparison to my back-lit GBA (for which I had traded in my front-lit GBA).  Unfortunately when I was playing around with the front light and AR film, I had caused a few, quite visible, scratches to appear on the front light.  There is a bit of dust on the bottom part of the screen, but still I consider this mod much more successful than my Game Boy backlight mods.

The Game Boy Advance after the front-light was installed, the horizontal lines are a camera artifact.

The same system at an angle, you can see the scratches and dust, but the graphics are clearer than they appear.

Lessons I have learned from these experiences:

1.  Use thin wires, but thick enough to strip.

2.  A dremel is a wonderful tool, worth every penny.

3.  Have a safety razor handy.

4.  See through consoles help with threading wires.

5.  Have a spare screen protector ready

6.  If you don't break your Game Boy or Game Boy Pocket screen installing a back light, consider yourself fortunate.

7.  A dab of hot glue is not an evil thing.