Hacking GBC/GBA combined flash cart?

[pelago]

I'm interested in playing both GBC and GBA games on my GBA. Is there any flash cart that is GBA-cartridge sized but which can play both GBA and GBC roms? That is, I'd rather not buy a GBC-specific flash cart like the Everdrive GB as I dislike the way it sticks out of the GBA.

 

[migles]

no. you can get a gba flashcart and use a gbc emulator.. but it is really far from perfect... for the emulator you can search goomba... it converts game boy\color roms into advance roms...

when you plug a gbc cart in your game boy advance the cartridge presses down a button which start the game boy in GBC mode... its a bit hard to see but its there...

GBC and GBA cartridges are different (the voltage and other stuff is different) so it would be a challenge to get a dual mode cart...

 

[pelago]

Thanks. I don't really want an emulator - I want something that would use the native GBC hardware inside the GBA. I knew about the button thing, and imagined that a theoretical combined cartridge could have some kind of sliding switch that would activate the button and change voltages etc. between GBC and GBA mode.

Oh well, if no such thing exists, I'll look into two separate flash carts, but it still seems to me like a nice idea for a potential flash cart developer.

 

[migles]

Thanks. I don't really want an emulator - I want something that would use the native GBC hardware inside the GBA. I knew about the button thing, and imagined that a theoretical combined cartridge could have some kind of sliding switch that would activate the button and change voltages etc. between GBC and GBA mode.

Oh well, if no such thing exists, I'll look into two separate flash carts, but it still seems to me like a nice idea for a potential flash cart developer.

i also thing that. i also thing it would be cool to have a switch on the cart and you could select the mode... but i guess no one wants to pick up on this project and it would be hard to make (and the cart would be very expensive..)

 

[DanTheManMS]

The only flash cart that ever had this ability would be the combination of a Flash2Advance cart and the GB Bridge addon to it. With the GB Bridge, you could play GB and GBC games stored on your Flash2Advance cartridge.

Otherwise, you'll want to use Goomba Color. I don't know quite what the other person is talking about, as I've had Goomba Color work perfectly for all the games I've tried. Make sure you're using the latest release and not the ancient Alpha 6 release that got spread around the Internet a lot.

 

[Foxi4]

It's technically feasible to make a double-sided PCB like this, however it would require making it multi-layered, it would definitely be a complicated project. There isn't a single device that does this, it's more economical to focus on one platform. Your best bet is to grab an EZ-Flash IV for native GBA support and an Everdrive GB for native GB/C support.

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

Goomba Color is great. I remembered when people bickered on PocketHeaven about how we'll never have a GBC emulator on the GBA, and then Dwedit saves the day.
Hasn't been updated in a good while but it works well.

I use regular Goomba for GB and Goomba Color for GBC games.

 

[Charli]

Goomba Color is great. I remembered when people bickered on PocketHeaven about how we'll never have a GBC emulator on the GBA, and then Dwedit saves the day.
Hasn't been updated in a good while but it works well.

I use regular Goomba for GB and Goomba Color for GBC games.

+1

Playing a lot of GB games with Goomba and it works great. It's also the only way to keep my Tetris highscores
Never had any issues with Goomba Color, but haven't actually played that much GBC games.

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

+1

Playing a lot of GB games with Goomba and it works great. It's also the only way to keep my Tetris highscores
Never had any issues with Goomba Color, but haven't actually played that much GBC games.

GBC has a few games that don't work as well as some features missing, like the high color mode.

 

[nl255]

It's technically feasible to make a double-sided PCB like this, however it would require making it multi-layered, it would definitely be a complicated project. There isn't a single device that does this, it's more economical to focus on one platform. Your best bet is to grab an EZ-Flash IV for native GBA support and an Everdrive GB for native GB/C support.

Well you could probably use a voltage regulator to run the entire cart on 3.3V even in GB/C mode thus reducing the complexity a bit but it would still be quite complex and almost certainly require an expensive FPGA setup and a bunch of other stuff as well. It would definitely be more expensive than an Everdrive GB + a GBA flash cart.

 

[cracker]

Though the OP didn't say anything about making a cart, it is real easy to make a simple flash cart with a donor cart (MBC5+SRAM is the best of course) and a flash chip. Only problem is having to have a GB Transfer linker (and a parallel port on your PC), hotswapping the chip into a PC to burn the game(s) like a BIOS update, or a chip programmer.

 

[Lumstar]

It's technically feasible to make a double-sided PCB like this, however it would require making it multi-layered, it would definitely be a complicated project. There isn't a single device that does this, it's more economical to focus on one platform. Your best bet is to grab an EZ-Flash IV for native GBA support and an Everdrive GB for native GB/C support.

Similarly a double ended cart with separate PCBs could face interference or heat issues. They'd be quite close together...

 

[cracker]

Similarly a double ended cart with separate PCBs could face interference or heat issues. They'd be quite close together...

But you could make 2 Game Boys very happy at the same time.

Sorry I couldn't resist.