Gameboy Prosound Tutorial

November 11th, 2008

Gameboy Prosound
xero/the.fontvir.us has just released a DMG Prosound tutorial. His tutorial is pretty much foolproof. (Or shall I say n00bproof?)
For those of you who don’t know, Prosound is the name given to a modification done to a video game system to improve the sound. (Important for chip musicians!) Typically it’s appplied to a Gameboy, but people have done similar mods to systems like NES and Sega Master System 2. A prosound mod usually works by bypassing any audio amplifier in the console, which works well for use with a mixer, but not so well when plugging in headphones directly into it. (But you can keep the original jack for use with headphones)

Mystery Gameboy MIDI videos…

November 1st, 2008

Rumours say that these videos may have something to do with an upcoming Gameboy MIDI project of mine. Rumours also say that these rumours might in fact be true! Until more news arrives, check out Arduinoboy.

(The videos are silent)


Glitching a Gameboy from Gameboy Genius on Vimeo.


Gameboy hex numbers (Read the description!) from Gameboy Genius on Vimeo.

Eight great ways to sync your boys

October 10th, 2008

Sebastian Tomczak of GameboyAustralia and Milkcrate has posted a guide comparing eight ways of synchronizing Gameboys running LSDj and Nanoloop to each other and other gear for music production.

Link: So, you want to sync your Game Boy, huh?

Gameboy Circuit Diagram, GB development wiki/forum and som breaking news

September 20th, 2008


I’m writing this post because every once in a while, people end up here when googling for thing like “Gameboy circuit” or “Gameboy schematic”. This is why this post is placed in the category circuit bending, so that people will find it.
If you googled for that, here’s probably what you’re looking for:
Gameboy DMG schematics
SuperGameboy SGB schematics

A word about that wiki linked above. It’s a Gameboy development wiki that I’m hosting together with a Gameboy development forum. It’s a narrow subject, and the forum it’s typically low traffic. But if you do have questions about Gameboy software development, feel free to drop by the forums and ask.

In other news:
1) The GBC bootstrap is about to be dumped. What is the GBC bootstrap, you may wonder… (If you’re not into low level software development, you’ll likely not understand the following) The bootstrap is the vey first piece of code that runs on any (Z80 type) Gameboy when it boots up. It checks that the header checksumsare correct and displays the Nintendo logo. This tiny piece of code is only 256 bytes big. For you GB developers out there, the bootstrap is the reason why the entry point is $100 and not $0. The reason why this piece of code is interesting is of pure curiosity, and because it’s the last undocumented secret of the Gameboy.
5 years ago, Neviksti managed to dump the bootstrap from the DMG. (The original Gameboy) Read about it here. The news I have today is that the corresponding bootstrap ROM for the GBC is about to be dumped. And in fact it’s not just a 256 byte area located at $0-$FF but to other memory areas sized 512 bytes and 1792 ($700) bytes. These are believed to be storage for the the big “Gameboy” logo shown on CGB’s during bootup and palettes for colorizing monochrome games.
At this point I can’t tell you who’s working on dumping the bootstrap ROMs (At that person’s request) but hopefully I will be able to distribute the contents of the bootstrap ROMs when they have been dumped.
2) The other breaking news is that dwedit and Palmertech, have, at least partially succeeded in booting GBC games on a GB micro by doing a special software trick. At the very least they’ve managed to enter GBC mode. I’m not sure whether they succeeded in actually running GB code after the mode switch, but they’ve managed to make it run the GBC bootstrap. (In principle the same bootstrap as mentioned above) I’ve tried the hack too, ona GBA 1st gen and a GBA SP, and both showed a black screen but played the startup sound. But I’m trying to contact dwedit for more info, and I’ll try to do my own research on the subject, so expect to hear more about it.
For now, check this thread on pH if you’re interested: http://boards.pocketheaven.com/viewtopic.php?p=49041

New Myspace profile for nitro2k01!

June 27th, 2008


Finally I’ve started a new Myspace profile. This one has music, unlike my old one (archive.org). This new has a bunch of 8-bit style delicious animated gifs and lies and deception of the caek magnitude!

So check it out! And add me! Add me! FFS, add me!
>>http://www.myspace.com/thatnitrodude (archive.org)<<

Gameboy Development forum launched!

February 23rd, 2008

For those who are interested in it, I have now started a Gameboy development forum for the old-school Gameboys (Monochrome versions and GBC)

it can be found right here: http://gbdev.gg8.se/forums/index.php

Gameboy camera tribute

January 5th, 2008


Here’s something I found during my random surfing today: A Gameboy camera tribute page, with a gallery and a tutorial on how to best use the camera. The page is from 1999, but the tips are still valid. Hmm, that inspired me!

Driverguide Gameboy Spotting

December 19th, 2007

Ok, this is silly, but I couldn’t resist.
Driver guide gameboy spotting

Also a shoutout to George Lazenbleep the person with the newest blog in my RSS reader.

Pocketnoise by Christoph Kummerer - A Gameboy music program I never heard of!

December 3rd, 2007

I discovered the program Pocketnoise by Christoph Kummerer today, in this video:


A quick google gave me that the ROM is not available. Does anyone know more about this program or have valid contact information for Christoph Kummerer? From what I found on the net, it seems like the guy made this program and then disappeared from the surface of the planet. Or is perhaps Christoph someone I know from the GB music community, just not under that name?

Pushpin Gameboy MIDI synth now open source!

November 27th, 2007

Have you ever heard about the Pushpin Gameboy MIDI synth? It’s a mysterious thing that I first saw maybe around 2000 or 2001. Over the years I’ve tried to reach the creators of this project, but without success. I thought the whole thing was fake, and that the music was perhaps made with LSDj or some other software.
As I know now, that’s not the case, but I wonder why it took them 7 years of silence before getting Pushpin out to the world.
This is an interesting piece of software that I have waited for for a long time now. I’ll build an interface as soon as I can. And I’m also going to try to do what I can to help the project, in terms of hardware and software development.
So far, I’ve written a Pushpin hardware tutorial, which I will update as time goes by.
The program and source code can be downloaded from the Pushpin Google Code page and there’s also documentation on variogr.am.